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"You have the Words
of Eternal Life"
Peace! In today's
Gospel (Jn 6:60-69), Jesus as Eucharist in effect asks His disciples if
they accept Him as the Bread of Life.
The
disciples of Christ were severely challenged when Jesus said, "I am
the bread of Life.' Many of His followers finding Jesus' words too
hard to take left Him. They were not sure that Jesus was the bread of
life sent to reveal God and bring eternal life.
Hurt by their rejection of the gift of His very life to them, Jesus
confronted his most intimate disciples with, "Will you also go away?" In
behalf of those who remained faithful to Jesus, Peter pledged his
fidelity and said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life.?
Challenge of Jesus.
Earlier, we saw Jesus, as Eucharist, present Himself, first, as Wisdom
- the Word of God - and the Christians as an implication of Jesus'
claim, are a community of the Word, hearing it, living it, and
embodying it. This is what it means to eat the bread of life. Next,
Jesus offered Himself as Sacrament - the sign of God's love for his
people, manifested in His Son's dying for them. And for this reason
the community lives the spirit of Jesus, He dwells in the community
lives in Him. The members of the community share with others all they
have and are, and are filled with the Spirit. This, too, is what
eating the bread of life means. As
Jesus then had asked His apostles, the Gospel now challenges us:
"Do we accept Jesus as the bread of life"? Do we accept Him as the
principal, guide, and supreme norm of our lives? Do we accept Him as
our Redeemer, saying us by giving Himself to us as bread of life"?
Implications
of "Yes" to Jesus' Words.
Peter's affirmation of Jesus as the source of life and revelation may
well be our "Yes to Jesus' words. What does this imply? To accept
Jesus as the supreme norm of our lives means that we decide to empty
ours and fill it with the life of Jesus which is more than simply
saying that we imitate him in discipleship.
Accepting Jesus as the bread of life implies that we
cannot manifest in ourselves and in our lives the life and death of
Jesus without having to form a new family of God. By eating the bread
of life, we form in the final result God's family headed by Christ
himself who loves the community. Jesus
relationship with the community becomes itself the pattern of the
relationship that exists among the members - loving one another,
giving up one's life for the sake of the other. We cast aside our
pasts life for the sake of the other. e cast aside our past life and
unite ourselves with the members of the community in an unbreakable
bond of unity. In
sum, the right attitude to the challenges of Jesus is to say "Amen" to
him. That way, we follow Peter who said, "Lord, to whom shall we
go? You have the words of eternal life.?
"Lord,
we have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One God!" |
