We are the Bread of Life

     Two weeks ago we read St John’s account of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, and today we have Jesus telling his followers that he is the bread of life. John, you will remember, makes the washing of the disciples’ feet the centrepiece of his account of the Last Supper. What we read today is effectively John’s account of the Eucharist.

     After the feeding of the five thousand the people wanted to acclaim Jesus as their King and Jesus had to flee. The people had not understood who Jesus is. They thought he was another Moses come to feed them with manna in the desert. Jesus needed to teach them to accept him not as merely the provider of food but as the food itself. Those who heard him needed to go beyond physical hunger for physical bread and begin to realise that what was being offered them was indeed bread from heaven, the bread of life.

     Christ claims literally to be the food, the life-giving nourishment for his people. Those who eat his flesh and drink his blood live to the full and live for ever.

     In the Hebrew tradition manna, or the bread sent from heaven, would be given again and it would be a sign that the Day of the Lord had come. Then Israel would be returned to the glory of David and Solomon. But Jesus teaches us that the glory of David and Solomon is not what it means to be alive. To live life to the full is [to] live as Jesus lived, to be what he is.

     In the last verse of this Sunday’s Gospel Jesus finally tells his followers exactly what this ‘Bread of Life’ is. His flesh. This is the great paradox of the Eucharist: it is through giving up his body in death that Christ becomes the bread of life. The bread of life is not just given, like the manna in the desert, but given up.

     The mystery of the Eucharist is the mystery of Christ’s brokenness, his broken body and outpoured blood, his brokenness and his sacrifice. In saying ‘Amen’ to the body of Christ, we are saying ‘Yes’ to the call to become his broken body ourselves. As we receive Christ’s body in our hands we are putting ourselves in his hands to be broken by him, to be snapped out of what we think we are, where we think we belong, who we want to call ourselves.

     What we do in the Eucharist is intensely involved with our longing for the coming of the Kingdom of God. Whenever we eat his flesh and drink his blood we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. He is food for the journey and the end of the journey is not yet. If we are to live life to the full and live for ever then we must eat the flesh of the Lord. Equally, though, we must be willing to share in Christ’s self-sacrificing death. The goal of the Holy Eucharist is not the consecration of bread and wine, but the consecration of human beings. The risen Christ does not assume the form of the consecrated elements in order to hide in a tabernacle but in order that he may abide in us and we in him.

     This was something that St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (and according to tradition a disciple of St John) understood well. He was condemned to death by burning, and when he was tied to the stake he began to proclaim the Eucharistic prayer over himself. He began the prayer of praise and thanksgiving that would transform him into the body of Christ. When he was pronounced the great Amen, the executioners lit the pyre. A great flame leapt up and his followers tell how they saw it form as it were an arch surrounding the body of the martyr. He himself appeared not like flesh being burned, but as bread in an oven. Polycarp made his dying altogether Eucharistic.

     In some way we must all be martyrs. As individuals and as communities we must make ourselves into the reality we celebrate at Mass. Only then can we be sincere in praying, ‘May he make us an everlasting gift to you.’ Only then will we enjoy the fullness of life that Jesus promised to those who ate his flesh, the Bread of Life.

fr Timothy Gardner lives at the Priory of St. Dominic, London, where he works as a hospital chaplain