Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost, and this week began with the Third Sunday of Easter (Easter III, 4 May 2025).
This is a public holiday in both England and Ireland as the first Monday in May and the nearest Monday in May to May Day. In the Calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church, today is the Feast of Saint Irene the Great Martyr (Αγίας Ειρήνης της Μεγαλομάρτυρος), and this morning I especially appreciate the gift I received in Rethymnon at Easter from my friend the icon writer Alexandra Kaouki of an icon of Saint Irene. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 6: 22-29 (NRSVA):
22 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the lake saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ 26 Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ 28 Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ 29 Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’
Today’s Reflection:
We have read in recent days about Jesus feeding of the 5,000 and walking on the water, and we are now introduced to reading the long Bread of Life discourse (verses 22-59), spoken in the synagogue in Capernaum (John 6: 59).
This ‘Bread’ is compared the manna with which God fed his people during their long wanderings in the desert in the wilderness. Today’s reading is an introduction, and the discourse itself begins tomorrow (6 May 2025). The last part of the discourse is about the mixed reaction of Jesus’ disciples and about Peter’s profession.
The day following the feeding of the 5,000, the people go in search of Jesus. There had been only one boat tied up at the shore, and the disciples had taken it to cross the lake. However, Jesus had not accompanied them, he had stayed behind. The people realise he did not cross the lake with his disciples, but when they go to the site of the feeding, they find he is not there either.
Eventually they find Jesus and his disciples near Capernaum, Jesus’ principal base in Galilee. They ask him: ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ (verse 25). In typically Johannine fashion, the question is loaded with deeper meanings, of which those asking it are quite unaware. Jesus’ origin (where he comes from) is a constant source of misunderstanding both on the part of the crowds and of the religious leadership of the day.
Jesus begins by telling the crowds that they are coming in search of him not because of the ‘signs’ that he is doing, but because of the bread that they had been given to eat. They have missed the point of what Jesus is doing. They have seen the things that Jesus has been doing, but have missed the ‘sign’, the deeper meaning behind them.
There are two kinds of food: food for the body, and food for the inner person, the spirit or the soul. The food the people are looking for is not the food that counts. The real food brings a life that never ends, and that is the food that Jesus is offering. It parallels the ‘spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman (John 4: 14).
The source of this ‘bread’ is the Son on whom the Father has set his seal. This ‘seal’ was given at his baptism. It is the Spirit of the Father, who is the power of God working in and through Jesus.
The people ask him: ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ (verse 28). Jesus tells them: ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’ (verse 29).
‘Work’ in this context refers to the fulfilment of the requirements of the religious law of the day. But Jesus substitutes this with faith in himself as the delegate of the Father. He challenges us not just to ‘believe’, but to ‘believe in’. This is not merely a question of accepting certain statements about Jesus and who he really is. ‘Believing in’ involves a total and unconditional self-commitment to Christ, to the Gospel and the vision of life that Jesus proposes, and making it part of myself. This is where the real bread is to be found.
Jesus is not just speaking of the Eucharistic bread, but the deep-down nourishment of which the Eucharist is the sign and sacrament – nourishment that also comes from the Word of God in Scripture and the experience of the whole Christian community.
As we read this full chapter, we should not limit the truth of Jesus as the Bread or Food of our life simply to the Eucharist, which is the sacramental sign of something much larger – all that we receive through Christ and the whole Christian way of life.
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today’s Prayers (Monday 5 May 2025):
‘Inconvenient Migration’ provides the theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 5 May 2025) invites us to pray:
God of compassion, we ask for your mercy on all refugees and displaced people. Grant your grace, favour and protection. Bring them to safety.
The Collect:
Almighty Father,
who in your great mercy gladdened the disciples
with the sight of the risen Lord:
give us such knowledge of his presence with us,
that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life
and serve you continually in righteousness and truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Living God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread:
open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in all his redeeming work;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
you filled your disciples with boldness and fresh hope:
strengthen us to proclaim your risen life
and fill us with your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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