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). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Julian of Norwich (ca 1417), Spiritual Writer.
Today is VE Day (Victory in Europe Day), marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World II in Europe. The bells of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, along with the bells of churches and cathedrals throughout the UK, are to ring out at 6:30 this evening. Later this evening, people are being asked to light a candle for peace in their windows at 9:30. But, 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: 44-51 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 44 ‘No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’
‘I am the Bread of Life’ (John 6: 35) ... an image from Saint Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral, Orlando (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)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).
The day following the feeding of the 5,000, the people go in search of Jesus, 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).
When the people push their questions onto Jesus, he insists on speaking of himself in relationship to God the Father, who has sent him.
And then Jesus uses the first two of his seven ‘I AM’ sayings in Saint John’s Gospel, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35, in yesterday’s reading, and 6: 48 in today’s reading).
These seven ‘I AM’ sayings are traditionally listed as:
1, I am the Bread of Life (John 6: 35, 48)
2, I am the Light of the World (John 8: 12)
3, I am the gate (or the door) (John 10: 7)
4, I am the Good Shepherd (John 10: 11 and 14)
5, I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11: 25)
6, I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14: 6)
7, I am the true vine (John 15: 1, 5)
These ‘I AM’ sayings echo the divine name revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, ‘I AM’ (Exodus 3: 14). In the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of God’s name is closely related to the emphatic statement ‘I AM’ (see Exodus 3: 14; 6: 2; Deuteronomy 32: 39; Isaiah 43: 25; 48: 12; 51: 12; etc.). In the Greek translation, the Septuagint, most of these passages are translated with as ‘I AM’, ἐγώ εἰμί (ego eimi).
The ‘I AM’ of the Hebrew Bible and the ‘I AM’ of Saint John’s Gospel is the God who creates us, who communicates with us, who gives himself to us.
As we continue to read John 6 and the sayings about Jesus as the Bread of Life, today’s reading largely repeats what has been said already. But a new element is introduced when Jesus reminds us that it is not we who find him, but rather it is the Father who finds us and leads us to Jesus as the Way to God. Here Jesus quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures: ‘And they shall all be taught by God’ (verse 45).
These words are found in Isaiah (54: 13) and are reminiscent of words spoken by Jeremiah: ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’ (Jeremiah 31: 33).
Jesus again repeats that he is the Bread of Life, using that formal expression ‘I AM’ that points to divine origin. Unlike the manna that their ancestors ate in the desert, this Bread brings eternal life: ‘This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die’ (verse 50).
His interlocutors ask Jesus are asking for a sign like manna, but Jesus says that it did not give real life: ‘Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died’ (verse 49). The Bread that Jesus will give will bring a never-ending life to those who eat it. Jesus is the Living Bread because he is the very Word of God and because he offers up his Body and Blood in a sacrifice of love, bringing life to the whole world.
And this Bread is his flesh, life-giving flesh. This flesh will be given for the life of the world – a looking forward to Calvary. Giving eternal life will cost the human life of the Giver.
With these words, Chapter 6 moves to its eucharistic meaning. The word ‘flesh’ (σάρξ, sarx) introduces the link between Eucharist and Incarnation. Jesus is the Word made flesh and that Word is the food that we all need to ‘eat’. To ‘eat’ here, while involving actual eating and drinking, really points to the total assimilation into oneself and into a gathered community of the very Spirit of Jesus.
The Eucharist, as we shall see in tomorrow’s readinf, is the great sign of the Christian community by which we both affirm and celebrate our union with Jesus. By our eating of the Bread-that-is-flesh, we affirm our total belief in all that Jesus is and stands for.
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 8 May 2025, Julian of Norwich):
My prayers today include the Papal Conclave which continues today (8 May), when members of the College of Cardinals start continue voting for a new Pope in a secret ballot, with up four rounds of voting today and continuing until one candidate receives two-thirds support.
‘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 on Sunday with Reflections from Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 8 May 2025) invites us to pray:
God of compassion, we ask for moments of joy, laughter and creativity for children in this difficult time. Guard their dear hearts.
The Collect:
Most holy God, the ground of our beseeching,
who through your servant Julian
revealed the wonders of your love:
grant that as we are created in your nature
and restored by your grace,
our wills may be so made one with yours
that we may come to see you face to face
and gaze on you for ever;
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:
God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Julian to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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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