June Trinity
John 6: 53-69
Jesus answered, ‘Yes I tell you,
if you do not eat the earthly body of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you. Whoever eats my body and drinks my blood has life beyond
the cycles of time, and I give him the power of resurrection at the end of
time. For my flesh is the true sustenance, and my blood is the true draught.
Whoever truly eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. As
the life-bearing Father sent me, and as I bear the life of the world by the
will of the Father, so also he who makes me his sustenance will have life
within him through me. This is the bread which
descends from heaven. It will no
longer be as it was with the fathers who ate of it and died. Whoever eats this bread
will live through the whole cycle of time.’ He said this in his teaching in the
synagogue in Capernaum.
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| O. Shuplyak |
Many
of his disciples who heard this said, ‘These are hard and difficult words; who
can bear to hear them?’ Jesus was aware that his disciples could not come to
terms with this and he said to them, ‘Do you take offence at this? What will
you say when you see the Son of Man ascending again to where he was before? It
is the Spirit that gives life; the physical by itself is of no avail. The words
that I spoke to you are spirit and are life. But there are some among you who
have no faith.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who would betray him. And he
went on: ‘This is why I said to you: No one can find the way to me unless it is
given him by the Father’.
4th June Trinity
June 16, 2013
John 6: 53 – 69
The story of the creation of the world makes evident that
the Creator provides. Step by step the world was created until everything was
in place to receive and nourish the final creation: the human being.
We count on this providence, this foresight of God, even
today. We know that we must plant in order to harvest, for that is how God made
the world; that we must care for the animals in order to have the food that
they produce and to maintain the balance God created in nature.
In today’s reading Christ talks about another level of
providence. He is speaking ahead of time about nourishing and sustaining, not physical
bodies, but human spirits. For this He will give of Himself as food for our
spirits. His body as bread will heal our ills; his blood as wine will give us
the strength to clean up our messes, and to deal with what is coming in the
future.
At His Last Supper,
He performed the actual event that turned bread and wine into His body and
blood. He poured His soul, His love, His life into bread and wine. And he gave
his disciples, all who will come to Him and learn from Him in future ages, the
power to do the same, out of their remembrance of His deed and through their
hearts’ connection with Him. In His
providence he created something that makes it possible for our spirits to be
healed, nourished and strengthened even today. For as a poet said:
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| Juan Carreño de Miranda |
….The Four Kingdoms of Earth
Prepare the Way-Bread for healing.
Let us now harvest and press,
Let us grind and bake
And consecrate everything that needs it.
Then Man the Consecrated approaches the Grave-Table,
And with him the folk and the circle
Experience creating the Open Secret
That He gives to them time upon time.[1]
www.thechristiancommunity.org
[1]Sebastian Lorenz, „ Menschen-Weihe“ in Die Christengemeinschaft 10_06, pg 507. Translated
by C. Hindes.
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