The Great Mystery-What do you say before the Eucharist?
A Homily on the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - Lectionary: 122
Over the last five weeks you have heard Jesus’ teaching on the mystery of the Eucharist from the Gospel of John. It is not a mystery in the modern sense of the word. We tend to believe that every mystery has a clear, understandable solution. But this does not. At every Mass you are asked to accept the mystery as you are offered the Body and Blood of Christ, not some common man-made symbol but the reality of the presence of Christ’s being. Every time you stand before the Eucharist, you stand at a crossroads of faith. Will you without reservation declare, “Amen,” I believe?
I love mystery stories and read them constantly. Occasionally, I get frustrated with the story and I can’t wait to discover, “who done it.” So, I jump to the end just to find out. This is not the type of mystery that the Church declares. A theological mystery is beyond our ability to ever wrap our brain around. That makes sense. God, by definition, is eternal and beyond anything we can possibly conceive. He is mystery.
You can’t take God and place Him under a microscope and somehow you get Him completely. For example, He is eternal. We can understand eternity, something with no beginning or end, but can anyone tell me when and how God came to be? The answer is no. Ponder this, He always was, is, and will always be. He has no beginning and no end. That is why it is impossible to prove His existence, like capturing Bigfoot. He created all that there is. He is not one being among many but, “being” itself. Without God, there can be nothing, for all would cease “to be.”
I know, it hurts my head too. Like the mystery of the Eucharist, it is beyond comprehension. Yet, that does not mean that God forces us to make a blind leap of faith. That is not how God works.
Think about the people of Israel in the first reading (Joshua 24:1–18). They are at a crossroads. They need to decide whether they will serve God or some man-made deity. For them, it’s a no-brainer. The people of Israel were witness to their miraculous delivery from slavery in Egypt. They have been miraculously fed with manna, bread from heaven, for most of their lives, and they have witnessed God fighting for them in conquering the land of Israel against truly incredible odds. Though they may not fully understand the mystery of the all-powerful, all present, and all-knowing eternal God, their witness of what God has done leaves them to declare,
He performed those great miracles before our very eyes and protected us along our entire journey and among the peoples through whom we passed. Therefore we … will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”
All Sacred Scripture, and especially St John’s Gospel, was written to declare that Jesus is God. It begins by declaring that in the beginning Jesus, the Word, was with God and IS God (John 1:1). How can He make such an outlandish statement? He shows us the evidence through the Gospel. He tells us of Jesus’ very public miracles over nature making Him supra-natural, in other words, God.
First, John tells of the miracle of the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Canaan. Jesus changes bath water substantially into the very best wine. Note that in the transubstantiation of water into wine, Jesus did not stop in prayer to ask God. He just does it. He is God. Does it make sense for anyone to say that Jesus can’t do that now? Who are we to limit God?
Second, John tells us of Jesus’ meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus during their short meeting demonstrates that he knows even the darkest secrets of this conflicted woman. The Samaritan woman runs back to town convinced that Jesus is the Messiah. Why? She testified, “He told me everything I have done.” (John 4:29) Jesus does not have to ask to gain this knowledge of the woman. He doesn’t have to. Why? He is God.
Third, Jesus is not bound by the limits of the biology he created. He restores life to a dead child, and He heals a man too sick to crawl forward to a pool of water with the simple order to “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” How can this be? Jesus is God.
Fourth, Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds well over 5000. That is mystery! He substantially creates enough food from almost nothing, with twelve baskets of bread left over. (John 6:13) Later, amid a storm, Jesus comes to the disciples walking on water to bring them “immediately” to shore. (John 6:21) Jesus is not bound by any law of physics but is mysteriously above and beyond them such that he creates something from nothing, walks on water, and defies the limits of space and time. He is God.
After this build-up in the Gospel of John, we reach a climax with Jesus’ words in John 6. Jesus, God, tells us,
… unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. (John 6:53–54)
Is Jesus just talking metaphorically or of a symbolic change as if this change in substance from bread to His body, and wine to His blood is beyond His ability? No! Nor did anyone think so at the time. In John 6:66 St John records,
As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. (John 6:66)
These people just cannot wrap their earth-bound brains around what Jesus was telling them. So, they refused to embrace the divine mystery beyond their own puny ability to calculate. They stand at the crossroads of faith and despite all they have witnessed, walk away. They refuse anything they cannot completely comprehend, the mystery. In this, they reject life, reject God.
Yet Jesus does not chase after them or tell them, “Look you have it all wrong, I was only speaking metaphorically.” He allows them their decision. It is tragic, for Jesus has been clear,
“I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” (John 6:53)
It is then that Jesus asks the twelve Disciples,
“Do you also want to leave?” [and] Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67–69)
In humility, St Peter acknowledges that he can’t know everything. Despite the mysterious nature of the Real Presence which Jesus proclaimed, and based on what he has witnessed in the past, it would be foolish to walk away. Instead, he declares, “We have come to believe and are convinced” that you are the Holy one of God.” You can do anything!
In just a few moments, you will be asked to profess your belief in the mystery of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist under the species of bread and wine. Being offered the Body and Blood of Jesus, you stand at the crossroads of a great mystery. Will you open the eyes of faith and reply, “Amen,” it is so, or shrug your shoulders in disbelief? You stand like the people of Israel, at a crossroads.
Because I am witness to the power of Christ in the Scriptures and in my life, and I accept that God is God, and I am not, as I stand at the crossroads, I reply in the words of St Paul and Joshua in the readings today,
This is a great mystery, … I speak in reference to Christ and the church. That is where I place my faith. Amen! So, as for me, I will serve the LORD.
When I teach John 6, I always give the juxtaposition of St. Peter and the crowd. Essentially, this is our response to the mystery of the Eucharist: Either we say it is too hard and leave or we affirm our faith in Christ knowing that there is no other place to go.
I don't think Peter or the other apostles knew exactly what Christ was going to do with bread and wine not too long after this. They knew Christ and had faith in Him. So they believed that when He said He would give them His flesh and blood, He would do it. What great faith.
During the discourse, Jesus was speaking of literally eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and not of bread and wine. The Last Supper occurred after the discourse. When Jesus explains it to His disciples, He tells them that the flesh profits nothing and that the spirit gives life. Many of His disciples left Him anyway. The others who remained did not fully understand His explanation in verses 62 and 63, but gave Him the benefit of the doubt because He, at least, was not speaking of literal flesh and blood. I believe that the discourse can also refer to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. That is when eternal life became available to humanity by our receiving of Christ’s Spirit within us.