August 4, 2024
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
This Sunday’s Gospel is a continuation of the Bread of Life Discourse (John 6) from last week’s reading. It is again a comparison between Jesus and a prominent figure from the Old Testament concerned with feeding the people. But this time it is Moses and the miraculous bread from heaven.
As we meet the Israelites in this portion of the story of the Exodus (Exod. 16:2-4, 12-15), they have narrowly escaped sure death at the hands of the pharaoh and his army. If not for the intervention of the Lord at the Red Sea, they would have perished. But Moses parted the waters with his mighty staff and the people danced and sang praise to the Lord afterwards for saving them
Next, they arrive at Marah in the wilderness of Shur and find that the water is too bitter to drink. Suddenly the mood changes and they are grumbling and complaining to Moses about nothing to drink. When Moses cries out to God, He has Moses throw a stick in the water which makes it fresh, and they are able to drink. Then God leads them to Elim where there are twelve fresh springs of water.
Once they leave Elim, they arrive at the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, and again they begin to grumble to Moses. This time it is about the lack of food. They complain that they would have been better off to die in Egypt with at least their kettles of meat and their fill of bread. Instead, they are trapped in the wilderness where they will die of famine.
So, God tells Moses he has heard the grumbling of the Israelites and that He is going to rain down bread from heaven each day for the people to gather, as well as test to see if they can follow the Lord’s instructions. And in the evening God will send quail so they will also have meat to eat. This will be done for them as a sign of God’s providence, such says the Lord, “then you will know that I, the LORD, am your God.” (Exod. 16:12).
Everything happened as God had promised: “In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning there was a layer of dew all about the camp, and when the layer of dew evaporated, fine flakes were on the surface of the wilderness, fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. And on seeing it, the Israelites asked one another, ‘What is this?’ for they did not know what it was. But Moses told them, ‘It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.’” (Exod. 16:13-15).
It is important to note that the manna was not a naturally occurring substance as some postulate because if it were, the Israelites would have recognized it. Also, the manna had special qualities. No matter how much the Israelites gathered, it always measured out to an omer’s worth. And it appeared everyday for forty years in the wilderness, but suddenly stopped when they got to the Promised Land.
Soon the Israelites came to consider the manna as a miraculous, heavenly bread and, in fact so sacred, that a portion of it was placed in the Ark of the Covenant in a golden urn, along with the Ten Commandments and the staff of Aaron. In later Jewish tradition, the manna became one of the main signs of what God would one day accomplish when he inaugurated the new exodus and sent the Messiah.
When we come to the Gospel (Jn. 6:24-35), the scene picks up after Jesus has fed the five thousand by multiplying the five loaves of bread and two fish. The crowd of people has once again come looking for Jesus and he confronts them with a sort of riddle, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (Jn. 6:26-27)
In response we hear this interchange between the crowd and Jesus: The crowd asks Jesus, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” So, Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. So, they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (Jn. 6:30-33,35).
In essence, Jesus reminds them that the manna was not given to them by Moses, but rather as a gift from God. In the process of doing so, Jesus has made some very bold claims. He identifies himself as the “Son of Man,” which the Jews of the time would have known was the identity of the divine agent sent by God in the book of Daniel. He also calls God “His Father,” establishing an unheard-of familial relationship with the Lord reserved only for Israel’s kings. And finally, he equates himself with the miraculous bread that the Israelites had eaten in the wilderness, saying “I am the bread of life.” In so doing, Jesus essentially identifies himself as the Messiah who will inaugurate the new exodus signified by the expected reappearance of the manna.
In the upcoming weeks as the Bread of Life Discourse continues, we will find that many of the Jews will take exception with these words of Jesus. In fact, he will say some things which are even more absurd and unacceptable to them, things about eating his flesh and drinking his blood as the path to eternal life. Quite the controversy will ensue as Jesus defines for the people the spiritual meaning of the Eucharist.
Stay tuned……..
