NOTES for Joh 6:44-51

In this verse there is an answer to a paradox: salvation is received by me through faith in Jesus Christ, that is, as a result of coming to Him as Savior and Lord. In other words, everything happens as a result of my action; I turn out to be at the beginning of my salvation, while Christ is only the means. Jesus puts everything in its place: at the beginning of everything is God. First, if not for Him, I would have no One to come to, since it was the Father who sent the Son into the world. Second, if not for Him, I would not exist at all and there would be no one to come. And third, it is the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, who directs our heart toward the desire to love, to trust, and to seek the truth (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3).

So, God is at the beginning of my life, God is at the beginning of my conversion, God is at the beginning of my salvation, and God, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, is at the beginning of my eternal life.

Here in this verse - the answer to a paradox: I obtain salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, that is, in result of my coming to Him as to the Rescuer and to God. That is to say everything takes place as a result of my action, I'm at the beginning of my salvation, and Jesus Christ is only the means. Jesus puts everything in its place: at the beginning of everything - God. Firstly, if it wasn't Him, I would have had nobody to go to, since it is the Father Who sent the Son in the world. Secondly, if it wasn't Him, I would not even have existed and nobody would have had to come. And thirdly, it is the Holy Spirit coming from the Father that directs our heart towards the desire to love, to trust and to seek the truth (see 1 Cor. 12:3). Thus, God is at the beginning of my life, God is at the beginning of my invocation, God is at the beginning of my salvation and the God Who resuscitated Jesus Christ is at the beginning of my eternal life.

The whole practical life of a Christian is founded upon the words of Christ that we read today: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” This is the center, the focal point of spiritual life. It is an encounter with Jesus face to face, continually granted to us. Moreover, the flesh and blood of Christ are more than an encounter: they are a mutual indwelling, for He Himself said, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” And His flesh and blood are also the resurrection granted to us today.

It is no surprise that Jesus' words about His blood and His flesh, which He would give those who believe in Him to eat, left His listeners bewildered and then grumbling. They saw Jesus as an ordinary man, since traditional Jewish ideas not only about prophets but also about the Messiah assume that the matter concerns ordinary people whom God calls at some point in their lives to a special ministry; after that calling, the person becomes what God wants him to be, whether a prophet or the Messiah. And human flesh and human blood were associated for them not even with murder, but with something far worse: human sacrifice, which from the point of view of the Torah is not only murder and defilement, but also the worst kind of idolatry.

Meanwhile, when Jesus addresses His listeners, He speaks of something that should have been clear to them, at least on the level of symbol or allegory. Flesh and blood were, in both Hebrew and Aramaic, symbols of life, of the life force every person carried within himself while he was alive. Of course, if this had concerned an ordinary person, such a statement, even understood allegorically, would have left many questions. How can one person give his life to many people, perhaps even to an entire nation? How is that possible? And what will remain for the one who gives it away?

But if we remember the fullness of God that Jesus bears in Himself, the fullness of the life of the Kingdom by which He lives, everything falls into place and becomes clear. He can truly give each person His life, and nothing is diminished in Him by doing so: the life of the Kingdom is as infinite as the fullness of God, of which it is a projection into the created world. And everyone who enters the Kingdom truly shares with Jesus His life, which He willingly and joyfully shares with each person. He shares it so that the Kingdom will not remain His possession alone, but will truly enter the life of those who seek it. And so that at the end of time it will enter the world completely and be revealed in it in all its fullness, cleansing the world from sin and transforming it.

How can He give us His Flesh to eat? This question, put to Christ by the Jews, can serve as a measure of how incredible and incomprehensible the miracle of the Eucharist is. Of course, it is impossible within the bounds of human logic. Impossible because these words cannot be understood literally. Impossible because this contradicts the letter of the law. Most importantly, it is impossible because, if we are to eat Christ's Flesh, He will have to die. All these “impossibilities” are what astonish both the Jews and all the rest of humanity.

But by His will God brings into being whatever He desires. “Let there be light,” God says—and light comes into being. “Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven”—and the lights come into being. It is important to accept that Christ's words, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day,” and “Take, eat...” are words of the same kind: they express the will of the Creator, which nothing has the power to resist.

Christ called Himself bread, and that alone was hard for His listeners to understand. But for those who remembered the unusual images characteristic of prophetic speeches, it would not have been hard to take the words about bread as one of those parables. Jesus says that His teaching, and He Himself, are as necessary as daily food - why not agree with this?

Such an understanding cannot be called wrong, and yet it is clearly insufficient. For twenty centuries already, for many people who accept Christ only as a sage and moral teacher, His words about Flesh and Blood have remained closed and incomprehensible - just as they were for many of His listeners then. It is enough to imagine a Jew who had firmly learned that the law of Moses not only forbids the eating of blood, but also regards everything connected with bleeding as defiling and requiring rites of purification. And suddenly he hears about the necessity of drinking blood, and human blood at that, and moreover the Blood of this strange preacher. Even for prophetic allegory such a call sounds excessively scandalous!

For us, reading the Gospel many centuries later, it is easier to see that Christ is speaking here about the Eucharist; but we should not stop there. The meaning of the Eucharist is deep and incomprehensible in its fullness. At times it is useful to remember how shaken the ancient Jews were when they first heard Jesus' call to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. Perhaps this will help us feel anew what the Last Supper was for the first generation of Christ's disciples. Unlike the other evangelists, John does not mention the disciples' partaking of the Body and Blood at the Last Supper. But the words of the Savior that he has preserved for us are just as important for understanding the essence of what was taking place then.

Continuing His word about salvation and life, the Lord tells us today that the will of God is that everyone who entrusts himself to the Son of God, everyone who, according to the word of the prophet and the apostle, "calls on the name of the Lord," will be saved. And at the end of today's passage the Lord says that the one whom the Father draws can come to Him. Yesterday we heard His word that the Father's will consists in the salvation of all. This is not simply the hope of the world and of humanity. I dare say that these words of Christ are the only hope of the world; everything else is deception. And one cannot help rejoicing in this, because the difficult path to life is still incomparably better than hopelessness.

What do they answer Christ? In essence, the answer of the Jews comes down to a crude formula: "Who are you, anyway?" "Prove that this Jesus of yours is God..." Christians have heard this for centuries. This cannot be proved, if only because He does not belong to us; we belong to Him. But that is not even the main point. Such a protest against Christ's words only means that I am trying to shift onto Him the responsibility for my own distrust. Fortunately, the Gospel gives us an example of the right position, when a person gives Christ not responsibility for the feat of faith, for the act of trust, but asks Him for help in it, saying, "I believe, Lord; help my unbelief."