NOTES for Joh 6:54

If we were not so used to these words of the Lord Jesus, we would probably repeat after the bewildered disciples: "What strange, frightening words!" He had just been speaking about the heavenly bread that comes down from heaven and satisfies everyone who partakes of it, and now it turns out that this bread is Jesus Himself, and that believers are to "chew His flesh" - these frightening, harsh words are softened by the Russian translation. And immediately the Lord tells the troubled disciples that His words are spirit and life, that it is the Spirit who gives life, and that "the flesh is no help at all" (63).

We already know that the central message of John's Gospel is that "the Word became flesh," and that faith in the bodily coming of God's Son gives people eternal life. On the other hand, the very description of the breaking of the loaves - "having given thanks, He broke and distributed," and the gathering of the leftovers from the meal - connects the reader with the breaking of bread at the Last Supper. In this way the evangelist binds together faith in the flesh of the Son of God, the eternal life given by the Spirit, and the eucharistic meal that nourishes the faithful.