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Scripture citation(s): Deuteronomy 8:2-3; I Corinthians 10:1-4, 16-17; John 6:47-58
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Deuteronomy 8:2-3; I Corinthians 10:1-4, 16-17; John 6:47-58
✛
Christ is our Food
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Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The feast of Corpus Christi began in the Western Church in the thirteenth century. Prayers and hymns for the feast, such as our entrance hymn, Now my tongue the mystery telling, were written by Saint Thomas Aquinas himself. Corpus Christi, or more fully, Corpus et Sanguinis Christi, the festival of the Body and Blood of Christ, provided the Church an opportunity [outside of Holy Week] to reflect on the central act of Christian worship, the Holy Eucharist, similarly as we reflect on the doctrine of God on Trinity Sunday.
Our Gospel reading today is part of the “Bread of Life” teaching by Jesus in the sixth chapter of Saint John. The scene is in the synagogue at Capernaum. It follows Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, which moved some of the crowd to try to take him by force and make him king. What Jesus said in the synagogue reduced his following quickly.
Do not labor for the food that perishes, Jesus said. Your fathers ate the manna in wilderness; it sustained their physical needs, but they died. The true manna is the Bread that comes down from heaven, so that you may eat it and not die. I am that Bread of life, and the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.
A dispute broke out in the assembly. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” some said. As if this weren’t enough, Jesus drove his point further home, offending more hearers. My flesh, he said, is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. Apparently nearly everyone went away, even some disciples, who said, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?”
A wise commentator writes, “Is it too far fetched to see in this wordy strife an anticipation of the perennial controversies in which Christians have engaged over the meaning of their Lord’s words of institution [of the Eucharist]: ‘This is my body which is [given] for you’?”¹
The Book of Common Prayer, in its rites and ceremonies, teaches the Objective Real Presence of Christ in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist. But it is more important for us to see that Jesus, in this blunt, realistic language, is teaching us about what he would accomplish in his Passion on the cross.
If we reflect on Jesus’ “hard saying” about his flesh and blood, we can see that he is not flattering us. You are dead, he is saying. You have no life in you. You need a total rebirth, and you need food and drink amounting to new flesh and blood; namely, the flesh and blood of the true Son of man. The old Adam is sick unto death. This is the new Adam, the true Human Being. As he goes to his cross, he triumphs over death and draws all who seek new life to himself. Just as he, the Son, has lived by the Father, so now, through his cross, he offers a fresh start and eternal life to all who believe in him.
When we pray, for example in the Prayer of Humble Access before Communion, that we will be given grace so to eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink his blood that he may dwell in us and we in him, we are praying that we will have grace to feed on Christ by faith. Faith is the means by which we understand our need for completely new life. Faith is the means by which we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, just as we take the bread into our mouths and sip the wine with our lips.
Jesus Christ came to live our life and die our death, so that we might be set free from this fallen world’s bondage to sin and fear of death, and enjoy eternal life in him. Listen closely to the words in the Eucharistic Prayer as we consecrate the bread and wine this morning. That prayer sets forth the mystery of Corpus Christi. It is not just that bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ. It is that Christ does the same thing to us. We, who otherwise would be divided and alienated from God and one another, are made into living members of the Body of Christ. As we heard the Apostle say, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” And that bread is Jesus Christ.
When you come to Holy Communion, realize that the real altar is the cross. The one true sacrifice was completed, once for all, on Good Friday. That is the hour of God’s victory over what ails the world and each of us along with it. It is the hour of our salvation and reconciliation to God, and also to one another. But in order that we might be kept constantly aware of and literally in touch with that reconciliation, Christ, on the night before he died for us, gave us this Sacrament “until his coming again.” It is not that there are many sacrifices over many times and places. It is that there is one sacrifice made truly present to all times and places. As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord, we show forth his death until he comes.
We offer this Sacrament of Corpus Christi every Sunday, indeed here at Saint Thomas we are privileged to offer it every day. It reminds us not only of Christ’s victorious death of the cross, but also that Jesus lives, and that the Eucharist is one of the great signs of his Resurrection. We eat and drink the life-giving body and blood of the risen Lord. We ourselves, by feeding on Christ in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving, extend Jesus Christ’s incarnate life in and through our lives. We put forward the gracious effects of his reconciliation. We are evidence that he lives and reigns. This is the mystery of Corpus Christi. If the saying holds true, that we are what we eat, then this is the most wonderful example.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
_________
¹F.F. Bruce, The Gospel and Epistles of John, Eerdmans 1983, p. 159.
