B 59

Unless Jesus returns before:  August 15, 2021

Proper 14 Proper 16

 

Feast On Life

I am the living bread which came down from heaven:
if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread
that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
John 6:51

 Proper 15
10th Sunday After Pentecost; 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time; 13th in Kingdomtide
Reading Common Catholic Episcopal Br. Bill’s Talking Points
First 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 Proverbs 9:1-6 Proverbs 9:1-6  

Living Bread

 

1. Bread: Spiritual nourishment that revivifies and continues, like the Living Water.

2. Heaven:  State of perfect Love and Harmony, in the completion of God’s volition for our eternal life.

3. Eat:  Absorb through the use of all the Means of Grace.
Second Ephesians 5:15-20  Ephesians 5:15-20 Ephesians 5:15-20
Psalm 111 34:2-3, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15 147 or 34:9-14
Gospel John 6:51-58  John 6:51-58 John 6:53-59

O the Depth of Love Divine

O the depth of love divine, the unfathomable grace!
Who shall say how bread and wine God into us conveys!
How the bread His flesh imparts,
How the wine transmits His blood,
Fills His faithful people’s hearts with all the life of God!

Let the wisest mortals show how we the grace receive;
Feeble elements bestow a power not theirs to give.
Who explains the wondrous way,
How through these the virtue came?
These the virtue did convey, yet still remain the same.

How can spirits heavenward rise, by earthly matter fed,
Drink herewith divine supplies and eat immortal bread?
Ask the Father’s wisdom how:
Christ Who did the means ordain;
Angels round our altars bow to search it out, in vain.

Sure and real is the grace, the manner be unknown;
Only meet us in thy ways and perfect us in one.
Let us taste the heavenly powers,
Lord, we ask for nothing more.
Thine to bless, ’tis only ours to wonder and adore.

Charles Wesley, 1745 (John 6:35-58)The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 627

Quotes & Notes on:     John 6:51  

  • John Wesley’s Notes:
     If any eat of this bread-That is, believe in me:

he shall live for ever-In other words, he that believeth to the end shall be saved.

My flesh which I will give you-This whole discourse concerning his flesh and blood refers directly to his passion, and but remotely, if at all, to the Lord’s Supper.

  • Reginald Fuller’s Preaching the Lectionary:
  •  Here at last we reach the definitely Eucharistic part of the discourse on the bread of life.  We move from bread as such to the flesh and blood of the Son of man… The thought moves from the revelation of the incarnate One as the heavenly wisdom to his sacrificial surrender in the death of the cross… It would be very congenial to have a form of Christian worship consisting of a fellowship meal celebrating Jesus as the bread of life and a proclamation of him as incarnate wisdom.  But our canonical John goes further than that and insists that the Christian liturgy moves further to an eating and drinking of the flesh and blood of Jesus, that is, to participating in the sacrifice of Calvary.  (p 337-338).
  • Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., Interpreter’s Commentary:
  •  Jesus presses further.  He, the living bread from heaven for the life of the world, is given as flesh to eat and blood to drink.  This is no doubt a reference to his believers’ experience of the Eucharist.  It comes unexpectedly, since as yet the holy supper of bread and wine has not been instituted… But the evangelist speaks to many levels among his readers.  It is not strange that he should in this way anticipate what one would expect him to relate in ch. 13.  He is not interested in mere historical sequence.  These vss. are his way of pointing to an “institution” of “This is my body; this is my blood.”
  • Donald Guthrie, The New Bible Commentary (Revised 1970):
  •  The metaphor of eating and drinking prepares the way for the later institution of the Lord’s Supper…  [These words] can be understood only in the light of the subsequent sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross.  The eating and drinking become symbolical of the appropriation of the effects of that sacrifice.  (p 943)
  • David Guzik, Study Guide for John:
  • The metaphor of eating and drinking was common in Jesus’ day, and pointed to a taking within one’s innermost being.
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church:
    The three synoptic Gospels and St. Paul have handed on to us the account of the institution of the Eucharist; St. John, for his part, reports the words of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum that prepare for the institution of the Eucharist: Christ calls himself the bread of life, come down from heaven.  [1338]
  • The Fourfold Gospel:
  •    The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. He had declared himself to be the bread of life, but bread must be assimilated. The assimilation of natural bread requires eating, but Jesus, the spiritual bread, is assimilated by believing on him. But he was not then perfected as the bread of life. It was necessary that he should sacrifice himself for our sins before sins could be forgiven, and it was necessary for sins to be forgiven before men could have life with God. By his sacrifice on the cross he opened the fountain of forgiveness. By raising his humanity from the dead and by taking it with him in his ascension into heaven, he showed the results which men may expect to accrue to them by his death upon the cross.
  • Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:
  • * living. Joh 3:13; 4:10; 7:38; 1Pe 2:4
    * and the bread.
    This was one of the things which the Jews expected from the
    Messiah, as we learn from Midrash Koheleth. “Rabbi Berechiah,
    in the name of Rabbi Issac said, As was the first Redeemer, so
    also shall be the latter. The first Redeemer made manna
    descend from heaven, as it is said in Ex 16:4, ‘And I will
    rain bread from heaven for you.’ So also the latter Redeemer
    shall make manna descend, as it is said, Ps 72:16, ‘There
    shall be a handful of corn in the earth.’ etc.”

 

* my flesh. Joh 6:52-57; Mt 20:28; Lu 22:19; Eph 5:2,25; Tit 2:14; Heb 10:5-12,20
* the life. Joh 6:33; 1:29; 3:16; 2Co 5:19,21; 1Jo 2:2; 4:14

  • Robertson’s Word Pictures:
     The living bread (ho artos ho zôn). “The bread the living.” Repetition of the claim in Joh 6:35,41,48, but with a slight change from zôês to zôn (present active participle of zaô). It is alive and can give life. See Joh 4:10 for living water. In Re 1:17 Jesus calls himself the Living One (ho zôn). For ever (eis ton aiôna). Eternally like aiônion with zôên in Joh 6:47. I shall give (egô dôsô). Emphasis on egô (I). Superior so to Moses. Is my flesh (hê sarx mou estin). See on Joh 1:14 for sarx the Incarnation. This new idea creates far more difficulty to the hearers who cannot grasp Christ’s idea of self-sacrifice. For the life of the world (huper tês tou kosmou zôês). Over, in behalf of, huper means, and in some connexions instead of as in Joh 11:50. See Joh 1:30 for the Baptist’s picture of Christ as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. See also Joh 3:17; 4:42; 1Jo 3:16; Mt 20:28; Ga 3:13; 2Co 5:14; Ro 5:8. Jesus has here presented to this Galilean multitude the central fact of his atoning death for the spiritual life of the world.
  • William Burkitt’s Notes:
  • (No comment on this verse).
  • Family Bible Notes:
  • My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world; an allusion, which could not be understood at the time by his hearers, to the gift of his flesh on the cross for the salvation of the world.
  • 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
    Christ being sent from the Father is the selfsame unto us for the getting and keeping of everlasting life, as bread and flesh, yea, meat and drink, are to the use of this transitory life. (q) Which gives life to the world. (r) That is to say, whoever is truly a partaker of Christ, who is our food.
  • People’s New Testament Commentary:
  • (No comment on this verse).
  • Albert Barnes’ Commentary:
  • The bread that I will give is my flesh. That is, his body would be offered as a sacrifice for sin, agreeably to his declaration when he instituted the Supper: “This is my body which is broken for you,” 1Co 11:24.Life of the world. That sinners might, by his atoning sacrifice, be recovered from spiritual death, and be brought to eternal life. The use of the word world here shows that the sacrifice of Christ was full, free, ample, and designed for all men, as it is said in 1Jo 2:2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” In this verse Jesus introduces the subject of his death and atonement. It may be remarked that in the language which he used the transition from bread to his flesh would appear more easy than it does in our language. The same word which in Hebrew means bread, in the Syriac and Arabic means also flesh.{m} “my flesh” Heb 10:5,10,20
    {n} “the life of the world” Joh 3:16
  • Jamieson-Faussett Brown:
  •  I am, &c.–Understand, it is of MYSELF I now speak as the Bread from heaven; of ME if a man eat he shall live for ever; and “THE BREAD WHICH I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH, WHICH I WILL GIVE FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.” Here, for the first time in this high discourse, our Lord explicitly introduces His sacrificial death–for only rationalists can doubt this not only as that which constitutes Him the Bread of life to men, but as THAT very element IN HIM WHICH POSSESSES THE LIFE-GIVING VIRTUE.–“From this time we hear no more (in this discourse) of “Bread”; this figure is dropped, and the reality takes its place” [STIER]. The words “I will give” may be compared with the words of institution at the Supper, “This is My body which is given for you” (Lu 22:19), or in Paul’s report of it, “broken for you” (1Co 11:24).
  • Spurgeon Devotional Commentary:
  • They understood him literally. They were too carnally minded to comprehend that the soul feeds upon the great truth that God took upon himself our flesh.
  • Adam Clarke’s Commentary:
  •  Is my flesh, which I will give, &c.] Our Lord explains his meaning more fully, in these words, than he had done before. Having spoken so much of the bread which feeds and nourishes the soul, and preserves from death, the attention of his hearers was fixed upon his words, which to them appeared inexplicable; and they desired to know what their meaning was. He then told them that the bread meant his flesh, (his life,) which he was about to give up; to save the life of the world. Here our Lord plainly declares that his death was to be a vicarious sacrifice and atonement for the sin of the world; and that, as no human life could be preserved unless there was bread (proper nourishment) received, so no soul could be saved but by the merit of his death. Reader, remember this: it is one of the weightiest, and one of the truest and most important sayings in the book of God.
  • Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary:
  •  (No comment on this verse).

 

 

 

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Bob VanWyk, Lectionary Hymn Reviewer

  • O the Depth of Love Divine
  • Come, Sinners, to the Gospel Feast
  • We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations
  • I Love to Tell the Story
  • Freely, Freely
  • Dwelling in Beulah Land
  • Rescue the Perishing
  • Break Thou the Bread of Life
  • Living for Jesus
  • We’re Marching to Zion

 
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Broadcasting on WVHM 90.5 FM from Hardin, Kentucky  at 4:05 p.m. SundaysBill’s Starting Point

Bread of Heaven

  • Spiritual Nourishment
    • Presence
    • Personality
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  • Who will you feed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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