Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

Lectionary: 274

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."

The Lord's teaching about the Bread of Life echoes his words to the woman at the well, "...the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

However, in John 6, we hear a more compelling expression, "I am...." He had first used it, with unexpected spontaneity, when he responded to the Samaritan woman, 

The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you."

In this chapter about the Eucharist, the Messiah teaches us more about the cost of discipleship as he insists that we must eat his flesh. The cost begins with the surrender of his own life. He is a man born to die for others, and those who follow him also find the meaning and purpose of their lives as they live and die for him. 

"I am..." is repeated many times in the Fourth Gospel. It appears in two forms, "I am he." and "I am the...." He tells us, "I am the..." bread of life, the light of the world, the gate, the good shepherd, the vine, and the way, the truth, and the life.

Oddly, he does not say, "I am the Son of God!" but his opponents accuse him of saying it because he "called God his own father, making himself equal to God." (John 5:18). With the irony typical of Saint John, they are the first to recognize the meaning of his words. 

His final and most dramatic "I am" will come when the Lord is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas had led the crowd to him but, as John tells the story, they could not identify him in the darkness. When he asked, "Whom do you seek?" they replied, "Jesus of Nazareth." 

He might have said, "He's not here." But he did say, "I am he" and the threat vanished as they fell to the ground. They could not lay a hand on him until he consented, after he had commanded them to "...let these men go.” 

Our Gospels during this Easter season are largely taken from the Gospel according to Saint John; and this Gospel especially must impress upon us the complete authority of Jesus. Nothing happens to him that was not planned from the beginning. He is the Priest who presides over the sacrifice of his own life; and his commands to follow me and feed my sheep are compelling. 

Everyone who eats his flesh and drinks his blood during our Eucharist must say, "He is the way, the truth, and the life." Where else could I go?