Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Jesus said, “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, I and I in him.”  +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
 
There’s an ancient legend attached to the mother pelican, that she, in times of famine would wound herself by striking her breast with her beak to feed her young to prevent starvation.  Early Christians adapted this legend to symbolize Jesus Christ. The pelican represents Jesus our Savior and Redeemer who gave His life for us and feeds us His own flesh to nourish us on our way through this life to eternity.

This legend and image have become a part of our own liturgical tradition. The image of the pelican feeding its baby pelicans has been placed on altar frontals and on chasubles. In Durham Cathedral, before the Reformation, the Blessed Sacrament was reserved in a silver tabernacle fashioned like a pelican.

The legend of the pelican is a beautiful illustration of what Christ is trying to teach us about Himself and His love for us today. The people listening to Jesus’ teaching on the deeper significance of His declaration, “I am the bread of life” are caught up in literalism. They react to Jesus’ words by asking sarcastically, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” They think, just as the pagans did, that Jesus is talking about some cannibalistic ritual of consuming human flesh and blood.

But Jesus is not talking about cannibalism. He is talking spiritually, that is sacramentally. Jesus is pointing us to the mystery of the Incarnation, where He, the eternal Son of God, has come to earth as a human being. By doing so, He redeems all of creation. That means that the physical elements of this world, such as water, grain, fruit, and the human body, are no longer defiled, but holy. God can and does use the physical elements of this world to accomplish spiritual work.

In the Old Testament, God saved the people of Israel from death, by allowing them to pass through the waters of the Red Sea, and by feeding them with manna, or bread from heaven, and by giving them water from the rock. Then in the Covenant He made with Moses; He commanded the people to sacrifice lambs as an offering to atone for their sins.

Now in the New Testament, Jesus the Son of God, the great High Priest, takes these elements of the physical world and uses them to establish the New Covenant in Himself. The passing through the water of the Red Sea becomes the water of baptism. The manna from heaven becomes the bread and wine of the Eucharist. And the sacrificial lamb offered each year for the sins of the people becomes Jesus Himself, the perfect Lamb of God who blood shed for us on the Cross becomes the once for all sacrifice for the sin of humanity.

Therefore, when Jesus is talking about the bread and the wine becoming His Body and Blood, and that His Body and Blood is true food and drink, Jesus is connecting Himself to Creation. St. Apolinaris says that we are the beneficiaries of eternal life through the Incarnation. Jesus offers His flesh on the Cross for our salvation. Through Christ’s humanity, all humanity is saved. St. Irenaus writes that in Jesus Christ we have the union of the flesh and the Spirit. Therefore, Christ has not only elevated the fallen human race back to God, so the elements of creation, such as bread and wine, are elevated to heavenly status. The bread and the wine of the Eucharist have both spiritual and physical realities. The bread becomes more than bread, it is the Body of Christ. The wine becomes more than wine, it becomes the Blood of Christ.

All this is a mystery. That is, we cannot fully explain it using physics or biology. Rather than try to understand with our minds, we must first believe Jesus’s words, and then we will understand what He means.

Jesus also says, “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in Him.”  When we partake of the Eucharist, we receive through the Sacrament the very eternal Life that Jesus Christ has in Himself.  As Jesus says in John 15, we abide in Him; we are connected to Him as our Source and Life, and He lives His divine Life in us and through us.

Today, Riley and Aramis will be receiving their First Communion. It is one more milestone on their journey towards greater union with Christ. It is also a part of their transition into deeper fellowship and communion with all of us here at St. John’s and with their Christian brothers and sisters around the world and throughout time. My prayer for you, Riley and Aramis, is that you never lose your hunger to know Christ and draw closer to Him, and that you will be filled up with His Life for eternity.
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+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.