Monday of Week 3 of Easter – Gospel

Commentary on John 6:22-29

Following on the feeding of the 5,000 and the walking on the water, we begin the long discourse of Jesus as the Bread of Life. This ‘Bread’ is presented as a replacement of the manna with which God fed his people during their long trek through the desert in the Old Testament. What we read today is really an introduction. The proper discourse will begin tomorrow. The last part of the discourse is about the mixed reaction of Jesus’ disciples and about Peter’s profession.

The day following the feeding, the people go in search of Jesus. First, they realise he did not cross the lake with his disciples, but when they go to the site of the feeding, they find he is not there either. Eventually they find Jesus and his disciples in the vicinity of Capernaum, Jesus’ principal base in Galilee.

They ask him:

Rabbi, when did you come here?

In typically Johannine fashion, the question is loaded with deeper meanings, of which those asking it are quite unaware. Jesus’ origin (where he comes from) is a constant source of misunderstanding both on the part of the crowds and of the Jewish leadership.

Jesus begins by telling the crowds that they are coming in search of him not because of the ‘signs’ that he is doing, but because of the bread that they had been given to eat. They have missed the point of what Jesus was doing. They have seen the things that Jesus has been doing, but have missed the ‘sign’, the deeper meaning behind them. The food they are looking for is not the food that counts. The real food brings a life that never ends, and that is the food that Jesus is offering. It parallels the “spring of water gushing up to eternal life” which Jesus promised the Samaritan woman (John 4:14).

The source of this ‘bread’ is the Son on whom the Father has set his seal. This ‘seal’ was given at his baptism. It is the Spirit of the Father, who is the power of God working in and through Jesus. The people ask him:

What must we do to perform the works of God?”

Jesus tells them:

This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

For ‘work’ in the Jewish sense, external fulfilment of the Law’s requirements, Jesus substitutes faith in himself as the delegate of the Father. And Jesus asks us not just to ‘believe’, but to ‘believe in’. It is not just a question of accepting certain statements about Jesus and who he really is. ‘Believing in’ involves a total and unconditional commitment of the whole self to Jesus, to the gospel and the vision of life that he proposes, and making it part of one’s own self. This is where the real bread is to be found.

And we may add that Jesus is not just speaking of the Eucharistic bread, but the deep-down nourishment of which the Eucharist is the sign and sacrament—nourishment which also comes from the Word of God in Scripture and the whole Christian community experience. It is important in reading this whole chapter that we do not limit the truth of Jesus as the Bread or Food of our life simply to the Eucharist, which is the sacramental sign of something much larger—all that we receive through Christ and the whole Christian way of life.

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Monday of Week 3 of Easter – First Reading

Commentary on Acts 6:8-15

Today we begin the story of Stephen, who will be the first person to give his life for Christ. He is the first martyr, the first true witness to the gospel. Because of this, his feast is celebrated on the day after Christmas. Today’s reading follows the passage on the appointment of the ‘deacons’, of whom Stephen was one, and also following the conversion of some of the Temple’s priests.

We are told at the beginning that:

Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

Until now, we only heard of the Apostles, especially Peter and John, working miracles. Now, after the laying on of hands, Stephen is given the same gifts and the same power. Soon, we will see the deacon Philip doing the same.

However, Stephen’s words and actions aroused the displeasure of other Greek-speaking Jews. We are told that there were people from the Synagogue of Freedmen, who were probably descendants of Jews who had been carried off to Rome by Pompey when he attacked Jerusalem in 63 BC. They would have been sold into slavery, but later released—hence their name. The Cyrenians came from Cyrene, which was the chief city in Libya and North Africa, half way between Alexandria and Carthage. It had a Jewish community (we remember too that it was a Simon from Cyrene who was forced to help Jesus carry his cross; see Matt 27:32). Alexandrians came from the city of Alexandria (named after the famous Macedonian emperor). It was the capital of Egypt and the second city of the Roman Empire. It also had a Jewish community.

Cilicia was a Roman province in the southeast corner of Asia Minor, close to Syria. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was one of its principal towns. Asia, at that time, referred to just a single Roman province in what is now western Turkey. Its capital was Ephesus, which would feature prominently in Paul’s ministry.

These ‘Freedmen’ began debating with Stephen. It is an interesting theory that, since Paul was from Tarsus in Cilicia, he might have attended this synagogue and have been among those who were arguing with Stephen. He certainly was prominent in the stoning of Stephen.

The parallels between Stephen’s experience and that of his Lord are striking. Like Jesus, and because of Jesus, he is “full of grace and power” and he “did great wonders and signs among the people”. He arouses the displeasure especially of his fellow Hellenist Jews who cannot deal with the Spirit-inspired power of his words.

As they could not better Stephen in debate, they began circulating distorted versions of what he was saying. They accused him of saying that the worship of God was no longer to be restricted to the Temple. The charges, that Stephen depreciated the importance of the Temple and the Mosaic Law and elevated Jesus to a stature above Moses, were in fact true. And, as far as the Sanhedrin was concerned, no defence against them was possible. But the false witnesses that some Hellenists were bringing forward were actually distorting what Stephen was saying.

So they begin to throw false accusations against him, leading to his incurring the hostility both of the people and the Jewish religious leaders. In the presence of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, they distort his words by asserting that Stephen claimed Jesus was going to destroy the Temple and change the traditions of Moses.

As already mentioned, in a sense, it was true. The coming of Jesus made the Temple irrelevant, and the teaching of Jesus would not abolish, but rather would transcend and go far beyond the traditions of Moses.

All of this is very similar to the experience that Jesus went through. All through these encounters, Stephen’s enemies glared at him with hostility, while his own face seemed “like the face of an angel”. The face of an angel produces a feeling of awe. There are echoes here of the face of Moses as he came down from the mountain after being face to face with God, and of the appearance of Jesus at the Transfiguration. The Sanhedrin members are also witnessing a transfiguration, as Stephen has a vision of Jesus in glory (this will occur in tomorrow’s reading). And, whatever their feelings towards him, Stephen had no hostile feelings towards them. This is the spirit of Jesus: “Love your enemies.”

With Stephen, who thus perceived the fuller implications of the teachings of Jesus, the difference between Judaism and Christianity began to appear. Luke’s account of Stephen’s martyrdom and its aftermath shows how the major impetus behind the Christian movement passed from Jerusalem, where the Temple and law prevailed, to Antioch in Syria, where these influences were less pressing.

As Christians, we too can expect, and should not be surprised to experience, hostility and misunderstandings even from our fellow-Christians at times. We too are called to return love for hatred and peace for anger. This attitude is a real stumbling block to some and utter nonsense to others.

The rest of Stephen’s story, his martyrdom, is told in the subsequent verses of Acts.

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