IF YOU BELIEVE ONLY IN WHAT YOU CAN SEE . . . ?

“Jesus said to the crowd, ‘The one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. . . .Whoever eats this bread will live forever.’
“Then many of his disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’
“Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, ‘Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ . . . . As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?’”  John 6: 58, 60-64, 66-67

Pause for a few moments and consider these three italicized phrases spoken to you by Jesus:
“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
“It is the spirit that gives life.”
“The one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. . . .Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Perhaps Jesus is suggesting that we concentrate too much on the physicality of the things that are all around us in our everyday lives, especially when it comes to encounters, and most especially when the encounters are those of becoming commingled with Him, that “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” Becoming one with Him really is less about the physicality and more about the transformation of “spirit and life.” It is like another unseen, but very real, “spirit and life” experience – that which takes place inside of us when we allow ourselves to fall in love, be in love, become one with a person whom we genuinely and completely love.  The physicality may not have changed one tiny bit, but ask the persons involved and they will attest to the fact that something has radically changed.

“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

“It is the spirit that gives life.”

Do you “see” it?  Do you believe in it?

“The one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. . . .Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Or do you want to walk away?

And if you want to believe in only what you can see with you physical eyes, what kind of a life are you living? What kind of a world are you creating for yourself and for the others to live in?

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” Romans 11:33

Sister Loretta