“Whoever eats of this bread will live forever…,” says Jesus. This particular saying of Jesus would’ve certainly caught the attention of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (BCE 259-210) about 2,200 years ago. Qin was the first one who united six tribes in the region where China is now. He summoned all his officials to search for the elixir of life, the infamous immortality potion. In his trials to obtain eternal life, not only did he spend so many resources but also he is thought to have consumed mercury sulfide. Which we know is poisonous. So, did his search for the elixir of immortality, his eternity project succeed? No. He died at the age of 49 years old.
Even though this ambitious project of China’s first emperor failed, this search for the elixir of immortality still continues now in the name of medicine. Aging is a biochemical process. We humans cannot stop time but can slow the aging process according to life extension advocates. There are even some websites such as ‘fightaging.org’ or ‘life extension advocacy foundation.’ Their mission is mainly to increase the human lifespan. I have no intention of criticizing this life extension advocacy, but what we can see or what we cannot avoid seeing is a perpetual desire to live forever. Which in turn reflects a fear of death. This social phenomenon with the radical development of medicine and technology makes doctors like modern gods in our time as if an MD now stands for a minor deity. We Christians are not immune to this desire to live forever. Out of all kinds of people, religious or non-religious, we Christians are the ones who always talk about eternal life, at least once a week if we come to church on Sunday. When we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we confess that we believe in the life everlasting. The Nicene Creed, which we’ll confess after my homily, says a bit differently that we look for, not believe in, the life of the world to come. Either way, we are talking about eternal life all the time. Also, in our prayers, especially the ones in our prayer book, almost always end with the phrase, “forever and over” or “now and forever.” We Christians do mention the life eternal a lot. (But I’m not sure if we take it seriously as we’re supposed to.) Now, is our talk of eternal life the same as life extension or immortality? Does Jesus talk about eternal life in the same way that those ‘fight against aging’ or ‘life extension advocacy foundation’ groups use? This is to ask whether the manna is the same as the bread of life that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel lesson. The answer is no. Jesus says, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.” Our understanding of eternal life is not about immortality or life extension or a big win against aging. There’s nothing similar to extending lifespan or slowing down the aging process. The Christian understanding of eternal life is much closer to what all this anti-aging project or the emperor’s search for the elixir of immortality is most scared of. Which is death itself. What then calls us Christians to face first is not the living bread, the bread of life. It is death that we are to directly look at. This isn’t something new to us. Going back to the creeds I mentioned earlier, this call to face death is already there. Believing in the life everlasting in the Apostles’ Creed or looking for the life of the world to come always comes after the resurrection of the body or the resurrection of the dead. And the resurrection doesn’t happen without death. Death is the first step that one must encounter and pass through. This order of death, resurrection, and life eternal is indeed how Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, becomes the bread of life, the living bread for the life of the world. Just like last Sunday’s gospel lesson, Jesus equates believing in him as eating the living bread. He says, “Whoever believes has eternal life...whoever eats of this bread will live forever.” Believing in him is eating him the bread of life, the living bread from heaven. This sounds rather cannibalistic, but the Church has always meant this eating of Jesus “sacramentally.” We can do this very human act of eating only symbolically because of our human limitation to grasp the divine mystery that is really and truly present in the Eucharist. Now I might sound a bit technical or dogmatic but I will just go ahead. This tradition and custom of eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood seems to have some condition. That is only the baptized are allowed to do so. (I’m aware that there are some parishes who have the so-called open communion policy that all can take Communion regardless of their baptismal status.) This sounds like the Church is making baptism as a requirement for the Eucharist, setting up a bar or even policing who can receive the Eucharist or not. But this so-called requirement should be considered as our Christian commitment that calls one to face death before coming to the Eucharist. So put it differently, coming to the altar to receive the Eucharist forces us to face death, go through death to receive life eternal in God. Again, without death, there’s no resurrection. It is the only ticket to resurrection. At this point, I would like to talk about two kinds of death we face. One is our biological death which anti-aging or life extension advocates are most concerned about. The bottom line is that we cannot live forever here on earth. Living forever may not even be an issue. Having a body that is healthy and is not aging, staying youthful is one thing. And not getting killed is another. The other kind of death sounds more metaphorical, but it is indeed one kind of death. This type of death happens whenever our desire to control or be in charge of something fails to take place. Our desire to control someone or something or some situation often does not succeed. We would like to be in charge of our lives but our lives are often out of control. Our desire to control being ended or unfulfilled is a type of death that we face almost everyday. So for us Christians, not only do we courageously face death for the hope of the resurrection but in reality how we do that matters. Herbert McCabe, a Dominican friar, once said, “Death, which is the punishment of fallen man, has become, because of the Cross, the way to resurrection and new life...the whole of life is a preparation for death because it is only from death that eternal life can spring.” (Herbert McCabe, The New Creation, pp. 172-3) Rather than seeing death as an irrelevant last moment of life, our death becomes the beginning of life eternal Jesus promises. For any professional writer, the very first sentence of her very first chapter is crucial. It almost dictates the rest of its contents. That, my friends, is what death is all about for us Christians. We’re like this writer who is so carefully crafting her very first sentence to begin a new chapter of her book. And looking at Jesus, his entire life was committed to write this first sentence as he was crucified. As our whole life is devoted as a preparation for death, we are not afraid of death. What matters is how we would like to die, what kind of death we would like to have. Some say, “Dying well and living well are the same thing.” This devotion to live our entire life as a preparation for death is what baptism calls us to live out our lives. In baptism, we already died with Christ and are risen with Christ sacramentally. Everytime we receive the Eucharist, the living bread of Jesus from heaven, we are reminded of our baptism, our death and resurrection with Christ. My friends, Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven, the bread of life, the living bread. Receiving this bread of life from heaven dares us to live couragely without fear of death. Our fight is not with aging or death, but with the world that acts out of fear and anxiety of death. To eat this bread of life is for us to prepare ourselves by committing ourselves to be the food for those in need just as Jesus says, “...the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” His flesh we are given, our flesh we prepare to give to the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. P.Yn. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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