“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
How bizarre; yesterday was the feast of St Mark the Evangelist and today we hear the very words Jesus said which resulted in Mark, and many others of the 70, turning away from Jesus in doubt. I know the lectionary has a good reason for this, it's for us to find it.
Perhaps it's a reminder that even the most revered spiritual men go through periods of doubt.
Perhaps it's telling us that we are all welcomed back into God's arms - as we will be reminded on Sunday again.
Perhaps it's to keep us close to the fact that Jesus is indeed the bread of life and that this might be a hard thing to come to accept but it's the truth.
For me I struck by a bit of all of this and am thankful for the opportunity to engage with it again.
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