April 23, 2012 Acts 6: 8-15; John 6: 22-29
After Jesus fed the five thousand … the people kept looking for Him … and when they do encounter Him … they are shocked that He says … they’re looking for Him for all the wrong reasons!
They are looking for an earthly king … for bodily food … but what they are missing is … He is offering heavenly food … eternal life.
They don’t get it … they can’t see beyond the physical … they miss seeing Jesus as the One sent by God to fill their souls … to get them to change … to get them to think about God … to get them to do the works of God.
In today’s first reading we see Stephen who does “get it”! Stephen believes in Jesus … and Stephen does the works of God … in fact … He does God’s work so well that he pays with his life!
So … where do we stand? Where do we look to find Jesus? What kind of Jesus are we expecting to encounter?
Jesus makes it clear that we can only get the Bread of Life from Him … the One sent by the Father.
Faithfulness to hearing God’s Word in Scripture and receiving Eucharist nourishes us and helps us recognize Jesus as the One sent by the Father to bring us salvation.
Gospel Jn 6:22-29
The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there,
and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples had left.
Other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread when the Lord gave thanks.
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats
and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered them and said,
“Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me
not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.”
So they said to him,
“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
