Bishop Robert Barron: “Jesus’ Most Challenging Sermon”

By Bishop Robert Barron, Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

This commentary is taken from The Word on Fire Bible, which includes commentaries from Bishop Robert Barron and leading Catholics from across the centuries.  …

COMMENTARY ON JOHN 6:48–66

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” —John 6:48–53

The most challenging sermon that Jesus ever preached was not the Sermon on the Mount; it was the discourse he gave in the Capernaum synagogue after the miracle of multiplying the loaves and fish. The Sermon on the Mount—with its calls for love of one’s enemy, the cleansing of the interior self, and nonresistance to evil—was certainly intellectually confounding. …