Jesus of Nazareth Page 26

  This is made even clearer in verse 53, where the Lord adds that he will give us his blood to "drink." These words are not only a manifest allusion to the Eucharist. Above all they point to what underlies the Eucharist: the sacrifice of Jesus, who sheds his blood for us, and in so doing steps out of himself, so to speak, pours himself out, and gives himself to us.

  In this chapter, then, the theology of the Incarnation and the theology of the Cross come together; the two cannot be separated. There are thus no grounds for setting up an opposition between the Easter theology of the Synoptics and Saint Paul, on one hand, and Saint John's supposedly purely incarnational theology, on the other. For the goal of the Word's becoming-flesh spoken of by the prologue is precisely the offering of his body on the Cross, which the sacrament makes accessible to us. John is following here the same line of thinking that the Letter to the Hebrews develops on the basis of Psalm 40:6-8: "Sacrifices and offerings you did refuse--you have prepared a body for me" (Heb 10:5). Jesus becomes man in order to give himself and to take the place of the animal sacrifices, which could only be a gesture of longing, but not an answer.

  Jesus' bread discourse, on one hand, points the main movement of the Incarnation and of the Paschal journey toward the sacrament, in which Incarnation and Easter are permanently present, but conversely, this has the effect of integrating the sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, into the larger context of God's descent to us and for us. On one hand, then, the Eucharist emphatically moves right to the center of Christian existence; here God does indeed give us the manna that humanity is waiting for, the true "bread of heaven"--the nourishment we can most deeply live upon as human beings. At the same time, however, the Eucharist is revealed as man's unceasing great encounter with God, in which the Lord gives himself as "flesh," so that in him, and by participating in his way, we may become "spirit." Just as he was transformed through the Cross into a new manner of bodiliness and of being-human pervaded by God's own being, so too for us this food must become an opening out of our existence, a passing through the Cross, and an anticipation of the new life in God and with God.

  This is why at the conclusion of the discourse, which places such emphasis on Jesus' becoming flesh and our eating and drinking the "flesh and blood of the Lord," Jesus says: "it is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail" (Jn 6:63). This may remind us of Saint Paul's words: "The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (1 Cor 15:45). This in no way diminishes the realism of "becoming-flesh." Yet the Paschal perspective of the sacrament is underlined: Only through the Cross and through the transformation that it effects does this flesh become accessible to us, drawing us up into the process of transformation. Eucharistic piety needs to be constantly learning from this great Christological--indeed, cosmic--dynamism.

  In order to understand the full depth of Jesus' bread discourse, we must finally take a brief look at one of the key sayings of John's Gospel. Jesus pronounces it on Palm Sunday as he looks ahead to the universal Church that will embrace Jews and Greeks--all the peoples of the world: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24). What we call "bread" contains the mystery of the Passion. Before there can be bread, the seed--the grain of wheat--first has to be placed in the earth, it has to "die," and then the new ear can grow out of this death. Earthly bread can become the bearer of Christ's presence because it contains in itself the mystery of the Passion, because it unites in itself death and resurrection. This is why the world's religions used bread as the basis for myths of death and resurrection of the godhead, in which man expressed his hope for life out of death.

  In this connection, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn reminds us of the conversion of the great British writer C. S. Lewis; Lewis, having read a twelve-volume work about these myths, came to the conclusion that this Jesus who took bread in his hands and said, "This is my body," was just "another corn divinity, a corn king who lays down his life for the life of the world." One day, however, he overheard a firm atheist remarking to a colleague that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was actually surprisingly good. The atheist then paused thoughtfully and said: "About the dying God. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it really happened once" (Schonborn, Weihnacht, pp. 23f.).

  Yes, it really did happen. Jesus is no myth. He is a man of flesh and blood and he stands as a fully real part of history. We can go to the very places where he himself went. We can hear his words through his witnesses. He died and he is risen. It is as if the mysterious Passion contained in bread had waited for him, had stretched out its arms toward him; it is as if the myths had waited for him, because in him what they long for came to pass. The same is true of wine. It too contains the Passion in itself, for the grape had to be pressed in order to become wine. The Fathers gave this hidden language of the eucharistic gifts an even deeper interpretation. I would like to add just one example here. In the early Christian text called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, also known as the Didache (probably composed around the year 100), the following prayer is recited over the bread intended for the Eucharist: "As the bread was scattered on the mountains and brought into unity, so may the Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into your Kingdom" (IX, 4).

  The Shepherd

  The image of the shepherd, which Jesus uses to explain his mission both in the Synoptics and in the Gospel of John, has a long history behind it. In the ancient Near East, in royal inscriptions from both Sumer and the area of Babylonia and Assyria, the king refers to himself as the shepherd instituted by God. "Pasturing sheep" is an image of his task as a ruler. This image implies that caring for the weak is one of the tasks of the just ruler. One could therefore say that, in view of its origins, this image of Christ the Good Shepherd is a Gospel of Christ the King, an image that sheds light upon the kingship of Christ.

  Of course, the immediate precedents for Jesus' use of this image are found in the Old Testament, where God himself appears as the Shepherd of Israel. This image deeply shaped Israel's piety, and it was especially in times of need that Israel found a word of consolation and confidence in it. Probably the most beautiful expression of this trustful devotion is Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd...Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me" (Ps 23:1, 4). The image of God as Shepherd is more fully developed in chapters 34-37 of Ezekiel, whose vision is brought into the present and interpreted as a prophecy of Jesus' ministry both in the Synoptic shepherd parables and in the Johannine shepherd discourse. Faced with the self-seeking shepherds of his own day, whom he challenges and accuses, Ezekiel proclaims the promise that God himself will seek out his sheep and care for them. "And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land.... I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over" (Ezek 34:13, 15-16).

  Faced with the murmuring of the Pharisees and scribes over Jesus' table fellowship with sinners, the Lord tells the parable of the ninety-nine sheep who remained in the fold and the one lost sheep. The shepherd goes after the lost sheep, lifts it joyfully upon his shoulders, and brings it home. Jesus puts this parable as a question to his adversaries: Have you not read God's word in Ezekiel? I am only doing what God, the true Shepherd, foretold: I wish to seek out the sheep that are lost and bring the strayed back home.

  At a late stage in Old Testament prophecy, the portrayal of the shepherd image takes yet another surprising and thought-provoking turn that leads directly to the mystery of Jesus Christ. Matthew recounts to us that on the way to the Mount of Olives after the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples that the prophecy foretold in Zechariah 13:7 is about to be fulfilled: "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered" (Mt 26:31). Ze
chariah does in fact present in this passage the vision of a Shepherd "who by God's will patiently suffers death and in so doing initiates the final turn of events" (Jeremias, TDNT, VI, pp. 500-1).

  This surprising vision of the slain Shepherd, who through his death becomes the Savior, is closely linked to another image from the Book of Zechariah: "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication. And they will look on him whom they have pierced. They shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.... On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.... On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness" (Zech 12:10, 11; 13:1). Hadad-Rimmon was one of the dying and rising vegetation deities whom we encountered earlier when we were explaining that bread presupposes the death and resurrection of the grain. The death of the god, which is then followed by resurrection, was celebrated with wild ritual laments; these rituals impressed themselves upon those who witnessed them--as the Prophet and his audience evidently did--as the absolute archetype of grief and lamentation. For Zechariah, Hadad-Rimmon is one of the nonexistent divinities that Israel despises and unmasks as mythical dreams. And yet, through the ritual lamentation over him, he mysteriously prefigures someone who really does exist.

  An inner connection with the Servant of God in Deutero-Isaiah is discernible here. In the writings of the later Prophets, we see the figure of the suffering and dying Redeemer, the Shepherd who becomes the lamb, even if some of the details are yet to be filled in. K. Elliger comments apropos of this: "On the other hand, however, his [Zechariah's] gaze penetrates with remarkable accuracy into a new distance and circles around the figure of the one who was pierced on the Cross at Golgotha. Admittedly, he does not clearly discern the figure of Christ, although the allusion to Hadad-Rimmon does come remarkably close to the mystery of the Resurrection, albeit no more than close...and above all without clearly seeing the real connection between the Cross and the fountain that cleanses sin and impurity" ("Das Buch," ATD, 25, p. 172). While in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus himself cites Zechariah 13:7--the image of the slain Shepherd--at the beginning of the Passion narrative, John, by contrast, concludes his account of the Lord's Crucifixion with an allusion to Zechariah 12:10: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced" (Jn 19:37). Now it becomes clear: the one who is slain and the Savior is Jesus Christ, the crucified one.

  John associates this with Zechariah's prophetic vision of the fountain that purifies from sin and impurity: Blood and water flow forth from Jesus' wounded side (cf. Jn 19:34). Jesus himself, the one pierced on the Cross, is the fountain of purification and healing for the whole world. John connects this further with the image of the Paschal Lamb, whose blood has purifying power: "Not a bone of him shall be broken" (Jn 19:36; cf. Ex 12:46). With that, the circle is closed, joining the end to the beginning of the Gospel, where the Baptist--catching sight of Jesus--said: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29). The image of the lamb, which in a different way plays a decisive role in the Book of Revelation, thus encompasses the entire Gospel. It also points to the deepest meaning of the shepherd discourse, whose center is precisely Jesus' act of laying down his life.

  Surprisingly, the shepherd discourse does not begin with the words: "I am the Good Shepherd" (Jn 10:11), but with another image: "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep" (Jn 10:7). Jesus has already said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheep-fold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep" (Jn 10:1f.). This can only really mean that Jesus is establishing the criterion for those who will shepherd his flock after his ascension to the Father. The proof of a true shepherd is that he enters through Jesus as the door. For in this way it is ultimately Jesus who is the Shepherd--the flock "belongs" to him alone.

  In practice, the way to enter through Jesus as the door becomes apparent in the appendix to the Gospel in chapter 21--when Peter is entrusted with Jesus' own office as Shepherd. Three times the Lord says to Peter: "Feed my lambs" (or sheep--cf. Jn 21:15-17). Peter is very clearly being appointed as the shepherd of Jesus' sheep and established in Jesus' office as shepherd. For this to be possible, however, Peter has to enter through the "door." Jesus speaks of this entry--or, better, this being allowed to enter through the door (cf. Jn 10:3)--when he asks Peter three times: Simon, son of John, do you love me? Notice first the utterly personal aspect of this calling: Simon is called by name--both by his own personal name, Simon, and by a name referring to his ancestry. And he is asked about the love that makes him one with Jesus. This is how he comes to the sheep "through Jesus": He takes them not as his own--Simon Peter's--but as Jesus' "flock." It is because he comes through the "door," Jesus, it is because he comes to them united with Jesus in love, that the sheep listen to his voice, the voice of Jesus himself--they are following not Simon, but Jesus, from whom and through whom Simon comes to them, so that when he leads them it is Jesus himself who leads.

  The whole investiture scene closes with Jesus saying to Peter, "Follow me" (Jn 21:19). It recalls the scene after Peter's first confession, where Peter tries to dissuade the Lord from the way of Cross, and the Lord says to him, "Get behind me," and then goes on to invite everyone to take up his cross and "follow him" (cf. Mk 8:33ff.). Even the disciple who now goes ahead of the others as shepherd must "follow" Jesus. And as the Lord declares to Peter after conferring upon him the office of shepherd, this includes accepting the cross, being prepared to give his life. This is what it means in practice when Jesus says: "I am the door." This is how Jesus himself remains the shepherd.

  Let us return to the shepherd discourse in chapter 10 of John's Gospel. It is only in the second part that Jesus declares: "I am the Good Shepherd" (Jn 10:11). He takes upon himself all the historical associations of the shepherd image, which he then purifies, and brings to its full meaning. Four essential points receive particular emphasis. First, the thief "comes only to steal and kill and destroy" (Jn 10:10). He regards the sheep as part of his property, which he owns and exploits for himself. All he cares about is himself; he thinks the world revolves around him. The real Shepherd does just the opposite. He does not take life, but gives it: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10).

  This is Jesus' great promise: to give life in abundance. Everyone wants life in abundance. But what is it? What does life consist in? Where do we find it? When and how do we have "life in abundance"? When we live like the prodigal son, squandering the whole portion God has given us? When we live like the thief and the robber, taking everything for ourselves alone? Jesus promises that he will show the sheep where to find "pasture"--something they can live on--and that he will truly lead them to the springs of life. We are right to hear echoes of Psalm 23 in this: "He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.... Thou preparesta table before me in the presence.... Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Ps 23:2, 5f.). There is an even more immediate echo of the shepherd discourse from Ezekiel: "I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the mountain country of Israel shall be their pasture" (Ezek 34:14).

  But what does all this mean? We know what sheep live on, but what does man live on? The Fathers saw Ezekiel's reference to the mountain country of Israel and the shady and well-watered pastures on its uplands as an image of the heights of Holy Scripture, of the life-giving food of God's word. Although this is not the historical sense of the text, in the end the Fathers saw correctly and, above all, they understood Jesus himself correctly. Man lives on truth and on being loved: on being loved by the truth. He needs God, the God who draws close to him, interprets for him the meaning of life, and thus points him toward the path of life. Of course, man needs bread, he needs food
for the body, but ultimately what he needs most is the Word, love, God himself. Whoever gives him that gives him "life in abundance," and also releases the energies man needs to shape the earth intelligently and to find for himself and for others the goods that we can have only in common with others.

  In this sense, there is an inner connection between the bread discourse in chapter 6 and the shepherd discourse: In both cases the issue is what man lives on. Philo, the great Jewish philosopher of religion and contemporary of Jesus, said that God, the true Shepherd of his people, had appointed his "firstborn Son," the Logos, to the office of Shepherd (Barrett, Gospel, p. 374). The Johannine shepherd discourse is not immediately connected with the understanding of Jesus as Logos, and yet--in the specific context of the Gospel of John--the point the discourse is making is that Jesus, being the incarnate Word of God himself, is not just the Shepherd, but also the food, the true "pasture." He gives life by giving himself, for he is life (cf. Jn 1:4, 3:36, 11:25).

  This brings us to the second motif in the shepherd discourse. It reveals the novelty that leads us beyond Philo--not by means of new ideas, but by means of a new event, the Incarnation and Passion of the Son: "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (Jn 10:11). Just as the bread discourse does not merely allude to the word, but goes on to speak of the Word that became flesh and also gift "for the life of the world" (Jn 6:51), so too the shepherd discourse revolves completely around the idea of Jesus laying down his life for the "sheep." The Cross is at the center of the shepherd discourse. And it is portrayed not as an act of violence that takes Jesus unawares and attacks him from the outside, but as a free gift of his very self: "I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (Jn 10:17f.). Here Jesus interprets for us what happens at the institution of the Eucharist: He transforms the outward violence of the act of crucifixion into an act of freely giving his life for others. Jesus does not give something, but rather he gives himself. And that is how he gives life. We will have to return to these ideas and explore them more deeply when we speak of the Eucharist and the Paschal event.