Through today’s readings, we are told that it is not Stephen, but they his judges, who are not keeping the Law since they are seen as rejecting God’s revelation and his messengers— a behaviour much akin to that exhibited in Jesus’ own trial before the unbelieving elders.
Stephen reminds them that having put Jesus to death, the greatest of all the prophets, they were continuing their long tradition of killing those messengers whom God had mercifully sent to save them and how Jesus however, not only saved them from a worldly tyrant, or devastation from another nation, but from eternal death. This infuriated them even more, yet Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, now experiences an ecstatic vision of God’s glory and Jesus standing at his right hand:
“Look…I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Acts 7:57.
When Stephen sees Jesus standing at “the right hand of the Father,” we must remember that in Scripture the “right hand” is a reoccurring image. The Psalms are good indicators of what this expression means in that it generally denotes closeness (Ps. 16:8), possession (Ps. 78:54), authority (Ps. 110:1), honor (Ps. 45:9), or power (Ps. 60:5, 118:16).
St. Thomas Aquinas (ST, III, q. 58) notes that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father in the following ways:
- Jesus dwells with the Father in heaven;
- Jesus, in heaven, shares with the Father all authority, judgment, and power;
- Jesus shares in the glory and honor of the Father, and;
- all things belong to Jesus
The religious leaders and trial judges could not stand hearing such ‘obscenities’ for to give to a heretic all these attributes is tantamount to treason and blasphemy of the highest order. Therefore,
“…they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.”
Any semblance of a just and proper trial were at this point bypassed. Stephen was driven beyond the walls of the city and immediately stoned there and then, just as Jesus, too, was crucified outside the city on Golgotha. So many elements in fact, in Stephen’s death resonate with the experience of our Lord Jesus:
-His forgiveness of his executioners.
-The total surrender of his life into God’s hands.
-His performing wonderful signs among the people.
-His uncompromising challenges to the authorities on their lack of integrity.
-The inability of his opponents to best him in debate.
-The throwing up of false witnesses to discredit him, and
-A trial involving these false witnesses.
In Stephen we have all the elements of a good Christian life worthy of God’s blessings:
-Readiness to speak up for one’s faith in spite of hostility and opposition.
-Readiness to lose one’s physical life and possessions for the sake of the Gospel vision.
-An unconditional love for all, including those who would hurt or destroy us.
-A policy of active non-violence whatever the provocation.
-total commitment to Jesus as Lord.
Stephen was able to dig deeper into who the Lord was, and the greater meaning of his miracles and words. Not so with the people in today’s gospel after Jesus had multiplied the loaves and fed thousands. If we take a closer look at the reading today we will see that the feeding of the many people, about five-thousand men we’re told, created some unwanted effects in the people. One of them was, that Jesus points out they later began to seek him out, not for who he was and to obey his teachings, but for more bread. They make it clear that compared to Moses, who fed the people “manna from Heaven” for forty years, this miracle looks tiny in comparison. As described in the New International Version Study Bible:
“A popular Jewish expectation was that when the Messiah came he would renew the sending of manna. The crowd probably reasoned that Jesus had done little compared to Moses. He had fed 5,000; Moses had fed a nation. He did it once; Moses did it for 40 years. He gave ordinary bread; Moses gave ‘bread from heaven.’”
Jesus replies that the manna was not the real bread from God; it was only a sign or symbol. It fed the body but not the spirit. Nevertheless, there’s no reasoning. Above and beyond this amazing miracle which ought to have made them believe in Jesus, they now want more signs, more miracles from him, and something even greater so that they would believe. Jesus is vexed at this point and we get a hint of it in the exchange that follows. They say to him,
“‘What sign will you give to show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do? Our fathers had manna to eat in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus answered: ‘I tell you most solemnly, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’”
They weren’t reasoning or seeing, even though Jesus was connecting the dots for them with the signs he did give them. They say to him, “Give us this bread always” (After all, Moses gave them manna in the desert for forty years). Jesus then makes it very clear to them, “‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst’ John 6:30-35.
This is the first of seven “I AM…” statements that will appear in John’s Gospel which clearly denote Jesus’ divinity. Perhaps the clearest instance will be when the Jews were extolling Abraham, and to leave no room or shadow of a doubt, he tells them that “Before Abraham was, I AM” John 8:48-59. This will happen in our subsequent readings throughout these days. The phrase – in Greek ego eimi – recalls the name of God revealed to Moses in the burning bush (see Exodus 3:14). Both the desert manna and this recent miracle of Jesus are both parable-signs of God giving himself to his people in a very special way, the latter being the perfect fulfillment of what the former was indicating, and this is what the people whom Jesus was interacting with were missing.
Jesus also spoke to them of going to him. To “come to Jesus” means to align yourself with what he desires for you, and a collaboration with all his teachings. It implies much, much more than just receiving our Lord at Holy Communion. That is the intimacy of our union with him, but without all the other important factors inherent in any good relationship, the intimacy will make little sense.
To eat that Bread of Life, we have to soak ourselves in the life of Jesus, to penetrate deeply into the Word of God that comes to us in the Gospel and the rest of the Scriptures, to assimilate his Way into our own lives. The Eucharist we celebrate is the sign of that Bread of Life which, in fact, is available all day long to those who are in close contact with Jesus. So Jesus, risen from the dead, has been giving himself to us beneath this species of bread and wine for way over forty years now. In other words, Jesus did in fact outdo the miracle wrought in Moses time, and has given to us something greater which will endure till the last day.
Our Blessed Mother, Saints Joseph, Francis, Clare, all the saints, were those who lived in that close relationship with Jesus and who were therefore, and remain truly alive with his spirit. Am I striving to be one of them? How much has my relationship to the Lord matured since when I first began taking my faith seriously? How often do I acknowledge the blessings he has blessed me and my loved ones with? Let us continue to “go to him” for he alone has the words of everlasting life.
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