Our Bible, all of Sacred Scripture, is a book of “echoes” and recollections and prophecy. The main themes or lessons God is teaching us all point to Jesus Christ and the Eucharist, and resound through all of Scripture. The Holy Mass, the Eucharist was always intended to be the gathering place where we as God’s children and family would gather around him and experience Him and be fed by Him. The way to understand the Bible is to understand these echoes and foretellings woven throughout scripture.
When God fed the Israelites in the desert with Manna from Heaven, it was a prophecy and an echo of the Eucharist. God will feed His people Bread from Heaven.
In the Third Commandment God calls us to keep holy the Sabbath, together in congregation.
The prophet Jonah’s three days in the belly of the whale is an echo of Christ’s three days in the tomb after the Last Supper.
The prophet Elijah was sent by God to a widow and her son who suffered in a prolonged drought and famine, and were preparing to die of starvation. The three of them lived for a year, through the end of the drought, on an almost empty jar of oil and a handful of flour. God can feed us from an unlimited bounty.
Elijah’s assistant Elisha succeeded him as prophet after Elijah was taken up to heaven. Listen again to the first reading reflect the Gospel.
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing to Elisha, the man of God,
twenty barley loaves made from the firstfruits,
and fresh grain in the ear.
Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.”
But his servant objected,
“How can I set this before a hundred people?”
Elisha insisted, “Give it to the people to eat.”
“For thus says the LORD,
‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’”
And when they had eaten, there was some left over,
as the LORD had said.
Normally we think of an echo occurring after an event, like shouting into a canyon and the echo repeats. But in Sacred Scripture, God is preparing us well ahead of the main event, like Christ’s death and resurrection and the Eucharist at the Last Supper. In Sacred Scripture this “echo” is a foretelling. In this echo of the Eucharist in the Old Testament God is preparing his people for the great gift of the Body and Blood of Christ, and in abundance.
The gift of “Firstfruits” that was multiplied for the people was a “tithe” given to the prophet as the representative of God.
Prophets exist to bring us God’s Word. We hear Elisha say, “For thus says the Lord…”
“For thus says the LORD,
‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’”
Hear the “echo” of the Last Supper in today’s Gospel from John Chapter 6.
Jesus went up on the mountain,
and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
Jesus and his disciples went up the mountain to Jerusalem for the Passover meal. The Last Supper occured just prior to the Jewish feast of the Passover.
In the Exodus from Egypt with Moses, over a thousand years prior to the birth of Jesus, the first Passover meal itself was an echo of the Last Supper and the promise of God’s saving Grace. Jesus, himself became the Passover Lamb for our Passover meal. God’s Word echoes large in all Sacred Scripture. Jesus, himself, will feed us with his Body and Blood. And, like the Passover, death cannot defeat those who eat Christ’s Body and Blood. Jesus says,
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life in him.”
That is a promise. The Eucharist defeats Death and evil.
We fulfill these prophecies every time we receive Holy Communion. We continue to participate in the “Echo” of God’s Word and promises here at Mass.
For the next several weeks we will be reading the Gospel of John chapter 6 and hearing the Word of God prepare us for the Sacrament of the Eucharist. I encourage all of you to read the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, listening to Jesus preparing us to understand more fully the mystery of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist.