This essay first appeared in our weekly newsletter on August 10, 2024.
Last weekend, at the conclusion of Sunday Mass in Dahlgren Chapel at Georgetown University, the congregation sang the hymn “I Am the Bread of Life.” That popular song was the recessional hymn for the final Mass of the Outreach 2024 conference, which gathered more than 300 LGBTQ Catholics, their friends and families, and those who minister to them, for a weekend of sharing, community and worship.
I’ve never been so moved by that hymn, especially the line, “And I will raise you up, on the last day!” Afterwards, I wondered why. A few reasons came to mind. First, the beautiful chapel was packed with people. (To be honest, I wasn’t sure if we’d all fit, but we did!) Second, nearly everyone there knew the hymn; even though only the refrain was printed in the program, everyone belted out all the verses.
Finally, it’s a song associated in many people’s minds with funerals, and so it naturally raises powerful emotions. So, as I processed out of the church alongside my Jesuit brother Greg Schenden, S.J., director of campus ministry at Georgetown, I was on the verge of tears.
Raymond Brown: “Jesus dominates as both the agent and the source of salvation.”
But the other reason that this hymn is so powerful for me is the truth of the well-known refrain: Jesus will indeed “raise us up,” as he says in this Sunday’s Gospel.
The theme of this part of the “Bread of Life Discourse,” which is given in the synagogue at Capernaum not long after Jesus has fed the crowds with loaves and fishes, is on Jesus as the bread that gives life. As such, it has strong eucharistic overtones.
And, as the New Testament scholar Raymond Brown says in his commentary on this passage, no longer are we focusing on the Father’s role of bringing people to Jesus, as we had been a few verses earlier. Rather, as Fr. Brown says, “Jesus dominates as both the agent and the source of salvation.”
There are, as I said, strong eucharistic overtones here. But there is another strong theme, which is what moved me last Sunday: Jesus’s promise of eternal life. The other overtone is that of the Resurrection. But crucially, with Jesus, new life is not just something that happens “on the last day.”
In the Gospels, Jesus promises his followers new life in several ways. First, he tells them, as he does in this passage. Second, he shows them, as in the Raising of Lazarus, which demonstrates his power over death. Finally, he reveals it to them definitively in his own resurrection, when death is finally defeated.
But this “new life” is available to us now. If you recall the story of Lazarus, you’ll remember that Martha says to Jesus that she knows his brother will be raised “on the last day.” That’s a profound statement of faith on her part. But Jesus “ups the ante” and tells her, “I am the Resurrection and Life.”
New life is here because the reign of God is here. And the reign of God is here because Jesus is here. Now.
In other words, new life is available not only on the “last day,” but on that day. New Testament scholars say that Jesus moves Martha from an eschatological (or end time) hope to one that is imminent. New life is here because the reign of God is here. And the reign of God is here because Jesus is here. Now.
I thought about all that as we sang the words “And I will raise you up.” For so many people, new life can feel far away. But belief in Jesus, reliance on him and especially trusting that he is with you, and on your side, can give you new life. Not simply on the last day, but today—and all days.
0 Comments