The Eucharist Is What Draws Us Close To God???

Last Saturday at the Des Moines Farmers Market, a woman approached Paul on the box as he was open-air preaching.  Paul guided her to me so that she could say her peace and that he could continue speaking.  Once in a while people ask questions that just throw me off.  This woman, who was really gentle and kind by the way, said that we should become Catholic because it would make us nearer to God.  I was pretty stunned by the statement and really had a hard time answering being that both Paul and I escaped from Catholicism to Protestantism because (well I can only speak for myself) I couldn’t have been further from God.  So I asked her, “How then does a Catholic get nearer to God being a Catholic?”  She responded that it was through the Eucharist, and then shifted the conversation to John 6, in that he that eats His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Me and I in him.

⁵³ Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. ⁵⁶ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”- John 6:53-58.

Roman Catholic Error

So I asked her, “Do you believe you have the Holy Spirit living within you?” 

“Yes, I do.”

“Then why do you need the Eucharist if God resides in you already?  Why do I need something physical when I already have something (someone) spiritual within me.  Do you believe that if the Holy Spirit is residing within me that He abides with me forever?”  I asked. 

“I know what you’re saying.  I just want to invite you back to the Catholic Church.” 

I said, “Well, we are here inviting people to come to Jesus…not to the church.“

She asked why I left in the first place and then I started to answer but then she had to go.  I guess she just wanted a quick answer.  I’m sorry, I was in the church 30 years, and one day I woke up and realized when I read the bible that I either had to remain a Catholic and believe the Catechism, or I become a Christian and believe the bible.  But I couldn’t be both. 

What I Should Have Said.

What I probably said was that she had a misunderstanding of John 6 and saw it only through Roman Catholic lenses.  You have to take the chapter as a whole and look at what happened previous, and what Jesus said about Himself throughout the book of John.  Basically…what was Jesus trying to convey to the people?  That He was the Son of God, and that the Father sent Him as the propitiation of sin.

Chapter 6

In order to answer this question we need to look at chapter 6 as a whole.  Verses 1-14 is the feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus fed 5,000 men including women and children.  Some of these 5,000 wanted to make Jesus king so He went away from them to be alone. 

The following day the people catch up to Jesus and His disciples and He already knows what lies in their hearts…that they didn’t come for Him, but for what He can give them.  And since He wasn’t going to give them food, they ask how they can work the works of God (John 6:28).  The rest of the chapter talks about how it was not Moses who gave their ancestors bread from heaven but that the bread from heaven came from the Father, and that Jesus, who is the bread from heaven came from the Father as well.  Both are for nourishment…one for the body, and another for the soul.  One for temporal life, the other for everlasting life.  One will fade, the other lasts forever.  Bread does not last, but Jesus lasts forever more. 

All of John

Not only did Jesus say that He was the bread of life (John 6:35), He also said that He was:

·         I am the Messiah who brings living water and those who drink will never thirst (4:26)

·         I am come in My Father’s name ( 5:43 kjv)

·         I am the bread of life (6:35,48)

·         I am the living bread which came down from heaven (6:51)

·         I am from Him and He that sent me (7:29)

·         I am the light of the world (8:12)

·         I am not alone but with the Father who sent Me (8:16)

·         I am from above (8:23)

·         Before Abraham was…I am (8:58)

·         I am the light of the world (9:5; 12:46)

·         I am the door of the sheep (10:7)

·         I am the door by which men are saved (10:9)

·         I am the good shepherd (10:11,14)

·         I am the Son of God (10:36)

·         I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)

·         I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No man comes to the Father but by Me (14:6)

·         I am in the Father, and the Father in Me (14:10,11,20)

·         I am the true vine (15:1,5)

·         I am not alone for the Father is with Me (16:32)

·         I am not of this world (17:14,16)

The truth is, is Jesus is the Messiah and what we need to do to work the works of God is to believe in Jesus whom the Father sent (John 6:29).  It’s not about the Eucharist, a specific denomination or church, but it’s about believing on Jesus whom the Father sent, and abiding in Him.  That’s what gets us close to God.