Gospel reflection for March 17, 2024, Fifth Sunday of Lent
Somewhere around 10,000 B.C., our ancestors began to cultivate wheat, likely the first agricultural innovation in human history. This brought about a change from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to that of settlements onto small farms. Not only did that inaugurate significant social change, it changed the diet and lifestyle of humans. Now they could experiment with different methods of making breads, brought about the planting of other plants to enrich their bread, and also spawned the invention of beer, which also became a staple of their diet. All of this occurred in the Middle East, meaning that the proto-Hebrew people stood on the cutting edge of this innovation.
In order for a grain of wheat to become useful one of two things must happen. It must either be combined with thousands of other grains, milled and sifted into flour, or it must fall to the ground and die where it is transformed into a stalk of wheat.
It will take several millennia until the use of yeast to make a risen bread. This seems to have occurred in Egypt at the time that the Hebrews were enslaved there, meaning that they were able to make and use this new style of bread from the very outset of that innovation.
It became important in the life of the Hebrew people on the eve of the Exodus as they were instructed not to make leaven bread in preparation for their flight into the desert. This unleavened bread remains central to the celebration of Passover, and also to the nature of the Eucharistic bread in the Christian West.
At the time of Jesus, wheat and other grains remained a substantive part of their diet. Lacking the modern spoon and fork for eating, a bread similar to what we call pita was used to take food from a shared plate, and therefore accompanied each aspect of eating.
Preaching to an agrarian people, Jesus often uses images of wheat in his parables. While often employed to emphasize the nature of the Kingdom of God, the teaching of Jesus that we hear this Fifth Sunday of Lent takes on a different focus.
Jesus knows that in order for him to complete the mission for which he was sent it is not enough for him to teach and perform miracles for by themselves they are not universally transforming. He must lay down his own life and through that Death be raised from the dead so that we might come to know him as messiah and Lord. Yet this Paschal Sacrifice is not about him, it is about what he offers himself for: the salvation of the world and the promise of eternal life.
Jesus becomes the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies. In doing so, he becomes the source of bread, but now not just ordinary bread. Jesus becomes the Bread of Life, sharing his very physical presence with those who eat of this bread.
The Eucharist is Jesus Christ truly with us. His Death was a real death, and his Resurrection from the dead a true and physical resurrection. This was not for him alone, but the sign and source of the promise that we, too, will share in this life.
The bread that Jesus offers at the Last Supper takes on an entirely different meaning. Using the words of the Passover, Jesus takes the bread that symbolizes the journey from slavery to freedom and transforms it into the bread that comes with the promise of on-going communion with him, as it also keeps us in communion with his Church.
Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist. It is not just bread (and wine) that are transformed (transubstantiation) it is the Church, the Body of Christ.
The grain of wheat — Jesus — that falls to the ground dies — becomes the Bread of Life and the source of our eternal salvation.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.