An Eternal Feast for the End of Time

Sunday next before Advent
St. John 6:5-14
© 2009 Rev. Matthew L. Whitehead

The Sunday next before Advent is the last day of liturgical time. The entire year behind us was organized in such a way that we have reenacted the drama of salvation through the various feasts and fasts. We come today to the end of this liturgical year, and next week to the beginning of another on the First Sunday in Advent. Advent is designed to make us expectant of the arrival of our Lord – the gentle arrival of his first advent in the Nativity, and the fearsome second advent of the Last Day, when he returns as judge over his creation.

Even though today is considered technically to be the last Sunday of Trinity Season, it functions as a precursor to Advent Season, much like the ‘Gesima’ Sundays before Lent. The propers chosen for today were not chosen according to the general and sometime randomness of Trinity Season, but rather for their focus on Advent. Already the more astute among you are replaying the lessons in your minds: You have reconciled the collect, for the concept of reward hints at the final judgment; You have reconciled the epistle lesson, for the branch of David is clearly Jesus who comes by way of the Nativity; You come now to the gospel lesson, and perhaps you are stymied… what does Jesus’ miracle of feeding the five-thousand have to do with Advent?

Theories abound about why today’s gospel lesson was chosen. The first theory ignores Advent altogether: It is thought that the lesson was chosen because of the Apostle Saint Andrew’s role in the narrative and today’s proximity to his feast day on November thirtieth. I think we can do a bit better than this. Another theory looks at verse twelve of the lesson, when they collected the fragments so nothing would be lost, and mystically connects this with the idea of the end of the liturgical year: We have been filled with God’s truth, His presence, and now it is over. This is a nice picture, but I think it is a bit vague and a bit of a stretch. A third theory picks up on the words of the people after the miracle and connects that to Advent: Jesus is indeed “that prophet that should come into the world”, and Advent is indeed the time which we celebrate that he will come. With this theory we are getting warmer, but I think we can make the connection between today’s gospel lesson and today’s liturgical theme a bit stronger.1 The connection between today’s gospel lesson and today’s liturgical theme is in the eucharist. It is the eucharist that unites all things Christian, and today we see the eucharist foreshadowed in the miracle of feeding the five-thousand, and foreshadowing the second advent of Christ.

First, let us look at the eucharistic imagery of the gospel lesson. Our lesson begins at verse five, but if we had begun at verse three we would have seen two details very important to the miracle. In verse four we read that Passover was near. This fact should bring to mind the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, it should bring to mind all of the sacrificial requirements of the Old Law, and it should bring to mind the first eucharist in the Upper Room just hours before Jesus’ Passion. Passover was near, and in this miracle and the teaching that follows it, Jesus Christ shows how the Passover will be fulfilled by him and remembered forever in the breaking of bread.

In verse three we read that Jesus ‘went up’ a mountain, which should call to mind all of the theological imagery of ascension. Mankind has always ‘gone up’ to encounter God. The Temple sat atop a mountain, and faithful Jews would ‘go up’ to the Temple to pray and offer sacrifice. In Christian worship, the celebrant processes the aisle and ‘goes up’ the steps to the altar. Before the consecration, we say “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord,” proclaiming together our desire to ascend into God’s presence. Ascension always precedes worship and sacrifice. This miracle, then, is more than a show of divine power, it is a foretaste of the true worship found only in the eucharistic sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

In the miracle itself we see the eucharistic formula expressed, and even though there are fish present, the focus is entirely on the bread.2 “Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed…” Saint Matthew’s account of this miracle includes the breaking of the bread.3 These are the same actions of our Lord in the Last Supper,4 the same actions prescribed by Saint Paul,5 and the same actions which every Christian priest has repeated in the eucharist ever since: He took the bread, he blessed the bread or gave thanks (the original Greek word is always eucharisto, from which we get ‘eucharist’), he broke the bread, and then he gave the holy bread to his disciples. In this particular case he gave it to the twelve, that they might distribute it out among the people.

“The hunger of the multitude is satisfied by the word of God coming to them from the teaching of the Law and the Prophets… [In fulfillment] of the Law and the Prophets, [Jesus] has himself become the evangelical bread” through which all spiritual hunger is satisfied.6 And beyond what was selected for our reading this morning, the rest of Saint John chapter six records the words of Jesus explicitly calling himself the bread of life and commanding that we feast on his body. It is in these words of his that we have the most forceful apologetic for the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist. We do not explain how it happens, as some have tried,7 but neither do we commit the equal and opposite error of denying his presence.8 We simply acknowledge that, as he has promised, our Lord is present in the gifts of bread and wine, but the blessings of his presence are accessible only through faith.9,10

This miracle of feeding five-thousand people is certainly a foretaste of the eucharist, but what does that have to do with Advent, and why is it important on this last day of liturgical time? To answer this we turn to Saint Paul, who taught us that “as often as [we celebrate the eucharist we proclaim] the Lord’s death till he come”. It is in Advent that we proclaim that Christ is coming. By Saint Paul’s logic, then, we should be driven to the eucharist.

But there is more to the eucharist than proclaiming death; the eucharist is not necrophilia. We must unpack that idea. It is impossible to proclaim Christ’s death in isolation. To proclaim his death presupposes his life, which leads us to his Incarnation and Nativity, and to his Resurrection whereby he defeated death, and his Ascension whereby “he ever liveth to make intercession”11 for us. If the entire Christian liturgical year is a reenactment of these great events, then it is the eucharist which animates their celebration. The eucharist takes us beyond mere commemoration of the events of Christ’s life, and makes us participants in his life; we become animated by and united with the divine source of all life.

How, then, does the eucharist enrich our celebration of Advent? We look back at his Nativity, and we proclaim that just as that little baby who could be held and kissed was God incarnate, so now is God’s presence made real before us in the eucharist. We anticipate his second advent, and so we celebrate the eucharist, proclaiming with Saint Paul that he will come again in bodily form, just as he is now present before us in the bread. We can then move beyond Advent to rest of the Christmas cycle. On the Feast of Circumcision we celebrate that he who was made obedient to the Old Law, now unites us to himself in the eucharist and we become obedient to his Law. At Epiphany the very Christ who was made manifest to the Magi in the body of a child, is revealed to us Gentiles in the bread. The body of the one who was Presented in the Temple has now become the Temple, and bids us to feast on his body that we also may become temples of God’s presence.

Today is the last day of liturgical time. It is as if we stand on the brink of eternity. And indeed, the Christian life is to be lived with an earnest expectation that our Lord will return at any moment. Our anticipation of the end of the world should not lead us to become doomsday prophets, or to retreat into the hills to get off the grid. Rather, our Lord and his apostles have taught us that the Christian anticipation of the end of time is to be celebrated by the one feast that unites heaven and earth. On this last day of liturgical time we will celebrate the eucharist, for there is no better way to proclaim that our Lord is Risen from the dead, Ascended into Heaven, and will Return again with glory.

1 Theories listed in Shepherd, Massey H., Jr. The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. 225-26.
2 The bread is the sole and explicit focus of the blessing, with the fish being blessed “likewise” afterwards. Only the bread is specifically collected after the miracle, with no mention of the fish.
3 Mt 14:13-21.
4 Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:14-20.
5 1Cor 11:23-34.
6 Hilary of Poitiers, On Matthew, 14.11; Simonetti, Manlio, ed. Matthew 14-28, vol. NT-Ib. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, ed. Thomas C. Oden. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002. (ACCS), 213.
7 As in the theory of Transubstantiation, which “overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament” (Article 28).
8 As Zwingli, the Radical Reformers, and many Protestants who insist the Sacraments are only bare memorials (Articles 25-29).
9 Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, 3.6; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.6; Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 24.1-3; ACCS, 214-16.
10 This must not be read to advocate Receptionism, that the eucharist is only effectual for those who partake in faith. St. Paul is clear that the objective presence of Christ in the eucharist condemns those who partake apart from faith (1Cor 11:23-34).
11 Heb 7:25.