A reader kindly posted this on our Facebook page: “In all The Bible, only John has a Chapter and Verse 6: 66.”
Three sixes. Sign of satan. What is the significance of the numerical symbol of evil in such a holy Chapter? We may begin with John 6: 41. The passage records the tendency of some Jewish people to complain when they realized God had led them into the desert before reaching The Promised Land: “Meanwhile the Jews were complaining to each other about Him because He had said ‘I am the bread that came down from Heaven.'”
By the time we reach 6: 52, the complaining had swollen into argument: ” . . .”the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'” An interesting point is what didn’t happen: They preferred to argue than pray. They did not say, “God, please show us how Jesus could be right.” They preferred argument to asking God for guidance.
Jesus did not attempt to mollify them. He bluntly told them in 6: 53 “I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will not have life in you.”
He reached 6: 58, and ended with this abrupt, startling conclusion: “. . anyone who eats this bread will live forever.” The clear associated meaning: “Those who refuse to eat this bread will die.”
6: 60 tells us that the previous complaining and argument were swollen into outrage after His refusal to provide polite explanation. “Some of His followers said ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?”
Jesus replied in 6: 63-64: “‘It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. But, there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.”
Then, in 6: 65, He makes it clear that His Words are a test, a hurdle, a winnowing screen that separates life from death, wheat from chaff: “And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless The Father allows him.”
And, that brings us to the rejection of Jesus for satan in 6: 66: “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” The three sixes provide additional symbolic clarity to what had happened in the 6th Chapter of John.
Satan led them from Jesus by encouraging complaint, argument, outrage, and rejection. They turned from He Who fulfilled the prophets to worship the Conventional Reality of the world.
Satan drew them away from Jesus and down the steps from complaint to argument to outrage and to rejecting the life and truth found in His Body and Blood.
Today, as in every age, Protestants reject His Body and Blood. They deny that it is supplied to the faithful through the ages by The Miracle of Transubstantiation at the hands of Catholic priests ordained in living link with Christ’s ordination of The Apostles.
The living dead in every age can even read John, Chapter 6, and hide from this blunt reality: The Bible in which they say they believe clearly describes One Saving Communion.
To the vain in every age, St. John cries “Be Catholic!”
