A Risky Business

Sometimes Jesus is called “The Second Moses.” The idea is that, while the first law came from God through Moses, the more perfect law has been given to us by Jesus. Whatever truth there may be in the title “The Second Moses,” it is also very misleading. In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus is trying to draw people away from their fixation on Moses and point them toward the Father who is the Source of everything good. “It was not Moses who gave you bread from the heavens; it is My Father who gives you the real heavenly bread” (Jn.6:32). And then these extraordinary words: “I Myself am the Bread of Life” (Jn.6:35). To understand what this dramatic shift means, we must, as we read in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, “lay aside our former way of life and the old self… and acquire a fresh, spiritual way of thinking” (Eph.4:22-23). Religion-the wrong kind of religion-can, in Paul’s words, be part of that “old self which…