In music we have what is called a theme and variations. This musical form is found in various periods of music, classical to jazz and in between. A composer proposes a theme, a musical melody of some sort. Then the composer repeats that melody with variations, the same melody, just different ways of presenting it.
We have been gradually reading and reflecting on Chapter Six of the Gospel of St. John, and we now reach in verses 53 thru 58 what I would call the variations. Our Lord, like a gifted composer, has presented us earlier with the theme: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48). Now in those six verses (John 6:53-58) He repeats that theme and each time, in each verse, with added emphasis and nuance of meaning.
His audience asked, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). They cannot grasp the teaching. Our Lord retracts nothing of what He has said, offers no apologies and no modifications. Instead, He repeats the teaching, each time with a different phrasing: “[U]less you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:53-58). I count six reiterations of the teaching, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48). Our Lord, like an artist, has repeated the theme with variations. Why? He does so to make clear how beautiful the teaching is. He is indeed the bread of life to be consumed!