What Happens in Heaven Comes Down to Earth

August 19, 2018

There was an advertising blitz that coined the popular phrase, “What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.”  It was an insinuation that things that happen there should not be shared because what went on was either illegal, immoral or just plain wrong.  Many will use that phrase at different times—what happens here stays here.  Today the exact opposite is proclaimed in the Gospel.  This food, this Bread of life comes down from heaven.  This love that is overpowering by the Trinity cannot just be kept secret, it is to be shared.  Jesus says this is the Bread that comes down from heaven.  Knowing its origin is important. Yet to know its origin we must enter into the Trinity of love.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have this unity of pure and perfect love.  It expresses itself to us, it reveals itself to us in a way that we can enter into it.  In the beginning of John’s Gospel, the same as this reading, we are told in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God with God and was God.  This beautiful rendition of love tells us this love is poured out to be shared, proclaimed and to be the energy of our lives.

Jesus challenges the disciples that He will give them His real flesh to eat, His real blood to drink.  This is unimaginable to them.  It is a place of awkwardness and mystery.  They cannot visualize how this can happen.  Yet we are called not to be concerned by how it happens or what it looks like, but rather we are to be caught up in the love that makes it happen.  It is love that makes this bread the Bread of life.  It is the origin that offers us the mystery of this love. It is unlike the bread of the ancestors, it is unlike any bread we can create, or bake for ourselves.  This Bread comes from heaven.  This Bread is an expression of the Trinity of love.  God so loves the world that He constantly sends His Son to be our food and nourishment on the journey.

What happens in heaven never stays in heaven,

Reverend John J. Ouper