I. It is in the Lord himself alone that the power of life dwells, and from Him that it goes forth. There is no intermediate agent. He is the life of men, and it is by feeding on Himself that eternal life is both obtained and assured. But as in the miracle, so in this which is signified by it, He is pleased to impart this nourishment of life not without visible and sensible material, on which His life-giving power will be exercised. In the one case, it is the five loaves and the two fishes which represent and as it were carry the weight of so mighty a thing, in the other case, it is the visible Body and Blood of the Lord, whatsoever He is pleased to appoint to set them forth and carry the semblance of them to us. The great truth which underlies the whole is this, that Christ is the Bread of life, the only food of man for an eternity of vitality and blessing, that this blessing must come from no other than the Lord Himself in direct and personal contact with a man's own self in his inner being; but that He is pleased, in condescension to our weakness, to make use of signs and symbols whereupon His power acts, and by means of which man apprehends His life-giving power, and becomes partaker of it.
II. This incident our Lord's interpretation shows, as plainly as can be shown, that the ordinance of the Sacrament is not commemorative merely. An actual feeding upon Christ, not indeed corporeal, but spiritual, is spoken of throughout His discourse here. And when Christ said, "This do in remembrance of Me," it is plain that the remembrance is to be understood as bringing with it and involving not merely the revelation of an event past, or of a dear departed friend and benefactor, but the participation also in a present benefit, grounded on the realizing of that past event and the union with that Divine benefactor and source of life, in an actual and present manner. The discourse of which my text is part is thus of immense value to the Christian, as assuring him of a real living and feeding upon his Saviour, in that Sacrament, rescuing him from the notion of its being merely a commemoration without present living benefit.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. vi., p. 233.
References: John 6:48. Homiletic Magazine,vol. ix., p. 201. Joh 6:48-54. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 110.