Television show where three people would come out and try to convince the celebrity panel who the real person was. At the end they would say, “Would the real so and so stand up.”
What did Jesus claim about himself? Who did Jesus say that he was? Over the season of Lent (with the exception of next week) we are going to look at John’s gospel to see what Jesus had to say about himself, his “I am” statements. Seven times Jesus declared “I am.” He said, “I am the bread of Life (6:35,41,48,51),” “I am the light of the world (8:12; 9:5),” “I am the gate (10:7,9),” “I am the good shepherd (10:11,14),” “I am the vine (15:1,5),” “I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6),” and “I am the resurrection and the life (11:25).”
This Sunday we are looking at Jesus’ first declaration, “I am the Bread of Life.”
The day before Jesus said these words he had spoken to a crowd of possibly 10-15,000 people (the Bible says there were 5,000 men not counting women and children) who had come to hear him, but no one had brought any food, except one little boy who had two fish and five loaves of bread. Jesus took the fish and bread gave God thanks, and began handing out basket after basket until every single person there had eaten their fill, and there were even 12 baskets of bread leftover. In a truly miraculous way Jesus had provided for their physical need for food that day.
Because the people wanted to forcibly make Jesus their king, he went up into the hills away from the people. That night the disciples waited around for Jesus at the shore but since he didn’t come they took off across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum, and in the middle of the night Jesus walked on the water and joined them. The next morning, the crowd went searching for Jesus but they couldn’t find him, and so they set sail to Capernaum to find Jesus, and so the crowd once again mobbed around Jesus.
You would think Jesus would happy about the determination of these people to go searching for Jesus. You would think Jesus would be happy that people were coming to him, right? But listen again to what Jesus said to the crowd, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill (John 6:26).”
Jesus was not impressed with their pursuit of him because the crowd had followed him because he fed them, they had eaten until their bellies were full, and now they were looking for more. Their pursuit of Jesus had nothing to do with his miracles, with his being the Messiah, or even his teachings. They followed Jesus because of their stomachs not their hearts. Of course if you believe the old adage, ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,’ Jesus might have had something going here.
1. Full Bellies and Empty Souls
A. (v. 26) The inadequacy of searching after physical/material desires
Jesus continued, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval (6:27)."
The people had invested their time and effort for something which was perishable, it wouldn’t last very long. Jesus’ response was essentially saying, “don’t waste all of this effort in seeking things which are here today and gone tomorrow (food that spoils), what you really need is to focus your efforts on getting that which satisfies your deepest hunger, your spiritual hunger for God is what he is referring to, this “food” you can only receive from God’s Son. It will never spoil but will last forever.
Unfortunately the people misunderstood Jesus again, and assumed he meant he would provide food for them eternally, perhaps this food would even allow them to live eternally. An early Jewish Midrash (like a commentary on the Bible) showed that Jews believed when the Messiah would come he would provide eternal manna, just as Moses had provided the manna when the children of Israel were wandering in the desert for 40 years. The manna was a mysterious substance which would show up like the dew day after day (except on the Sabbath). And it provided for the nutritional needs of the people. Even though God provided in such a supernatural way, it was still plain old food. The next day they would be hungry again, and God would have to provide manna once more.
Of course we need food and drink to keep our physical bodies alive, but Jesus was critical of the crowds because the only reason they followed Jesus was because of their immediate physical need without any concern for their spiritual need, for their soul, for their relationship with God. The reality that one day food, even their own bodies will no longer be alive, they are all perishable. It reminds me of Jesus’ words in Mark 8:36 And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process?
We can be found guilty of the same thing today.
i) Worrying about our daily needs.
We worry about our immediate needs; food, home, clothing, and perhaps we even come to Jesus to find help. People come to the church, or to Jesus in prayer with the hopes Jesus will meet their real physical need, it could be a need for food, a need for God’s healing, a broken relationship. And there is nothing wrong with this, people in Jesus’ day came to Jesus for many reasons, but Jesus is trying to saying there is more going on than just our physical need. There is a spiritual hunger and thirst within which we must recognize. This need for God, more specifically a relationship with him, we have a need for forgiveness from our sin.
Jesus said we do not need to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear. If we put God in first place and seek after him, God will provide these things.
Matthew 6:31 So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
ii) Trying to fill the God shaped hole with other “good” things
There is another way in which we behave like this crowd as we search after Jesus. We try to fill this God shaped hole in our heart with everything but Jesus. God has created each of us with a God shaped hole in our heart, a void that only God can fill, without him we are empty and life has no meaning or purpose. We fill the emptiness in our life with the stuff of this world, even the stuff we need, like food, drink, a home, clothing, relationships. God has given us these things, but we overindulge ourselves on these “good needs” hoping they will fill the emptiness we feel. Like the crowd, we can take good things, like food, and pursue them more than we pursue Jesus. We can indulge ourselves with food, we can be obsessed with clothes, perhaps having designer clothes, or the big house, we can try to have the right relationships, lots of friends so we feel loved, or going into a marriage thinking this person will fulfill all of my deepest needs. Or sometimes we try to fill the emptiness with things which we are harmful like alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling. I know it happens all the time, how many teenage girls have sex because they hope it will fill an absence of love which only God was meant to fill. It is true that any one of these things may satisfy for a brief period of time, but then we feel emptier than we were before, and we think that by pursuing more of it we will find that satisfaction we are missing, or try to ignore it by drowning it out, but we never do. Soon we are even emptier and hungrier than we were before.
It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ book, now a movie, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Toward the beginning one of the four Pevense children, Edmund, finds himself in the mystical land of Narnia for the first time, and he encounters the White Witch, who calls herself the Queen of Narnia when in reality she is a symbol for Satan in the land of Narnia. She tries to manipulate Edmund by enticing him with whatever he would like to eat, and so Edmund asks for his favorite, Turkish Delight. The witch magically produces several pounds of his favorite food, and Edmund began to eat and eat while the witch wrung the information she wanted out of him. Let me read for you a bit,
“At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat…At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.”
This is a perfect picture of how Satan works, he tries to get us obsessed with things we need in order to try to fill our emptiness. But they will only fill us temporarily, eventually we will get hungry or thirsty again. Satan tries to keep us away from the true source of fulfillment, Jesus Christ.
2. Jesus is the Bread of Life
Jesus said, “It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty (6:32-33, 35).”
Jesus promises us that he will fill our real hunger forever, because he is the bread of life come down from heaven. He fills that longing we cannot seem to satisfy on our own. Later in John’s gospel, Jesus said he came so that we might have life and have it to the full (John 10:10), but this life is only possible through Jesus Christ.
A. We need to receive Jesus as God’s Son if we are to satisfy our spiritual hunger and thirst
The crowd responded to Jesus’ revelation by saying, what work must we do? There is nothing we can do on our own to fill the void. The only thing we can “do,” is to come to Jesus and believe he is God’s Son sent from heaven, to believe he is the only source of eternal fulfillment, that he provides life to the fullest in this world and eternal life with God forever in heaven.
How have you been attempting to fill your hunger, not your physical hunger but the deeper spiritual hunger, the hunger for purpose, the hunger to connect with your Creator with your Father in heaven who loves you and wants to give you life? Have you been trying to fill the void in your life with the things of this world, even the good things like food, clothing, or even relationships? Or perhaps you have worried about not having these things and put them above pursuing God. Jesus invites us to come to him and receive him, to receive life and fulfills our deepest need. Perhaps you are dry or thirsty, feeling unsatisfied with your life. Let this be an opportunity to come to Christ, or to come to him again to be filled by him.
