In his book entitled God‘s Psychiatry, Charles Allen tells this story:
As World War II was drawing to a close, the Allied armies gathered up many hungry orphans. They were placed in camps where they were well-fed. Despite excellent care, they slept poorly. They seemed nervous and afraid. Finally, a psychologist came up with the solution. Each child was given a piece of bread to hold after he was put to bed. This particular piece of bread was just to be held—not eaten. The piece of bread produced wonderful results. The children went to bed knowing instinctively they would have food to eat the next day. That guarantee gave the children a restful and contented sleep.
What can be notable about this bread … is that it wasn‘t bread for the stomach, but bread for the soul. Their stomachs were already full. But a deeper hunger and need was at hand… a need to find security and satisfaction of soul.
As we get older… we understand the need for bread… but also the limits of physical bread. We lose the adolescent illusion of immortality… like holding water in our hands. Anyone who has outgrown it takes claims of eternal life seriously.
As we continue in our series A Journey with Jesus through the Gospel of John… Jesus speaks to the deeper hunger in all of us. Jesus speaks to another well fed group in need of bread. You may recall that he had massive crowds following him… and one late afternoon when a crowd followed him across the Sea of Galilee, the obvious need for food arose as it was late and there was no place to get food… that Jesus was offered a boys lunch.. and from it miraculously fed somewhere between 5,000 to 15,000 lives. Soon after we come to this dialogue wit those who followed him.
John 6:25-35, 48-59
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" 26 Jesus answered, "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. 27 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." 28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" 29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." 30 So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" 32 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 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.
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Underlying this exchange is the lack of grasping an eternal spiritual reality that transcends the material. They understand the idea of God…but only as he provides material temporal goods. They are hoping Jesus will be the promised Messiah who will fulfill their primary focus which is overthrowing Roman oppression and usher them into a new era of prosperity.
This suitable sign in their minds was for Jesus to once again provide manna from Heaven as they believe Moses did for the Children of Israel in the wilderness. They believed this because they had been taught by the Rabbis that the coming Messiah would again give them manna. Therefore the people were challenging Jesus to produce the bread of God (the manna) in order to prove His claim to be the Messiah. Something far greater was at hand… Jesus begins to speak through their limited understanding.
Jesus begins to cut through their short sidedness. He notes that it was not Moses but God who provided the Manna.
More importantly, manna was not the true bread of God, only a symbol….manna gave physical satisfaction… the true bread gives total satisfaction – for life! So the first point we can grasp is that…
1. The Bread of Life provides ETERNAL fulfillment
Jesus declares…
―Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.‖ – John 6:49
They ate and died. Everyone who ate his food… everyone he healed… still faced the limits of this temporal like. All the feeding and healing he might ring was temporal… signs that pointed to something that transcends life as we know it. This points to what is no vital to grasp: we long for something more.
Manna was never the ultimate bread of life…never the living bread.
Jesus is affirming in the most dramatic way possible the satisfying nature of the life He brings.
Ravi Zachari “Jesus‟ words were intended to lift the listeners from their barren, food-dominated existence to the recognition and acknowledgment of the supreme hunger of life that can only be filled with a different bread.” Food and power blind the mind to the need for nourishment and strength of soul. Unfortunately, many fail to pause here long enough to really hear what Jesus is teaching and understand the life-transforming power contained in this truth.‖ Some of the most dissatisfied people in the world live in the developed countries of the world. We who have more than enough to eat and a comfortable place to live are not satisfied. There is a deeper hunger. There is a restlessness which says, “There has to be more to life than this.”
St. Augustine rightly observed that every single person has a God-shaped vacuum in his soul. We can attempt to fill that cavity with a host of other things, but only God can satisfy this God need.
Sociologists have described the fall of the Soviet Union as that which began with the replacement of God with material hope… a utopia of material satisfaction for all…. that could never satisfy.
―Ever since God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we have lived in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed to live. We were built to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships without friction, fellowship without distance. But something is wrong, and we know it, both within our world and within ourselves. Deep inside we sense we're out of the nest, always ending the day in a motel room, never at home.‖
-Larry Crabb, Inside Out
It would be easy for us to judge and ridicule this crowd of people following Jesus for their near-sightedness. But their illness might is contagious. We all need to discover that beneath the hunger of stomach is a hunger of soul.
It becomes clear they understood at least something of this lasting nature… so in verse 34 they say: ―Lord, give us this bread always.‖ To which in verse 35 Jesus then responds, ―I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
2. The Bread of Life is the PERSON OF JESUS
―I AM the Bread of Life.‖ What a statement! He is claiming to be that which one needs in order to have life and continue to live. He came down from heaven to provide a source of entering into eternal life.
It is no coincidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “the house of bread!”
Life is not found in the principles of Jesus… or the programs of Jesus… but the PERSON of Jesus.
He is Himself the Bread of Life. He doesn‟t give it. He is it. And to have it, one must have Him.
This is so vital for us to grasp amidst a culture that speaks of religious ideas as if they alone offer power when they are just ideas. We can ask each other what we believe and we answer in such a way that reflects that we are really the center of reality. When asked what we believe we may describe a god who could be lucky enough to get our vote. We will not receive the Bread of Life this way. We can learn from this encounter what we must rise above.
(Thoughts below drawn and adapted from K. Edward Skidmore)
There were those who were not yet able to receive the Bread of Life… and they reveal some..
Diversions from receiving the personal life of Jesus
1. MATERIALISM (John 6:26)
"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
Many of the people who followed Jesus at this point were hoping for the political savior… a provider of better free handouts and material good. For them Jesus was the latest and greatest gravy train. These people had watched Rome have limited success by instituting a sort of welfare program
that they called a ‗Bread for Peace.‘ There were many hungry, jobless, homeless people in Rome. So the government tried to avoid riots by buying them off with goodies. The plan backfired, because the demands of the crowd simply grew and grew.
Well, Jesus knew that he faced a similar problem the day after he fed the masses with barley cakes and salt-dried fish.
Missionaries in third-world countries often talk about “Rice Christians.” These are people who convert to some religious identity called ‗Christianity‘ when there is food or some other physical benefit. The problem with Rice Christians is that when the goods are gone, so are they. Rice Christians can be found all over the world. We can all be vulnerable to look to God when we have material needs and desires.
The problem isn‟t seeking such… but when our desire for material needs is defining our relationship with God … rather than our relationship with God defining our desire for material needs.
―Jesus told the crowd: 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.‖ - John 6:27 The MATERIALISTS can‘t really consume the Bread of Life… as they seek the temporal bread of this world…so they turn away.
Others would eventually turn away also. They were turned away by their LEGALISM. 2. LEGALISM (John 6:28)… or religiosity They asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" John 6:28 Notice the emphasis on ―do‖… double ‗do‘… a ‗do do‘ (Wow… I could really run with that.)
We can prefer to fulfill some required task…. rather than receive the relationship of a sovereign God. A job assignment gives us some sovereignty…. it‘s an agreement… one which I help fulfill.
The problem is, it‟s easier to make rules than to build relationships. The Legalist – wanted to know ‗what they must do‘… a program over a person; religion over relationship
Jesus wants relationship. When the crowd demanded a list of works, Jesus gave this surprising answer:
"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." - John 6:29 As amazing as it sounds, Jesus wants a genuine love relationship with every one of us. That kind of relationship can‘t be bought with goods, and it can‘t be built on rules.
And one more group walked out on Jesus that day. They were the SENSATIONALISTS. 3. SENSTAIONALISM (John 6:30) These people asked Jesus this absurd question:
"What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?‖ - John 6:30
Think about it. Jesus had just fed over 5,000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. The very next day, they are asking him for a SIGN! Obviously the miracle of feeding the 5,000 gave them enough faith to climb in boats and row all the way across the lake to find Jesus. But yesterday‘s miracle was not enough to last until the next morning. Here we see the tendency to want a ‗pep rally‘ more than a personal relationship. Keep them ―wowed‖ and you‘ll keep them around… but in the end… it‘s the sensation being sought. There is an exchange of substance for the sensational. They want new experiences all they time. They want all kinds of rewards but no responsibility. Sort of like the digestive system of babies: an insatiable appetite at one end and total lack of responsibility at the other end. Jesus knew what others had forgotten about the mana in the wiklderness. The people had been enslaved… 10 plagues each miraculous led to freedom from the power of Egypt… and then they grumble in hunger and God provides bread miraculously… they are amazed…. And then they grow tired of the bread. No sensation ever satisfies. God alone is the all satisfying one.
Jesus is the true Bread of Life. He is declaring that which will not be received if we are bound in materialism, legalism, or sensationalism. He has come not with some material THING we can simply have… nor with some tasks we can simply accomplish… nor with some experience we can simply admire. He doesn‟t come with anything… else … for HE IS LIFE. As such, he speaks of receiving him.
―… the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." – John 6:57-58
3. The Bread of Life must be CONSUMED
Each of his claims about eternal life are speaking of what is central to him… but with different symbols for the same reality (source of life).
As the Bread of Life… he reveals that not only is he the source of life… but that we receive this source as intimately as bread infuses the body.
He says we must eat his life given for us… take it in… it is a matter of digesting him. Food becomes the fuel on which we live.
Like gas to a car… no power until it comes in and becomes effective.
Same as food to the body.
―A car is made to run on petrol [gasoline], and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way… God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.‖
British theologian C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity; Harper Collins, 1952; p.50)
Whatever you may think Christianity is about… set aside… to hear Jesus say it is about eternal life surging through us.
To consume him… take him in as the food that is metabolized in us.. implies a PERSONAL relationship.
We say even now that one is what one eats. Jesus is speaking here about total assimilation of, a complete identification with…his very nature reflected in his truth and love.
Closing: Do you have a personal relationship?
Do you have a personal relationship… where you are learning from him… finding peace with him… changing in relationship to him.
The bread is a he.
If just a moral teacher… his quality is just condemning me… not helping. He says he is BROKEN for us. He says he was broken for our iniquities… by his stripes we are healed.
If we only say Lord you are great… he can not be bread.
Receive his life broken for us… and let that life fill us… so that „that love for and delight in God will be elicited and established as the pervasive orientation of the whole self.‟ (Dallas Willard)
Communion
What Jesus is describing is what he would later symbolize in what we call the Lord‘s Supper or Communion… when he declares that he is the ultimate fulfillment of the Passover bread and wine that have been provided. He is not saying that consuming the meal of this symbolic bread and drink is what gives life…. it hadn‘t even been established yet… and certainly the thief on the cross never partook yet received the grace of eternal life. Rather Jesus said that this is the worthy symbol….these symbols capture who he is to us and how we are to receive him.
Resources: I am grateful for the great thoughts of those I may draw from. I will usually study the text and form my own shape and points. In the process I may insert various ideas and statements from others (commentaries and messages related to the same text) which are related to the points I have developed. I do not use these notes as a manuscript that is either memorized or read… but rather as a guide for the thoughts I offer. If I actually read or quote another I will refer publicly to the source. This message drew thoughts from Tim Keller, Quintin Morrow, K. Edward Skidmore, and John Hamby.
