I AM the Bread of Life
May 3, 2020
John 6:25-41
There was a health-food restaurant with a billboard that read, “Eat here and live a long life!” Not wanting to be outdone, the barbeque place next-door put up a sign saying - “Eat here and die happy!”
Food, glorious food. For some food seems like a curse, they look at an apple and they feel their pants tightening. Others can eat whatever they want; pizza, steak, hamburgers, cake with ice cream; and you never gain an ounce.
The bottom line is this we all need to eat . . . and I will admit, I love to eat. And it seems with being home more, I am always on the lookout for food in the house. Have you ever had that?
Have you ever gone to your refrigerator, looked inside and found it was full, yet nothing appealed to you? Have you ever gone back 30 minutes later - - - hoping you either missed something on your first attempt and now, you’ll be pleasantly surprised or someone entered your home without your knowledge and planted a huge piece of Chicago pizza in your refrigerator.
Now that you’re all getting up and getting some food, wait, really wait - - - because the best food is coming in a few minutes.
This week and for the next several weeks I am starting a new series on the I AM’s of Jesus. We’re going to look at a number of His quick statements and what they mean for us.
Today, we’re looking at a passage from John 6. As a backdrop for this, the chapter opens with Jesus teaching the masses. Ultimately, they’re hungry and Jesus only has 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed 5000. Jesus prayed and they had more than enough for everyone to eat and even had leftovers.
The people found Jesus the next day on the other side of the sea. You know, He walked over there! When they found Jesus, the following conversation ensued – again, this is a very accurate rendering. A few words are different, but it paints a great picture of what was going on.
SCRIPTURE VIDEO from YOUTUBE
These people wanted to find Jesus in part because He fed them the day before. We can be a lot like those people. They weren’t bad people, they were hungry. They wanted more, but they didn’t know what they were after.
It’s kind of like what’s been going on with the coronavirus. Early on, and even now, supplies have been in short supply. Shelves were barren. We panicked. People made sure their needs were more than taken care of. Buying out supplies.
To me, it’s a sign of our hunger and our fear all at the same time. We have this hunger, as Blaise Pascal said in the late 1600's - -
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
Isn’t that great! Doesn’t that hit home for so many of us. We go about hungering when what we really hunger for is a relationship with Jesus Christ. For so many years, I’ve believed that is the major culprit and reason we sin so voraciously.
We want this bread that Jesus has, but what will it mean for our lives? How much do I need to submit to Him? Will I really need to change my life? Do I have to give up the vices I love and which tempt me and which hurt me, but don’t know if I can survive without?
In his book, “Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer wrote about the hazards that plagued mountain climbers as they attempted to reach the top of Mount Everest. Andy Harris, one of the expedition leaders stayed at the peak too long and on his descent, he was in desperate need of oxygen.
Harris radioed the base camp and told them about his predicament. He mentioned he had come across a stash of oxygen canisters left by the other climbers but they were all empty. The climbers who had already passed by the canisters on their way down the mountain, knew these oxygen tanks were full. They pleaded with Harris to use them, but it was to no avail. Harris was starved for oxygen but he continued to argue that the canisters were empty.
The problem was that the lack of what he needed had so disoriented his mind, that even though he was surrounded by something that would give him life, he continued to complain of its absence.
Friends, what oxygen is to the body, the Bread of Life is to the soul. I believe so many of us are suffocating and starving and we don’t even know it. The answer is right before us. We think we’ve got Jesus figured out . . . but we don’t. Jesus is offering us life, yet we run around trying to satisfy our appetites.
We always want more, but usually it’s the kind of stuff that will satisfy us today, but leaves us wanting more tomorrow. We seek immediate gratification, at the expense of long term joy. Jesus said,
27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. - John 6:27
Jesus is the One, the only One who will satisfy you. His food never spoils. Let me unpack a little about this conversation, which may help us on our journey.
The people forgot that God is the source of all that is good in life
When they found Jesus and asked for another free meal, they bragged that Moses had given the Hebrew people bread from heaven when they wandered in the wilderness. But, Jesus corrected them saying the source of the bread was God ... not Moses. These hungry Hebrews had forgotten the foundational truth that all we have in this life is traceable back to God. God is the source of everything.
And we can very easily buy into this same misconception today. Most of us have full cupboards and closets filled with clothes, gadgets and more, and as a result, we easily forget the basic fact that everything we HAVE and everything we ARE simply would not be, if it were not for God.
We must never make this mistake of letting our hunger to get more, blind us to the basic truth that all we have, all we are . . . all our blessings. . . are from God.
A second falsehood these people had bought into was their belief...
. . . that powerful miracles would satisfy their hunger
This is what happened here. Jesus fed thousands of people with the contents of a boy’s lunch box and the next day the same people were hungry for more signs of His power.
Jesus’ miracles were always to prove a point. He didn’t do them arbitrarily. These folks weren’t getting the message. Instead of seeking to apply His teaching to their lives, they responded by asking for more displays of His power, then maybe they might believe in Jesus.
Jesus wasn’t going to convince them with more miracles. He knew it wouldn’t do any good. These people were too focused on the gift, to see the Giver. They had witnessed one of Jesus’ greatest acts of power and if seeing a miracle the first time didn’t lead them to believe He was Who He said He Was, the second wouldn’t have done it either.
Miracles won’t satisfy our hunger for God. Only a personal relationship with the Bread of Life will. As Robert Capon wrote,
The Messiah was not going to save the world by miraculous, Band-Aid interventions: a storm calmed here, a crowd fed there, a mother-in-law cured back down the road. Rather it was going to be saved by means of a deeper, darker, left-handed mystery, at the center of which lay His own death.
Jesus didn’t come to use His hands to miraculously make bread. He came so those hands could receive executioner’s nails and so His body could be broken for the salvation of the world.
The people wanted a miracle, but they were seeking the wrong kind. They needed the inner — less obvious, but more powerful — miracle that comes from repenting of our sin and claiming Jesus as Lord and Savior. For in that decision we experience the miracle of a saved soul and a forgiven heart.
And this leads to another truth these hungry people missed - -
They forgot that the essence of human life is spiritual - not physical
They were striving to satisfy their physical desires. We are unique beings — created in God’s image. God’s Spirit has breathed life and His spirit into each of us. We are the only beings on this planet with souls. And these souls were created for eternity.
There is a restlessness in all of us that craves something more substantial. As Jesus told satan when he tempted our Lord to make physical bread to satisfy His hunger, Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Mt 4:4 ).
You and I were designed to require more than physical nourishment; we were created with the need for spiritual nourishment. And this nourishment is only found in Jesus Christ . . . the Bread of Life.
For most people bread is a STAPLE. Some form of bread is part of many of our meals. In Jesus’ day bread was even more central to the daily menu. There wasn’t a great variety in the foods of that region. And for many people in Palestine bread was often the main course. Without bread they would starve. It was essential. By referring to Himself as the BREAD of life, Jesus was saying He is essential.
So, these hungry Israelites missed this truth and today people make the same mistake. They look in all the wrong places to satisfy their inner hunger for something more. In Isaiah 55:2 we read “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor, for that which does not satisfy?”
Jesus was trying to get those people to understand that there are more important hungers in life and these can only be satisfied in relationship with Him.
The pleasures of this world are temporary and fading. Only a relationship with Jesus can satisfy the longings and the insatiable hunger of the human heart and soul. Jesus offers us a food which is so satisfying, that again, He declared
35 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.
In this passage, the Greek is very emphatic as Jesus used a double negative to drive His point home. Literally saying that when we come to Him we will, NOT NEVER be hungry or thirsty again.
Jesus alone can satisfy our spiritual hunger because Jesus IS the BREAD OF LIFE
All our hungers are satisfied in relationship to Him. This morning we observe this as we partake in the Lord’s Supper. And, as we come to this special meal - communion - - I invite each person who calls themselves a Christian, this meal is for you. It is a gift from the One who says “I AM the Bread of Life.”
The message leads into communion
COMMUNION MEDITATION
Think of what we do to ourselves all in an effort to find life.
self-conceit, narcissism; bitterness;
lust; pornography, power and authority,
pride and vanity, money,
control, fear, hiding,
addictions - alcohol drugs food lack of food self-mutilation
and that list could go on.
So, what do you put in body and soul, other than Jesus, in an effort to find meaning and fulfillment?
And what is the end result? Usually it’s self-loathing. We end up hating ourselves for who we have become.
BUT, true life is waiting for us, standing before us, if only we would accept the offer, the gift, Jesus has for us.
Jesus has a message that all of us need to hear, but, not only hear, we must take action upon His words.
Again, in John 6:27, Jesus said we should, “labor for food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will GIVE to you.”
What are you working for which is going to perish, instead of striving after what will live forever? We need to trust in the ONE who will endure forever.
And did you catch the word GIVE? The Son of man will give you, the food which will last forever, the food which will nourish you forever. You will be satisfied, even in the midst of trial, tribulation, and temptation, disappointment, despair, rejection and loss. Yet, Jesus tells us the Son of God will GIVE us a gift from the Father, from the One who is the generous giver.
It is a gift, a present, something handed over to us with no strings attached. You can’t earn it, because it’s a gift!
Something God through His Son wants us to have, LIFE, glorious life . . . in Christ. Jesus doesn’t say anything about working, earning or achieving this gift, instead, Jesus it is ours, a free gift.
And so Jesus tells us . . ."I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst."
