Scripture: John 6:35-51
The crowd that Jesus is
speaking to followed him hoping he would perform another miracle. The day
before, Jesus used five loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand
people. Then Jesus snuck away from the crowd, walking on water to join his
disciples on a boat. Jesus and the
disciples went to the other side of the local sea, but the crowd got in boats
and followed Jesus the next day. They were looking for another miracle, maybe
some more bread and fish, but Jesus doesn’t give them another miracle. Instead,
he says “I am
the bread of life.” “Whoever comes
to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Jesus is saying, you think want bread, you think you want a miracle, but what
you are really looking for is me. Jesus feeds people not just for their
survival, but that they might know the Creator through the Son.
Here at the
CA, a lot of people first come for the food and community. People hunger and
thirst for food and fellowship, but that alone will not satisfy our desire to
know God and our place in the world. We long for food and community for the
sake of survival, but we also have many other needs that capture our attention.
We might not be longing to see God feed five thousand people. We may be thirsty
for God to show us a career path that will lead us to success and a meaningful
impact on the world. We may be hungry for a sense of belonging in a community where
our voices are recognized and heard. We may be looking for hope in a nation
where power is misused. I think we all have miracles we pray for, ways that we
want God to feed our hunger and thirst for life. When we pray “give us our
daily bread,” it means much more than providing food for us to eat.
When we
think of Jesus as the bread of life, it might be tempting to think of Jesus as
spiritual food that fulfills disembodied needs rather than an answer to earthly
problems. But I think it is no coincidence that Jesus says “I am the bread of
life” the day after feeding bread to five thousand people. Jesus feeds people because he is the bread of life. Jesus cares for our hungers and thirsts,
but they will never be satisfied. We will always be hungry for more. No matter
how full or satisfying a meal is, we’ll still be hungry again in a matter of
hours. It is not enough to find meaning by satisfying our own needs. We have to
look beyond ourselves, toward the needs of others, and ultimately toward God.
We were created by God and we will only find true fulfillment directly from
God.
Jesus says he is the bread of life because as God’s son, only he
can satisfy our existential need to find ultimate meaning in God. Jesus is
saying that the only way our hungers and thirsts will truly be satisfied is if
we understand our lives to be fulfilled in him. Jesus says that he will receive
everyone his Father sends to him, he will never drive them away, and he will
raise them up on the last day. In Christ our hunger is satisfied because it
doesn’t have the last word. For as long as we live, we will have needs that we
cannot survive without, but Christ calls us beyond our individual needs. Because
Jesus is the bread of life, we can always come to Christ, we will never be
turned away, and our lives will have meaning beyond our own needs. Jesus is “food”
for us because he fulfills our needs, but unlike any other food the bread of
life satisfies our eternal and existential needs.
This might seem pretty philosophical, but I hope to make clear
that having faith in Jesus as the bread of life changes the way we approach our
other needs. First, it puts our needs in perspective. Our hunger and thirst do
not provide ultimate meaning beyond survival. Second, the bread of life uses
our hunger and thirst to call us beyond our own needs. While hunger itself does
not give our lives meaning, it make us aware of our dependence on God and each
other, pointing us toward dependence on God. This is part of why Jesus feeds
the five thousand, to call attention to what God has done. Jesus feeds people
so that the crowd may see and believe that he is the bread of life. Jesus also compares
himself to the manna that came from heaven to feed the Israelites in the
wilderness. Just as manna sustained the people of Israel when nothing else
could, Jesus, the bread of life, gives our lives meaning beyond our needs and
limits. Our hunger for food shows our dependence on the earth, farmers, and the
environment, each of them calling us beyond self-sufficiency and toward
dependence of God in Christ.
Every
Wednesday night at the CA we share an experience of what it means to receive
Jesus as the bread of life. When Jesus says “I am the bread of life” he calls
us from the meal we just shared to the meal we are about to share. Much like
when Jesus feeds the 5000, we share a meal together. While this meal satisfies
our hunger for food and community, the meal we had anticipates the meal we are
about to have, communion, sometimes called the Eucharist which means “thanksgiving.”
The Eucharist is a celebration of Christ as the bread of life, that Christ’s
life was given for the world and we share in Christ’s life in gratitude. In
gratitude, we give our lives for the world as an extension of Jesus’s work.
This is why the church is sometimes called the body of Christ. Martin Luther
once described eating the Eucharist like a wolf that devoured a sheep, but the
sheep was so powerful that it turned the wolf into a sheep. The bread of life
is food for us that turns us back toward the world that we might feed others.
As followers of Christ, we meet other’s needs, feeding the hungry
as Christ did. Sometimes we feed the hungry on Wednesday nights, but we also
look beyond our community. We may not feed 5000 people with five loaves and two
fish, but at the CA we serve at places like Broad Street Ministries and UniLU’s
Feast Incarnate. When we feed others, we not only meet immediate needs but
extend Christ’s invitation to receive the bread of life to others as we have
received it from Christ.
Jesus said “I am the bread of life.” He is food for us and for
others. He is food that satisfies a hunger for meaning that could only be
satisfied by God. This calls us beyond our own needs into community as the body
of Christ, turning our hungers and needs into symbols of desire for God.
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