I AM – the bread of life – John 6: 22-35
Bread. Anyone been to a bread factory, seen the loaves rolling off the production line? My Dad was a bread delivery driver for a while when he was younger – full time for a while, then he got another job but he just did Sunday mornings as an extra job. I went with him once – up at about 3.30am, off to the factory to load the van up to take to all the milk bars and convenience stores.
SO MUCH BREAD. You could smell it from kilometres away.
I love the smell…. When out running early morning…..
Actually I heard about two loaves of bread that were walking down the street, when one of them got run over by a car, and the other one said, “Crumbs”
I am the bread of life, said Jesus. Why bread?? That’s the question I want us to consider tonight. Why didn’t he say I am the MEAT of life, or I am the BROCOLLI of life, or I am the HOT CHIPS of life? Why bread?
Well let’s take another look at the story, see what we can uncover:
It’s found in John 6
1. Day before he’d fed the five thousand with the loaves and fishes
2. Next day - the crowds that had been there went searching for him & found him on the other side of the lake. “How did you get here?”
3. Jesus remarked that they’d been looking for him to get another free feed – ‘not because you saw the miraculous sign, but because I fed you’. And then – our key sentence – ‘But you shouldn’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I, the Son of Man, can give you.’
4. They ask – what does God want us to do, and Jesus says, believe! But no, too hard, so they ask for a sign to help them believe that Jesus was this Son of God he was claiming to be. First they’d rocked up for another free feed, now they want a miraculous sign.
So with the taste of bread still in their mouths from yesterday’s feed, someone in the crowd makes reference to a Bread story from their nation’s history, found in their Scriptures – our ancestors ate manna, the bread from heaven. As Moses led the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, they found this stuff on the ground called manna which kept them fed, and they understood this as God providing for them. So they make reference to this – God did a feeding miracle in Moses day, new bread day after day - you do the same for us in our day. We want some bread, man.
5. Jesus says in reply - My Father gives you the true bread from heaven, that gives life to the world
6. “Sir” they said “give us that bread every day of our lives!”
7. I am the Bread of Life. No-one coming to me will ever be hungry again.
Bread that gives life to the world. Bread that if you eat it you’ll never be hungry. Jesus – himself - is that bread? All on the back of an amazing occurrence where thousands got fed with a few loaves of bread and some fish. Hmmm – curious statements, aren’t they? Fairly obvious that Jesus is speaking metaphorically, that is pictorially. He’s not advocating cannibalism. He doesn’t want them all to eat him. Yet he said - I am the bread of life.
So let’s then see if we can unpack it a bit.
In our society here in the wealthy West - we have bread everywhere – so much it gets thrown out. (Bakeries every night – garbage bags). And for our society, it’s not for us an essential. We all have some bread each week, most days some of us have at least toast or a sandwich, (hands up if you’ve had bread today) - but I would suggest it’s not quite the number 1 food in all of our diets.
In contrast, in the Mediterranean world of Jesus day, bread was the most important and basic part of the diet. The grains of the Middle East, mainly the wheat and barley, were used to make bread. Everyone ate bread, all the time. Like rice is to Asia, bread was to the citizens of Jerusalem and surrounds.
And if you had bread and water or a little wine, you had a meal. If you could also manage some fish or red meat, a slice of cheese or a few dates – well, you were feasting. But just a serve of bread constituted a meal. It’s just about all most people ate, and they ate it every day.
So when Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life’ he is referring to a staple, every day feature of Mediterranean life. Something they put into their mouths and stomachs every single day.
I think Jesus was using this metaphor to say that there are two kinds of food – food for the body, and food for the spirit. Food for the body sustains life, the food for the spirit is Jesus who gives life. One sustains life, but one gives life.
We are not just physical beings, not just skin and bones and organs – as well as physical beings, we are emotional beings – that is we can feel, we are intellectual beings, that is we can think, and we are spiritual beings. We are born with an awareness of things beyond what we can see and feel and think about. We have an inbuilt desire to worship, a belief in a higher power or force, a strong feeling that there is more to life than meets the eye. There is a spiritual element to life – the Apostle Paul talks about it a lot in 1 Corinthians, and Jesus elevates this element, the spiritual dimension of life, above the physical. Getting yourself right spiritually – that’s THE most important thing, he’s saying. That’s where the satisfaction in this life comes from, and that’s the investment we make for our eternal future as well. It’s not what we put into our stomachs, boys and girls, it’s what we put into our souls!!!
Jesus said - ‘But you shouldn’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I, Jesus, the bread of life, can give you.’
We spend so much of our energy in life chasing after things that are perishable. Think about it - the biggest percentage of what we spend our disposable income on each week ends up in the toilet or at the Salvo Stores. And we put money into cars or boats or caravans that will one day be scrap, houses that will one day be knocked down, entertainment and holidays that make us feel good for a while, but leave us with just faded memories and faded photos. We put a lot of energy into working and saving and investing in the perishable. And very little energy into the spiritual.
Now of course, we all need to work and get income, we need to live in houses and we need to eat food and we need to wear clothes (well at least when it’s cold) – there are essentials in life. We’ve got bills to pay. We need holidays and nights at the movies or dinners out every now and then. Cars are pretty necessary. And there’s nothing wrong with spending money on any of these things, nothing wrong with spending money on most things, really.
But don’t think that ‘things’ are going to bring you satisfaction. This is what Jesus is saying to all the freeloaders who came looking for more bread for their stomachs. You ate yesterday, you’re hungry again today. You got a freebie yesterday, today you want more. You got into boats and crossed the lake and spent all that energy to get another free lunch, yet you’re neglecting the spiritual.
And this message is just as relevant to us today, to you and to me. Often, we’re not satisfied with what we’ve got. I’m often not myself. Get a car, want a better one. Nice house, want a bigger one, or newer one. Have a great holiday, start the next one, cause we want it to be better again. Get a beautiful girl, want a better one. Excepting all the men here, of course.
Materialism is a modern plague, a curse. I get fed up with everywhere I turn people are trying to sell me something. Advertisements just everywhere. Buy this product, pay for this experience. We can make you happy. We can satisfy you.
Drives me nuts.
Things might bring small measures of comfort, or pleasure, or fun. But they won’t bring fulfilment.
Jesus wants us to make the leap from thinking physically to thinking spiritually – from bread made from wheat to bread from heaven - from our stomach and our tongues, to our hearts and our souls. He threw down this outrageous promise to meet these people’s spiritual needs for all time: they would never hunger and they would never thirst if they came to Him. And I’ve found it’s a promise that rings true 2000 years on.
Of course, it carried some strings - they had to come to Him and believe in Him. They had to turn with their minds, their will, and their hearts - they had to commit themselves to Him. That was the deal.
He wasn’t intimating a once off either - the deal shows that faith is something you gotta keep doing, not something that just kicks back and goes along for the ride. It’s a faith in Him that says that, “I believe You are who You say You are, and I am trusting You to feed and water me for eternity, and I will commit myself on a daily basis”.
For those people that were hearing at Capernaum, it meant stepping out of the crowd of the unbelieving miracle-seekers and crossing the line from unbelief to belief. And to elevate the spiritual above the physical.
No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again. There’s an action requirement. And it’s not as simple as just going to a shop to buy a loaf of bread. The action is an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual one – believe, then follow! Jesus doesn’t say ‘come to church each week and you will get the bread of life, or working for the poor and needy will earn you the bread of life, or even believing in God will give you the bread of life. Jesus is the bread of life. And he wants us to move towards him. Believe and come, follow.
This bread of life claim and promise is something you can’t find anywhere else. And for some people, choosing Jesus as the Bread of Life is a difficult decision. There are all kinds of phony breads that the world promotes as life-giving. People might think their "bread" is their work, or their marriage, what others think of them, their nice house or nice car or nice clothes etc etc. In the end, all of those things spoil. Only Jesus gives that bread that satisfies the deepest soul needs that we have.
So it comes down to priorities. The crowds at Capernaum didn’t really get the whole bread thing, and we can think, ‘how did they miss the point?’ But it’s because they were just like us. The material rewards of life were more pressing and attractive than spiritual rewards. What they wanted was an unending supply of bread that could make their daily life easier. And we do the same. We just want life to be easier. I know I do. I so easily count my blessing in material terms. I thank God for ‘things’ in my life, not people or relationships or love or my spiritual refreshment. At times I find myself wanting to be a Christian because it makes life easier. But that’s not the point. It’s not meant to make life easier, even though it does, but it’s not designed to make life easier, it’s meant to make life more satisfying and fulfilling.
It’s a good idea to approach life with the view that everything we have is a gift from God, including all our material blessings. The material is not evil, it’s not wrong. But Jesus is teaching that there is something more important than important things like money and homes, cars, families, holidays, even bread – it is a relationship with the God revealed in Jesus Christ and made present through the Holy Spirit. It’s the spiritual. It’s the condition of our soul.
If we want life in all its fullness, then we need most of all the bread that Jesus alone can give. It’s the only thing that can sustain us along life’s journey and prepare us for the life to come.
‘The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.’
Everyone’s hungry and thirsty for life. Going to parties, spending time with family, going shopping, watching and playing sports, climbing the corporate ladder, watching TV, listening to music, even using alcohol and other drugs – all means to satisfy that desire in us for life in all its fullness. With a couple of exceptions, they’re all good things. But they’ll never satisfy our hunger and thirst for the fullness of life. French philosopher Pascal wrote that each person has a vacuum inside that only God can fill – it’s God shaped. Filling that vacuum is what satisfies.
To just be satisfied in life. Satisfied with life. No worry. No stress. Just enjoying life day after day after day, without the need to spend money to chase after it. To be spiritually refreshed, day after day. That’s what Jesus has on offer. To have a soul at peace. To live unperturbed, no matter what life throws at us. To be content. To be at peace.
And he says – believe. Come to me. How? By saying – yes, Jesus, I do believe, and yes, I will live the life you want me to live. By every day conversing through prayer. By living with an awareness of the spiritual, and a connection to the Divine through the Spirit of God. By every day seeking to do all that would please God – stuff like generosity, love, forgiveness, kindness, encouragement.
That’s the beginning of it. So many in this room have started out on that journey. But we often get waylaid.
Some bread here:
This piece is pretty stale. What happens to bread once it gets old and you haven’t eaten it? Goes stale. Then mouldy. So do our lives if we don’t come to Jesus fresh every day. Doesn’t have to be a big deal, big dramatic thing – just a daily awareness and connection. Those Israelites that Moses led through the wilderness, those manna eaters – they discovered that they couldn’t stockpile it or it would be inedible. They had to come fresh every day to pick it up off the ground. God provided just enough for each of them for each day. I reckon it’s the same with Jesus – you’ve got to come to him every day, or you go stale, then mouldy.
Frozen bread - Some people shop once a week, and stick their bread in the freezer. Some people come to church once a week and stick Jesus in the freezer until the following Sunday.
Jesus needs to be a daily experience – we need a relationship with Jesus that is a daily affair. Just start with 5 minutes a day. One of your cups of coffee, just get somewhere on your own, and do a bit of soul care. Prayer or meditate or reflect or read something spiritual. But make it a daily things.
Don’t be like the Stale bread, thinking “I already know about Jesus. I’ve studied the gospels years ago – I know all about him”. Stale!
Don’t be like Frozen bread “I came to church and prayed last Sunday and I’ll pray again next Sunday. Church once a week is all I need”. Frozen!
Don’t be like the miracle chasers, the free feed mob, looking for something to make life easier, to take the pressure off. Put your energy not into the perishable, but into the spiritual. Get that right first – it’s the secret to a fulfilling, satisfying, never hunger again type of life. And it’s the way to eternal life.
Come to the bread of life – Jesus. Today. And every day. And discover life in all its fullness. And you know what – it’s free!
Last Modified on 23/04/2012 11:55