"The Bread of Life"

 

"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

 

            It is near Passover, and Jesus has just fed the 5,000 miraculously, with five small barley loaves and two fish. Then he rescues his disciples on a storm on the lake, and brings them safely to their destination in Capernaum. Jesus is looking for a response of faith from the crowd. He wants them to believe in him, the one whom God has sent.

            Some in the crowd had just tried to make him king by force. They had in mind what he could do for them. They were weary of the Romans and wanted a new king. Others were interested in getting more bread. They wanted to see the feeding miracle again. They wanted to experience his miraculous provision every day. Neither response is belief. Both of those desires, to make him king and to see more miracles, would put the people in control of Jesus, so that he would do their will. But Jesus calls for them to believe in him.

            Jesus asks us to trust him, to follow him, so that he is able to lead us to the Father. Jesus is the one who shows us the Father's will, who defines the meaning of salvation, who shapes our hearts so that we can receive his grace, who directs us to do his will.

            This is a profound part of the spiritual journey. Jesus is the bread of life. When you allow Jesus to choose the bread you will eat, then you are trusting and following. Then, whatever circumstances in life you find yourself, whatever you face or experience, when you encounter loss or brokenness or failure, or when you encounter healing, success or reward, you will be nourished by Jesus. It will be his bread that will heal you, and his voice that will guide you, and his hope that will draw you to the kingdom, and his love that will always be with you.

            The crowd that experienced the miracle of the loaves and fishes and was fed by Jesus, now finds him on the other side of the lake. He says to them, "Don't work for food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which I will give you." Their eyes were on the bread, and they wanted to see a miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 every day. They wanted a secure provision of bread, and thought that would lead them to faith. Daily bread is important, and Jesus teaches us to pray for it, and Paul tells us to work for it if we possibly can.

But the Kingdom of God is not like Disneyland, where you go on the same rides every time you visit. If the Lord gives you a miracle of food one day, it will not be like that every day. To follow Jesus to that which endures to eternal life means that one day he will feed you, another day he will heal you. One day he will tell you a parable that will open your heart. The next day he may send you to do the will of God. One day he will have you pick up your cross. Another day he will carry you when you are weak.

It is a journey of faith that we are on, and every day his grace is new, and also different. Our needs are new each day. The challenges we face are new. Our griefs are new. So his provision is new for each day. Sometimes we are so focused on what we think we need from him, that we miss what he offers. He wants to provide food that endures to eternal life. The bread Jesus gives us is fit for the growth we need for kingdom living. He will nourish you along the way. It will not be the same each day. It will not be what you expect or even like.

            It is human nature to have a desire for a Disneyland faith: I want Jesus to give me what I want. I want Jesus to do for me today what he did for me yesterday. Sometimes that causes long dry spells in us, because we are missing the grace that the Lord provides.

            I learned this, as I have said before, from Tillie Lathrop, the highly esteemed cook at Camp Squanto in New Hampshire and the Covenant Children's Home in Cromwell, Conn. Tillie got up every morning at 4 o'clock and baked limpa bread, to go along with the vegetables and meat she served. Some of the campers did not like it at first. It was not pizza or cheeseburgers. But Tillie knew it was good food and when they got hungry they would eat it. By the end of the week of eating Tillie's limpa bread, the campers wanted nothing else, and their mothers had a hard time keeping up with that standard. Whole generations of campers came each summer, not so much for the activities on the lake, or the inspiring messages from the Camp speaker, but for the limpa.

It is learning to eat the bread the Lord provides, the living bread that comes in new forms and endures to eternal life, that is a big part of our believing and growing in faith to eternal life. What is it that the Lord is giving you to nourish you as you face struggles and temptations in your life? Are you willing to receive what he provides?

            The people then ask Jesus to give them a sign, which seems strange because they just were fed by miracle. It was Passover time, and so they were thinking about Moses and reading in Exodus about Manna in the wilderness. A tradition had developed in the Jewish writings that the manna came from a storehouse in heaven. They came to believe that in the final days God would again provide manna from heaven, along with a second Exodus. The storehouse would be re-opened at the time of the coming of the Messiah.

            So, Gary Burge writes, they are asking Jesus if he is the one to re-open the Storehouse, and provide bread from heaven. If you read Exodus, you learn that the people in the wilderness were not always so excited to receive manna each day. They grew rather tired of it. It reminds me of the ad on the radio I have been hearing in which the miracle of snow in Michigan is promoted to soft violin music. It is easy to sell a snowy vacation in December and even January, but not so much in February or March. I am thinking that in not too many more weeks people will be getting tired of snow, no matter how miraculous it may be in Michigan, and will probably not be yearning to be refreshed by it. They will rather have some spring flowers.

            The Israelites in the wilderness got tired of daily manna, but as the generations passed, there developed a yearning for it. People wanted to go back to a time when they could know on a daily basis that God cared for them and provided for them. They yearned for tangible proof of God, and then they would believe.

            Jesus told them that Moses did not give the bread; it was the Father who provided it, and still does. The true bread of heaven was not the daily manna, but is in fact Jesus himself. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." The provision of God is not found by trying to repeat the past. But the provision of God is here now. Jesus is the gift of God, the bread of heaven. It is not a matter of finding manna on the ground and picking it up to eat. It is not manna, but the cross that lies ahead. And in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, people will find life. So Paul writes in I Corinthians, "Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God."

            It is Jesus, the bread of heaven, who brings to all who believe a life that remains to eternity. In Christ you find assurance, you find his faithful presence, you find hope. You do not have to constantly search for a new experience, a new philosophy, a new leader. When you believe, when you receive Christ, you receive something that remains with you. When you eat the bread of heaven, you do not become hungry for all kinds of other stuff the world offers.

            I remember in my younger days as a pastor, in Jamestown and then in Mt. Vernon, visiting the older members. The thing that struck me from those relationships was that here were people who had lived through the Depression and lived through World War II and a whole variety of ups and downs in life, and they were in their last years people of faith. They were not anxious. They were not searching for proof of God's existence. They did not hunger for new ideas, nor were they pining for old manna. But these were content in Christ. They trusted the Lord and were hopeful, and spoke easily of heaven. They had tasted the Living Bread and found it to be good and lasting.

            The world we live in since those days has been filled with anxiety. There are many attacks upon the faith we hold, and sometimes that faith gets shaken. But through it all Jesus is still the living bread. He continues to give grace that is new every morning. He feeds us with bread that does not leave you hungry every night. Everyone who believes in him has eternal life and will be raised up at the last day.

            Amen.