Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I
am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have
come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among
yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I
will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And
they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the
Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is
from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has
eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the
wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so
that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from
heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will
give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be
hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Jesus’ promise to his followers then and now is a challenge:
what truly brings meaning and wholeness in our lives? Do we shape our lives
around what perishes or what endures? Do we will build our house on the sand or
on the rock? Do we build it on Jesus and
if so, what is our understanding of who Jesus is? (Because today’s passage is a
call to understand Jesus.) Not Jesus as prophet, teacher, healer or miracle
worker, although he is undoubtedly all those things, but Jesus as God.
So let’s have a look at this “I Am” saying of John’s Jesus:
“I am the bread of life.” John uses his phrases and theological ideas very
carefully and deliberately and without a little understanding of that
background, modern readers like us are likely to miss really important
meanings.
Yes, of course we can understand this statement at its
literal face value – Jesus provides everything we need and provides it
generously and in abundance and we in the wealthy west tend to find that to be
largely true. Those who live elsewhere in the world might have more cause to question
that assumption. Who’d be a Syrian or Iraqi Christian right now? That
interpretation of Jesus’ words doesn’t really ring true for them – and for many
others, so there must be more to it. Not to have a deeper awareness of what
John is doing here would be to miss a very important point indeed.
Firstly let’s have a look at a single word – not one that is
in this passage: Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’ birth. Bethlehem means
"House of Bread." (In Hebrew, beth = house, lehem = bread
Let me take you back further, to the Exodus. The God of the
Old Testament, the God of the universe calls Himself I AM. "And God said
to Moses, I AM WHO I AM . Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I AM has sent
me to you."
Do we really think John’s use of the same phrase on Jesus’
lips is a coincidence?
Just to underline the point, John’s Jesus uses this phrase
not just here in “I am the Bread of Life” but seven times in total.
Does anyone know what the other “I Am” phrases are?
• "I am the bread of life" (6.35)
• "I am the light of the world" (8.12)
• "I am the door for the sheep" (10.7; cf. v. 9)
• "I am the good shepherd" (10.11, 14)
• "I am the resurrection and the life" (11.25)
• "I am the way, and the truth, and the life"
(14.6)
• "I am the true vine" (15.1; cf. v. 5)
So the original Jewish reader of John’s Gospel would have had
to have worked very hard to miss the point here. “I Am” the very words the God
of the Hebrews used to name himself. These “I Am” statements must be the way we
see and understand Jesus.
The Jesus who explains himself by way of “I Am” is saying nothing less than that he speaks not
just authoritative language, and specifically prophetic language but that he is to
be seen as the representative and mouthpiece of God himself.
Let’s just think about that for a moment.
When Jesus speaks he is speaking as God’s representative.
That should make us stop and consider very carefully all the
statements of Jesus recorded in the pages of the Gospels and act upon them
accordingly.
If we simply did that what agents of change we could be in
God’s world.
This is, in effect, the summary of Jesus ministry and it is
deeply personal, referring as it does to human yearning which Jesus will fill –
and it will be universal because it “gives life to the world” (v33).
So, in prophetic fashion he acts as spokesman of the One who
sent him, and as dispenser of the divine Spirit. Those who hear his words are
invited to believe not only the speaker, but the One who sent him. As Jesus has
already told us in chapter 5: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my
word, and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life”.
We need to recognise that this is as true today as it was
then.
The first of the "I AM" sayings, in John’s Gospel,
then, is "I AM the bread of life" (6:35). This statement is found in
the passage which follows the feeding of the multitude. Jesus says to the
crowd, "Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures
for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (6:27). Here Jesus
is building up to the key statement and is leading the crowd to the point where
they might recognise his divinity and come to faith.
The two go together: recognising Jesus’ divinity is the start
of faith.
For those of you interested in how the very words and grammar
of the Bible work, the definite article before the word bread indicates the
fact that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the one who is the bread of life. I am THE
bread. Not SOME bread. Not SOME OF THE bread. Not Any bread. THE bread.
The bread of life also points to the satisfying nature of
Jesus as we can see in the phrase, "never be hungry … and never be
thirsty." Jesus alone supplies the spiritual needs of his hearers: this is
not about mere physical hunger, where bread leaves people dissatisfied and
wanting more. In fact this idea can be applied in a wider spiritual sense where
other approaches to God leave the seeker ultimately empty: a direct challenge
to those who are already seeking. Jesus is making a plain statement about his
Heavenly origins here: in the following verses Jesus refers to a descent from
Heaven and explicitly states that “.. all who see the son and believe in him,
may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day”.
This is not about food: let’s be absolutely clear.
This is literally about life and death, “ I tell you, whoever
believes has eternal life.” he goes on to tell them.
In these sermons, I often talk about the challenge to each of
us about what we do with Jesus’ words. Well they don’t come much more
challenging than this do they? Here is a man who is telling us that he IS God
and he has already used one of those special signs of his to show us that: he
has fed the multitude out of next to nothing.
That’s the sort of challenge that grabs you by the scruff of
the neck and demands a response, and that response can’t be “whatever”.
What are we going to do with this Jesus? Or perhaps we should
personalise it more: what are you
going to do with this Jesus, as I have to ask myself what I am going to do with him? This is the very question that John was
asking his readers: those Jews who had not yet come to understand who Jesus
was. That is the function of this Gospel and its challenge remains the same, to
convince its readers of the divinity of Jesus.
But being convinced is not the full response: mere assent to
the divinity of Jesus is not enough. I have to do something with that assent. I
have to make it personal. I have to make it mine. I have to enter into it.
And so do you.
Otherwise we run the risk of being one of the nay-sayers and
chunterers Jesus encountered in this passage: “Is this not Jesus, the son of
Joseph and Mary who we know?” Who does he think he is? Always cynical; never
quite ready; demanding more proof; more information; buying time; putting off
making a decision until all the doubts are met - which, of course, they never
are.
We follow where the Holy Spirit, who enables faith, leads. “No
one can come to me unless drawn by the Father” Jesus tells us. Well, we’re
here. The Father HAS been drawing us. We are here and the time is now.
Look again at Jesus’ words. Does he say, “When you’ve got it
all worked out in your head?” No. Does he say, “When you’re good enough?” No.
Does he say, “When you’ve proved yourself worthy by doing this or that?” No. What
does he say? “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of
this bread will live forever.”
We are here and the time is now.
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, I am coming to know and
understand you more deeply. Help me to see that you are more than mere prophet,
teacher, healer or miracle worker. Help me to recognise that you are God and in
recognising you as God, help me to follow you as a true disciple. Give me this
bread always.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment