Sermon for 01 August 2021: I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE
Exodus 16
New Revised Standard Version
Bread from Heaven
16 The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim; and Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.
9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 The Lord spoke to Moses and said, 12 “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”
13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?”[a] For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.
John 6:24-35
New Revised Standard Version
24 So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which[a] comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
35 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.
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Jesus said some very strange things in his time on earth, many of which are recorded in John’s gospel. These are his famous ‘I am’ sayings; you may recall some of them, I am the light of the world, I am the vine, you are the branches, I am the Good Shepherd, and today we have, I am the bread of life.
Now, what does Jesus mean when he says this? What is it about what he says is so controversial, so different, so revolutionary from what has gone before? We’ll get to that in a moment.
Last week in the standard lectionary gospel reading was the feeding of the 5000, and I spoke [at Holy Rood when I preached on this] about how that Jesus takes what meagre resources we have to offer, blesses it and creates abundance. It flows from him, abundant blessings, blessings that are so great that they are greater than we could ever conceive. Jesus fed 5000 people with two dishes and five loses. He provided bread for the people so that they could eat.
In our passage today, Jesus corrects any potential misinterpretation of the sign that he did in front of the disciples and the crowds a few verses earlier. We get a hint of this in verse 26 which says the following.
‘Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
And then at the very end, the epitome of the chapter Jesus says:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,
Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. What could he possibly mean there?
The meaning of what Jesus is saying was not lost on his original hearers. After all, they would have grown up with the stories of the exodus from Egypt, the event on which the festival of the Passover is based, which is the time in which our reading today is set. They knew who they were, God’s people who were given their salvation from Egypt and went into the desert. They were provided manna (or, bread) from heaven which was gathered in the mornings so that it would feed the Israelites for that day. But not only this, there was also a metaphorical way of thinking about bread as well. In the first century, Jewish teachers at the time would frequently speak of the Law of Moses as ‘bread’. It was the thing by which they were fed, it was their way of life and their way of being. One of the main things that distinguished Jew from Gentile (or non-Jew) was the fact that the Jews had been given the law at Sinai. The law was everything to the Jews, it was what made them unique, it was their ‘bread of life’ if you like.
But, and here’s the thing. Jesus says that now he has arrived, you follow his teachings, you do as he does. You put your faith, not in the law, but in him, in his very being, for he is as he says elsewhere in the gospel, the fulfilment of the law. The ‘bread’ that came from the law didn’t satisfy fully (just like the manna in the desert didn’t fully satisfy) But it is Jesus, it is Jesus himself who fully satisfies.
Jesus doesn’t just provide bread, as he did in the feeding of the five thousand, or as God did for the Israelites in the desert. But he, quite literally, ‘is’ the bread of life. Bread is necessary for life, and he is the one who gives life, as he is the bread of life. As one writer put it. “Jesus is the bread that gives and sustains life, the life of the kingdom of God. This he bestows on those who come to him and believe in him.’
I grew up in the church for the first 15 years of my life (obviously I came back eventually), and I have heard this kind of thing preached for a long time. It’s all about Jesus, it’s all about Jesus. It’s a bit like in children’s church, if the teacher asks a question a kid wouldn’t do too badly by saying ‘is the answer Jesus?’
But of course, he is the answer. It’s all about him. For some of you, this may all just sound like words spoken by a professional religious person. It may sound too good to be true. How can Jesus satisfy? How does he satisfy. I have heard far too many stories to count about how people have come to faith in Jesus and their lives have completely change to dismiss them. Drug dealers who went clean in a day. Alcoholics who became sober. Miraculous things happening that medical science can’t seem to explain. Lives quite literally turned around in a matter of days or even hours. And each and every one of these people have said that they met Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit, and in that moment, everything changed.
These aren’t just vague religious experiences that could be had by anybody. These people have had these experiences because they have had an encounter with the Living God in Jesus Christ. They have fed on him, the bread of life, and they need never again turn to anything else to satisfy, for nothing in this whole universe will satisfy apart from God himself, the living one, the Holy One of Israel.
To those of us with inherited faith like myself it may be more difficult to see, for we grew up with the teachings of Jesus on our lips, when he says ‘I am the bread of life’ it is such a part of, the wallpaper if you like, we can miss it’s meaning. Or at least that has certainly been my own experience. I used to get jealous of those who have had conversion experiences, but then I realised that I have had the blessing of knowing the truth since my early years. Sometimes though, those of us with inherited faith, sometimes we have to take our time to realise just what a glorious inheritance we baptised into. Those who come to faith through conversion, they’re given it in a flash.
But in both circumstances, it is always Jesus at the helm. It is he who satisfies! Nothing else will do.
But how does this resonate. How does it reverberate with the rest of our lives?
This is what we do, we come to church on a Sunday, to be fed by Jesus, to receive the word, to receive the sacrament. To hear the word taught, and imbibe the truth within ourselves so deeply that it permeates our very being, so that when Monday comes, and Tuesday comes and Wednesday comes, we know what we are to do, to go out in the morning, prayerfully, and serve God’s world. Christianity is a seven-day faith, we feed on him every day in prayer, in reading the scriptures, in sharing in fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We feed on Jesus daily in order to be sustained. As I said last week, the apostle peter when asked by Jesus whether the disciples would like to leave him because of his teaching, they reply. ‘Lord, where will be go? You have the words of eternal life!’ The more we feed on Jesus, our lives will be change. The more we feed on him, the more we will experience his presence as a real, and tangible thing. And we will know God’s presence more and more in our lives.
Amen.
