The Bread of Life
What foods do you consume in the greatest amounts? The global leader is milk, followed by rice, with wheat (primarily as bread) coming in third. During Biblical times, the top food consumed was bread. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jesus would include a petition about bread in his model prayer (the Lord’s Prayer). We understand him to have meant both bread as bread and bread as symbol of all that we need to flourish each day.
It should also not surprise us that when Jesus wanted to leave his followers a way of experiencing his presence after his ascension, that bread would be one of the elements. “Take and eat, this is my body…do this in remembrance of me.”
But it may surprise us that the Gospel according to John devotes a full chapter to Jesus combining these two directives (John 6). We are currently three weeks in to a five-week series on this on Sunday mornings.
Jesus goes from feeding thousands of people with a modest amount of bread (and fish) to proclaiming himself to be the “bread of life.” The one who feeds a hungry crowd is the same one who feeds Christians whenever we gather in worship, and each of us when we meet him in prayer and his word. Nothing more or less than Jesus keeps us from ever experiencing hunger or thirst.
That is a bold claim! But the one who promises this is faithful, and remains with us in all circumstances in life and in death and beyond.
“Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus,
Pastor Don Wink