Bread of Life

I decided to share with you the sermon I preached this morning. Although you won't get the benefit of my smiling face, or the theatrical gestures, or the excitement and tension of my delivery, at least you'll be able to read the words!

The Bible readings were Exodus 16:11-31 & 35, and John 6:27-35.

I'd be glad to hear any comments or suggestions that you may have.

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Did anyone have some bread for their breakfast this morning?

If you had a roll and jam this morning it would have given you about 250 calories, which is enough energy for 2 and a ½ hours.

If you had cereal and milk then that’s only about 150 calories, so only enough energy for an hour and a half.

If you were able to tolerate the fat and cholesterol, one slice of bacon and an egg is only 136 calories.

And a cup of black coffee and a Custard Cream biscuit is only 65 calories, not even enough to keep you going through this service!

When Jesus told his followers that he was the bread of life and whoever came to him would never be hungry - what did he mean?

That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week, and I hope you find my musings helpful. If you have some different answers I’d be glad to discuss it with you at the end of the service.

When Jesus told the crowd around him that he was the ‘Bread of Life’, it was immediately after the story of the feeding of the 5000. In verse 26, Jesus told the crowd that they had come looking for him again because they wanted more food, and not because they were trying to find God.

So Jesus tells them not to work for food that perishes, but for food that will last for ever, which the Son of Man, in other words Jesus himself, would give them.

Immediately the crowd come back to him with the question: so what work must we do?

They knew it would be some work for God, but what was it?

Perhaps they were expecting Jesus to give them the same answer that he gave to the lawyer who asked, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” in Matthew 19. Jesus replied on that occasion, Keep the Ten Commandments, and “love your neighbour as yourself”.

But no, this time Jesus gives a spiritual answer. It is not what you do that gives you eternal life, it’s what you believe. Specifically, it is who you believe in. And they should believe in Jesus.

The crowd around Jesus were not very happy with that answer. They were the people of Moses. Long ago they had followed Moses out of Egypt into the desert. And they told Jesus that Moses had given them Manna to eat - bread from heaven.

If they were to turn their allegiance from Moses to Jesus then they wanted to see a sign. And it would have to be a sign that was greater than the sign that Moses had given them. Some challenge indeed.

Manna, what is it? That’s literally what the word means. When the Israelites woke up in the morning, and the dew evaporated, left behind was “a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.” And we have seen some of that this past week.

They did not know what it was. They asked each other, “What is it?” And that’s how the stuff got its name. The Hebrew word ‘Manna’ means, “What is it?”

As we read earlier, it tasted like ‘wafers made with honey’. It must have been some brave soul who was the first to taste it. The camp had been covered with a flock of quails the night before. And now there was some white stuff on the ground.

Moses said, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

Hmm. I would have said, “It looks like bird poop to me. How about you eat it first?”

And who knows, maybe Moses was first to eat it. Whatever it was, they not only liked it, but it sustained them through the next 40 years in the desert.

This was the miraculous sign that Jesus was invited to compete with. It was a tall order. The Jews had honoured Moses for hundreds of years.

But Jesus straightened them out. It wasn’t Moses who had given them the Manna. It was God.

God had given life to all creation back in the beginning. In Genesis chapter 2, we read that ‘God formed Man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.’ (NRSV)

God had given Manna to the Israelites in the desert and it had given them life for 40 years. And now Jesus offered his listeners, “The bread of God which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Still the people did not understand. They thought that Jesus was speaking of physical bread. They wanted Jesus to give them that heavenly bread always.

But Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus here uses a double negative. It doesn’t mean a positive like in English. It means a very strong negative. They will never never be hungry and never never be thirsty.

This is the second of seven times in John’s Gospel that Jesus says who he is beginning with the phrase , “I am”. These are the same words that God used when he told Moses, “I am is who I am.” To his listeners Jesus was hinting, “I am God.”

Some of those listeners began to get uncomfortable at this point. Jesus was making extravagant claims about himself.

In our reading today, we didn’t carry on with the story, but Jesus claims that it is God’s will that everyone who comes to Jesus, and follows him, and believes in him, will not be lost, but will be raised up on the last day, that they will have eternal life.

The discontent among the Jews now becomes open complaint. How can Jesus say he has come down from heaven?

This is Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose mother and father we know. Or as we might say it here, “I kent his faither.” How can he have come from heaven?

Jesus continues to explain. Their ancestors ate the Manna in the desert, and they all died before they entered the Promised Land. But those who eat the living bread that is Jesus himself will never die. Jesus says that it is his flesh that is the living bread that gives eternal life to those who eat it.

Here we run into the most obvious difficulty with the assertion that Jesus is the bread from heaven. The Jews speak it out in ridicule. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” And the thought might have continued, “Does he think that we are cannibals to be eating human flesh?”

Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, then you have no life in you. Whereas those who eat my my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

Here we have the answer to the mystery that we have been pursuing, although it is still in code.

Jesus is talking about those who will celebrate the meal of the Last Supper. Jesus held up the bread and said, “This is my body.”, and he held up the cup and said, “This is my blood.”

Eat his body and drink his blood, and believe in Jesus. He is the one who gives us eternal life.

Today, as you eat the bread, and drink the wine, consider the fact that over the next few hours, they will be absorbed into your body, and be distributed into every cell that is within you. They will energise and empower you and all that you are.

This is the offer that Jesus makes to everyone who will follow him. Not only will he give us bread and wine to energise our earthly bodies. He will also give us his Spirit - his very self - giving us spiritual and heavenly power to energise our spiritual and heavenly bodies. Every part of you. Life to the full. For ever.

And what was the sign that Jesus gave to the Jews?
It was indeed greater than any sign Moses performed.

Jesus rose from the grave. Not brought back to life like Lazarus. But raised in his heavenly body, to eternal life, just as he promised that we shall be, if we believe in Him.