Psalm 34:8-10
O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him. O fear the Lord, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
John 6:35, 41-51
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."
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Elder Ken Nickel spoke last week about this same passage, and I am going to continue his insights about this, from a slightly different perspective.
In Chapter 6, verse 35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life”. This is the first of what is known as the “I Am” statements in the Gospel of John--- Other “I AM” sayings, later in John’s gospel, are perhaps equally familiar to us:
Jesus also says:
“I AM the light of the world…”
“I AM the good shepherd…”
“I AM the resurrection and the life…”
“I AM the way, the truth, and the life…”
“I AM the true vine…”
These “I AM” statements from Jesus are sprinkled all through John’s gospel. It is interesting to me that Jesus begins describing himself here with “I am the bread of life.”
When I first read this passage, I thought to myself: ok, what does that actually mean—"bread of life”? So, like Ken, I read the text right before this one, at the beginning of John Chapter 6, to understand the context of this passage that comes after it. As Ken spoke about last week, Chapter 6 begins with the miracle commonly referred to as “Jesus feeds the five thousand.” In this miracle, Jesus was being followed by a large crowd because the news spread about all of the instances of his amazing healings. At this point, the Bible says the Passover meal was drawing near. They had five barley loaves and two fish to work with.
John 6: 11-13 says, “Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.”
OK, so let’s put this in a modern context----What do you do when friends drop by your house right at dinnertime? It’s annoying, but hey, they’re your friends. The welcoming thing to do is to overlook the etiquette infraction and invite them to sit down to dinner with you. Make some room at the table. Ok, fine. Now imagine literally a stadium full of friends drop by your house right at dinnertime. Ok, whoa there, now that’s going too far. I would say, I don’t even know all these people! If it were me, I’d send them all home! But really this hypothetical scene is just too ridiculous to even picture.
But that’s what happened in the beginning of John chapter 6. A crowd of five thousand people was following Jesus and Jesus didn’t think twice about what to do. He invited them to sit and break bread with him. All of them! Jesus’s disciple Andrew and a boy gave Jesus five loaves of bread and two fish to feed the entire crowd. And yet, not only was it enough for all five thousand people to eat as much as they could possibly want, but the text says there were crumbs left over enough to fill 12 more baskets. I think that the miracle here was not the ever-replicating bread and fish…but that Jesus’ only inclination ---was to feed the people. To break bread together. Jesus’ invitation to be fed is for all people…no matter who. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was five people there or five thousand or five million, for that matter. What Jesus offers them will always ..be.. enough—and more. Everyone who is hungry has as much as they could ever want, and are sustained.
God is our creator---redeemer---sustainer. As children of God, our very nature as human beings in inextricably bound to God. We are designed to abide in God and God in us. God is with us, God is in us and God is through us ---always --from our first breath to life everlasting. No matter how we stray, how we sin, how we wander, God not only never leaves us, but relentlessly pursues being with us. We are born with a hunger for God. And only God can truly satisfy that hunger.
And yet, we STILL sin. We choose to separate ourselves from God. When we sin, we deny God’s movement in our lives. We still feel that longing for his presence, it’s how we were designed as Children of God. But we may not recognize that longing for what it is. We feel this pang in our lives: Restlessness. Dissatisfaction. Cynicism. Selfishness. Prejudice. Fear, anger, hurt. Sometimes we try to fill that hole with other things--- Wealth. Food. Alcohol. Questionable relationships. Overworking at our jobs. Excessive consumption… or a hundred other pursuits instead of just returning to God.
These things that we pursue are like eating a Snickers bar after a long fast. Yeah, you might feel satisfied for a tiny bit, but it’s fleeting, because it’s not really what we need.
Now, I didn’t understand that growing up. In fact, I was almost 40 years old before I accepted Jesus’ invitation.
For some people, that moment of accepting Christ in their lives comes when they’re down on their knees, when they’ve reached the end of their rope. When they’ve hit rock bottom and Christ is the only way out of the abyss. They feel a deep, painful, visceral hunger for God. I wasn’t there. I was happily married. I already overcame my addiction to alcohol.
I was a survivor, not a victim. But the pangs were always there, gnawing at me. I felt like I was never going to be good enough, or healed enough, or whole enough. I would always be broken. Past abuse, choices I made--- underneath the glossy surface, they were haunting me. For years, I felt this persistent longing—not knowing what it was. And one night I realized that that longing was God calling me. And after 40 years of denial, I chose to accept that call. And suddenly, my whole ..world.. changed. It felt just like in the song—I was blind and now I see. My little black and white world transformed to high-definition technicolor. I had never felt especially hungry for Jesus, but when I came to Christ, I learned that night that God never does Love in moderation.
Jesus says, “I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” Jesus is no Snickers bar. When Jesus fed the five thousand, it might as well have been five million---Christ’s sustaining love will always be enough.
So it doesn’t matter whether we stray or sin five times or five thousand times or five million times, God always love us. His grace will always be enough. And not just enough, but more than enough. God’s love, our sustenance, is not just a Snickers bar for the soul. No! God’s love is a banquet. God’s love is ridiculously unimaginably rich and abundant.
In fact, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” In Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, he poured himself out for all of humanity, and was raised again to give us life everlasting. And in doing this, in this incredible gift, Jesus invites us to life everlasting,
Love everlasting. It’s up to us to take up the invitation and return to God. Come home. Break bread. Be together. Pray together. Believe and accept Jesus’ love. Enduring, everlasting, abundant love.
You know, after I became a Christian, one question still remained my mind, “Who am I that God, the creator of all that is, could love me?” Who are we, that God is beyond our comprehension and yet yearns to have a personal relationship with us. Who are we? We are God’s children. Each one of us and all of us.
Our friend. our enemy. Our neighbor ...and the foreigner; the righteous and the sinners. God loves all of us. Now. Forever. With reckless abandon. With hope. With unending grace. In John, 13:33-35 Jesus said, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus is Love Incarnate. If there is one thing that is mandated to call oneself a Christian, it is ..to.. love. Jesus loves us unconditionally, abundantly, and with grace. And in this greatest commandment, he charges us to love one another just as he loves us.
How does Jesus love us? Without limits, without conditions, exactly as we are—imperfect, skeptical, yearning. Jesus fed the five thousand on the hill without knowing who they were, what their background was, where they came from, how they came, if they had a personal agenda or if they just wanted to hear him speak. He didn’t care, because it didn’t matter. The one thing that mattered is they were hungry. So he fed them. Simple as that.
When someone comes to us hungry, either in body or in spirit, remember Jesus invites all people to the table. Everyone shares the Bread of Life without conditions, without judgment, and without question.
May we make room at the table. Amen.