Bread is the Answer
Today I am going to share with you some good news. The good news: the gospel. My favorite biblical definition from blueletterbible of the word gospel is “the proclamation of the grace of God manifest and pledged in Christ”. What an amazing word, right? If this is a familiar concept then be blessed by the reminder and don’t check out. Just like we need bread everyday, we need to hear this news everyday. If you are just kicking around this Jesus thing and haven’t given your life to Him, then be blessed by the good news that Jesus brings to us all.
Okay, confessions of a bible teacher/facilitator: I have never found the gospels easy to read. I struggle. I love OT. The old testament is a history lesson with dates, names, and locations that can be fact checked and looked up. When Jesus speaks in the gospels, sometimes it can feel like a puzzle. Have you ever read the parables and thought, “Why can’t they just speak plainly?!” What does that mean? How does a person “fish for men”? What does a seed have to do with faith and why are there so many farming metaphors?! Jesus is giving answers right and left but they don’t seem to be the answers to the questions or problems at hand. If you have ever felt my frustration: my suggestion start in the gospel of John. Today we are going to look at a passage in John 6.
John is a popular gospel because he actually tells you what the point is and why he is telling us the things he is and what Jesus means. He tells us things to help us believe in Jesus and the grace of God made manifest in him. It may not always seem clear at first but it is.
What a relief to have to spelled out me what Jesus is talking about. Jesus sounds like he is speaking in riddles all over the gospel accounts. Build a huge temple out of stone and mortar and gold in only 3 days? John tells us though, what Jesus was actually saying. Jesus’ is talking about his body. So after Jesus died and was resurrected 3 days later, the disciples look back, and remember and say ah hah! That’s what he was talking about. His body is the temple. It wasn’t understood though reasonably because that it is a totally foreign idea and concept. Body is a temple, a building? But it’s with John’s hindsight, wisdom, and experience that these things became clear. Eventually, he saw how the answer did fit the question. Only after seeing the larger picture did the piece finally fit. Then he tells us, so that we may believe in Jesus. The difficulty for us comes in looking for specific answers and not being able to see the whole picture. The disciples didn’t know when Jesus said that, what was coming. The answer didn’t make sense for a long time. They had to trust in the puzzling response Jesus gave. The didn’t get their specific answer but waited and trusted in the one that was given.
Maybe you know how this feels. Maybe you have gotten an answer or lack of an answer in prayer but it didn’t seem to match with your issue. The crisis you brought to the table, the question you have doesn’t feel answered at all. For instance: Do you struggle with depression? Have you ever lost a loved one? Are you still yearning desperately for that relationship or child that is lacking in your life?
Things right here, right now feel like nonsense. Jesus calls himself light, water, life and bread in the book of John. Those don’t seem like answers to mental health, loneliness and anxiety. Just like if someone told you they would build a cathedral in 3 days, it doesn’t make sense when Jesus calls himself bread, that that is an answer to any problem you might have. But we can say, “Thank you John” because he is going to help spell it our for us. Our one question isn’t being answered. Every single one we will ever have is actually answered here. When Jesus calls himself bread in John 6, he has actually given us the answer to everything.
John 6- Jesus says he is bread. Starting in verse 26 Jesus starts talking to people who just saw a miracle of the feeding of thousands from a few loaves of bread. They asked where he came from because they didn’t see him come or go.
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
Jesus tells them, I brought the answer to you and you are still standing here because you did not take it. You did not understand. You satisfied your stomach instead of your heart. People were not seeking Jesus because of the savior He is but because of the product he supplied in one moment. Have you ever treated Jesus like this? Like a product to be consumed? Needed in a moment but not all the time.
Has there been a time when you came to Jesus for satisfaction only because you could not supply your own? Have you ever sought Jesus in a moment but didn’t really take him in for anything else but the answer to that moment?
Those moments become can become great stories. Like Jesus feeding thousands from a few loaves. But He came for more than a moment, He came for your whole life, now and forever. It is sometimes easier to have faith in crisis, in a hard moment. When you have exhausted your own control and understanding, is that when it is easy to ask Jesus for help? I’ve been there. I tried to find money for my daughter’s surgery when she was 5. She had become completely deaf through a series of ear infections that we didn’t know about and she never complained about. She needed tubes, tonsils taken out, adenoids reduced. It was our first huge medical crisis with our kids. I pinched our budget and we ate sandwiches every day and yet it wasn’t enough. We finally broke down to our homegroup the week before the surgery and asked for prayer. I did everything I knew to do and it didn’t work. Then when I was exhausted of possibility, I reached for Jesus. God supplied the $5000 in a budget error at my husband’s work days before the surgery. The anxiety of trying to figure it out for weeks beforehand was exhausting. The worry, the shame of not being able to solve this problem and help my baby girl. It is was heavy. At then end, I sought Jesus because of the signs I knew He was capable of. I wasn’t looking for the person, for the savior. I was looking for product of Jesus.
What would our life had looked like in that season if I had relied on Jesus daily instead of just the moment of crisis? If I had asked for prayer sooner. Only God was going to make it work and He did but what if I could have trusted in the bigger picture that I couldn’t yet see? When the crisis was over, it was really hard to remember to go back to that desperate need of God I felt at homegroup. The moment had passed. My stomach was satisfied, the payment was made, the surgery was a success, the product consumed. I went for the bread and ignored the life change offered.
Jesus continues in John to talk to those seeking to satisfy their stomachs:
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”
Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
What a let down! These are people who for thousands of years have been shaped and molded by what they must DO. They had over 600 laws to keep and observe. There were so many things to do. So, that probably doesn’t make sense as an answer to the problem they presented. What do we do? Believe? That isn’t something we do is it?
We have all felt this. We want to DO something. My family had a period in our lives where 8 close family members died within 3 years. Now I am from the south. When something bad happens, we make food. Food is comfort, food is love. And for all our friends and family, there is nothing else to do than to make casseroles. When my step dad passed away, my mother had plenty of food. My mother was inundated with casseroles. It’s like we know in our base human nature that we need something that satisfies. An oh how we try to do it ourselves. Through that season I learned something invaluable though. When there is loss, when there is heartache, casseroles don’t cut it. They will perish. It doesn’t last. The best thing someone could do for us, was to just sit there. Be with us. What was the most comfort to my mom, was just sitting with her. No expectations, no conversations, and no more casseroles. The comfort came in loved ones defeating the loneliness. The best gift was having someone there while you cried who didn’t comfort you, someone that let you be in that moment but be with you. Someone who didn’t DO anything except be there.
So Jesus says, don’t work for the food that perishes. Don’t think about what you need to DO. Don’t strive for the temporary, Don’t long for the signs but believe in the one who does them. Believe in permanent, the enduring, the one who brings you eternal life. Just be with him
The people still don’t have the same context. The answer they are hearing isn’t matching with what they are asking. So they try a different way: They ask Jesus what signs he will do so that they may believe. When is it enough? Jesus is asking us to believe in him with a thousand signs all around us and so easily we ask for one more. Just one more sign, one more serving. This is treating Jesus like a product instead of life. Jesus is trying to say I have the way right here for you. Just come and believe. The people still don’t see what he is saying. They ask for a sign like Moses gave in the wilderness, the manna. The bread from heaven. Jesus has to tell them, Moses didn’t provide that, I did!
Verse 33-35:
For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
They are asking for bread and Jesus answers with life. He is not a single stop, one use product. Jesus is not the answer to the crisis but the answer to everything. He tried to make it simple, come and believe. They didn’t understand. So he tried another way. You know you need to eat or you will die. The bread of life is in me, come to me and you will not perish, believe in me and you will never hunger. Everyday we need bread, everyday we need Jesus.
So, does that mean quit your job? Don’t take your anti-anxiety meds? Just pray more? Absolutely not. Jesus provided bread because the people needed to eat. He shows us again and again to work, take pride in what you do and take care of yourself and others. What we can look for is to have God to show us what we think our bread of life actually is. Is it really Jesus? Or is that promotion at work that we really believe will make our life better? Is it that child or spouse what we actually believe completes us and satisfies us? Work? Yes. Take your medication? Yes. Live to work? No. We are pretty blessed to be born here. There are not a lot of us who truly know what it is to hunger. Our western culture defines bread in so many other ways. That new minivan, monthly salon trips to “treat yourself”, sports for our kids. This can never satisfy though. There will always be another rung above you, there will always be just one more thing. These things are not life. Life is found in Jesus. When we get fired or our relationship with our kid fails, turn to Jesus for the satisfaction. Accept the peace that Jesus provides in life for you everyday. Remember, the gospel, the good news. With Jesus, we have everything and without him, we will hunger. Give your life to him daily. Do it everyday not just when life seems hard. Bread is required daily. You cannot eat your fill once a week, once a month, on easter and christmas and expect a healthy life. You need satisfaction, you need nutrients, you need bread every single day of the week. When I remember to pray over my budget and bills every single month, I feel so much less anxiety when the crisis does come. I know He will satisfy because I have been counting on him this whole time and He has been there.
Give your life to Jesus, he is the answer. The single use product will never satisfy. It will always perish. God sent his Son, down from heaven to give eternal life. This worldly life, this perishing single use product will not provide life to the world. But Jesus, daily like bread, comes and saves if only we will believe.
