I AM #1 - The Bread of Life
October 15, 2023
John 6:30-71 | Exodus 16:1-4
Humans are always looking for signs. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially noting that Jesus described many signs. But it is very easy to get lost in finding and deciphering signs. More importantly, it’s just not what Jesus came to give us or at the heart of what he has for us to do.
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There are seven miraculous signs in John, but there are also seven particular statements that Jesus makes about himself, the I AM statements. When Jesus says, “I am…”, it is a direct reference back to the divine name Moses heard from God at the burning bush.
God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” God continued, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me.
We can assume the Jews listening to Jesus or reading John’s words would immediately hear the reference when he says, “I AM (that I am).”
But even earlier in our passage today, the people fulfill the very thing Jesus said they would - they are following him not for who he is, but for the spectacle of miracles and signs.
People love signs. We love to find meaning and predictability. Even today, as the world watches the tragedies occurring in Israel & Gaza, so many Christians want to insert our own meaning into the conflict. For sure, Jesus said there would be conflict. But our desire to find our own selves and story within can be vastly misplaced, and often dangerously so.
It’s one thing that Jesus said things would happen. But it’s another thing to make them happen, to dwell upon their occurrence, or to celebrate their coming.
Rather, in the midst of it all, Jesus has said he came to bring life, that his very life and body - flesh and blood - is to be the bread, food, source of life. Regardless of what we think of the signs around us, this is the call: to bear the character of the person bearing the will of God, which he says is that all who see him and believe in him will have eternal life.
John 6:30-71
They asked, “What miraculous sign will you do, that we can see and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
Jesus told them, “I assure you, it wasn’t Moses who gave the bread from heaven to you, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. The bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They said, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”
Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I told you that you have seen me and still don’t believe. Everyone whom the Father gives to me will come to me, and I won’t send away anyone who comes to me. I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the one who sent me, that I won’t lose anything he has given me, but I will raise it up at the last day. This is my Father’s will: that all who see the Son and believe in him will have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
The Jewish opposition grumbled about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
They asked, “Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son, whose mother and father we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Jesus responded, “Don’t grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. I assure you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that whoever eats from it will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Then the Jews debated among themselves, asking, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Human One and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me lives because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. It isn’t like the bread your ancestors ate, and then they died. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Many of his disciples who heard this said, “This message is harsh. Who can hear it?”
Jesus knew that the disciples were grumbling about this and he said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you were to see the Human One going up where he was before? The Spirit is the one who gives life and the flesh doesn’t help at all. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Yet some of you don’t believe.”Jesus knew from the beginning who wouldn’t believe and the one who would betray him. He said, “For this reason I said to you that none can come to me unless the Father enables them to do so.” At this, many of his disciples turned away and no longer accompanied him.
Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered, “Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are God’s holy one.”
Jesus replied, “Didn’t I choose you twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was speaking of Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
Exodus 16:1-4
The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Sin desert, which is located between Elim and Sinai. They set out on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt. The whole Israelite community complained against Moses and Aaron in the desert. The Israelites said to them, “Oh, how we wish that the Lord had just put us to death while we were still in the land of Egypt. There we could sit by the pots cooking meat and eat our fill of bread. Instead, you’ve brought us out into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “I’m going to make bread rain down from the sky for you. The people will go out each day and gather just enough for that day. In this way, I’ll test them to see whether or not they follow my Instruction.
Prayer
God,
There are so many things going on. It’s hard to know how to decipher them, what they all mean, and just what exactly I’m supposed to do about them. I’m trying to understand your call within it all.
So many of my Christian brothers and sisters seem to know exactly what they think it all means, but I’m not nearly as sure. It seems to me you have us here to live in particular ways in the midst of it all. It seems to me that those ways have to do with life.
So help me, God: Bring me to the life you give and help my words and example to emanate the same.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.