Bread of Life John 6:35

Sermon on John 6:35 prepared by Jonathan Shradar

John 6:5-13; 32-35

Jesus is the whole meal of Christianity.

Table manners. Over the last couple of weeks we have had a few dinner encounters that sparked some thinking about table manners. I suppose when you have children this crosses your mind occasionally, especially when you eat at a table. Which only happens a couple times a week if I am honest!

How we interact, the ways in which we make demands for that which we crave on the other end of the table. The appropriate way to refuse the items that we don’t fancy. How we might subdue the appearance of ravinace hunger and its satiation in polite company.

All of this brought to mind the childhood threat of Cotillion, which for some of you was more than a threat! The instruction on table manners, and dinner party etiquette. Napkin on lap, using the correct utensil, sipping not slurping… Table manners.

Contrast the best of table manners with how friends match our hunger around each other. Barging in, opening the fridge to find what is available to stuff our face. The casual crunch of satisfaction and the pleasurable “ahhhh” after a refreshing cool drink… a different form of table manners.

There is something to be said of the correlation between how we approach the longing of our stomachs, and all that follows along with that, tables and otherwise, and the longing of our souls.

Both are to be viscerally felt in the depths of who we are… both are to consume most of our lives, both are indicators of health and vibrancy or starvation, disease, and death. Concurrently significant, but each morsel likely made to point to the more vital reality of eternal truths we don’t want to miss.

There is bread that really satisfies, that isn’t really bread. Let’s think about it!

We are embarking on a new series looking at the “I Am” statements of Jesus.

In our day, the perennial questions of what Christians should be about and what the church should prioritize demand to be answered. Maybe the questions are louder at poignant cultural moments… to the question of who we as believers in Jesus should be, we want to go a layer deeper and ask, who it is we believe in?

Who better to hear from than Jesus himself on this question! He gave seven “I am” statements, metaphorical and actual, making clear who he is. All found in John’s gospel.

And when we realize who He is, everything about us changes. Today we tackle the first statement, we bring humanity’s hunger to the bread of life.

Jesus is the whole meal of Christianity.

What do I mean by “whole meal?” Well, He is the point, the product, the purpose, the pinnacle, He is everything.

So often we try to figure out what the church should offer. The answer must be Jesus. And the first “I am” statement is proof of this claim.

We find it in John 6. I love this chapter. We had a whole series just on this chapter. There is so much here. Feeding some 15,000, walking on water, Jesus telling people they have to eat him. His teaching is so radical many of His disciples quit following Him and it feels like he is left with just the twelve.

It is a chapter with a lot of bread. Pulling some observations from the encounter. Jesus is bread for the mind, body, and soul.

Jesus is bread for the mind.

Ramping up to the “I am,” the day before Jesus had a huge crowd following him as he was healing the sick. It was the Passover feast and he wanted to feed the crowd. So He tested Philip asking, “where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”

Of course they don’t have enough money. 5,000 men and their families. Andrew speaks up saying there is a poor kid with five barley loaves and two fish. (I love that this is all there is!)

Jesus takes the lunch, multiplies it and feeds the crowd. 12 baskets of leftovers.

Then Jesus withdrew to the mountain because He perceived that crowd was going to make Him king. They were convinced he was “the Prophet come into the world.”

After all, he had done miracles. They were following Him because he was healing the sick and now he fed a multitude. If not the Prophet, He was powerful and special. That’s often how we see these miracles, as proof of who Jesus is. But I wonder if they are less about proof and more to get their attention.

But the people track Him down and ask for more food.

John 6:25–26 “When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” [26] 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.” (ESV)

He then gives a vital corrective - saying, ‘don’t run after temporary bread but food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.

Then comes maybe the most important question in the Bible.

John 6:28–29 “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” [29] Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (ESV)

They have their answer, but still they ask for a sign. Like manna in the wilderness.

Jesus essentially says, I am the manna, the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

“I am the bread of life.”

Jesus is saying, “Don’t just look at the miracles; look at me. I am the miracle. I am the bread you’re looking for…” Timothy J. Keller

From this statement, the conversation will continue but it will be as if the crowd is unwilling to think it through, to engage Jesus, to hear Him rightly, historically.

It’s not the miracles you need as proof, it’s Him. He is the proof. Jesus doesn’t for one second dumb down the truth of who He is to this crowd. He wants them to think. To wrestle with what they know of Moses and manna and the promised Messiah, and to see it in Him. The simple gospel that engages our minds wherever we are.

The Savior who teaches in parables stretching our thinking, who speaks with authority, of whom the religious officers would say, “no one ever spoke like this man.” Who gives His spirit to His people so that they would confound the wise.

The crowd was seeking a snack, Jesus was the meal they were meant for.

One pastor put it this way. He said he once talked to a skeptic who said, “I’d love to believe in God, I’d love to believe in Christianity, if somebody would just give me a watertight argument.” The pastor came back to him and said, “Here’s the problem. Christianity doesn’t give you a watertight argument, but it does give you a watertight person.”

The redemptive story of Christ is given the way it is to engage our minds, there is so much to search, to make us wonder, and an eternity coming of exploration of the riches of Christ.

Miracles could be reasoned away. They are not the proof. They point to the person who is the proof, to Jesus. There is no counter-argument to Him.

Jesus invites us saying “look at my life, the miracle was to get you to look at me, this is who I am, I want to engage you intellect. Hunger satisfied because there is no end of his grace, goodness, and glory to be seen in His word, and in a life walking with Him. Never a rejection of our minds but fuel for them to live in wonder and awe of Him.

Jesus is bread for the mind.

Jesus is bread for the body.

Jesus is not only giving us something to think about, to believe, but He gives us a life to live.

His miracles then act as signs of His kingdom that will completely shape how we live. This is bread that fuels our life in motion.

Flower shirts - I often say I wear them as a reminder that “we are going back to the garden.” I need to revise that. Jesus is actually pointing not back to Eden, but ahead to the new creation he has come to restore.

The crowd here is asking for a sign to prove Jesus’ authority to speak on matters of eternal life… to this request he gives Himself as the sign what eternal living looks like and welcomes those that believe into participation in it.

And when He invites us into His way, this unfolding is what we experience and recognize.

We look at His life and see miracles as demonstrations of power - we could think of some other ways to show power (raining fire, crushing Rome). But they are a glimpse at the restoring of His natural order. This is the yeast that is levening the world.

Miracles “are signs of what he came to use his power to do. They’re signs of the nature of his power. They’re signs of his mission; they tell us what he came to do and how we can be part of it.”

Zooming out of John 6, Jesus’ miracles show that he came to deal with suffering. Every one of them comes against or assaults suffering. Which is proof that “the bread of life,” God doesn’t like the brokenness of the world any more than we do. He feeds the hungry. He heals the sick. He opens the eyes of the blind. He resurrects the dead. He calms the storm.

And he feeds thousands with the grain of the poor, barley.

Where humanity had built walls of restriction, Jesus gave access to the Father. “The blind see, the lepers are cleansed, and the poor have good news preached.”

Jesus’ ministry is reordering, reversing the curse of the garden. And he intends for His Kingdom that is at hand to follow suit.

He goes on teaching dignity for all image-bearers, valuing, raising up the burdened, serving the disadvantaged, living with integrity, self sacrifice, all this and more is the direction of eternal life in Him.

Those that eat of this bread join in this life of freedom for the least. The life of his kingdom, of his covenant.

It takes a lifetime to wrap our minds around it, and walk it out. But it is the way of real life. And we have this real life as followers of Jesus because he gave His body for ours. Because he is the bread of life.

John 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (ESV)

Sacrificial.

In our formation, being made like Him by His spirit in community, we give ourselves away for others, we become miracles pointing to the bread of life.

He is bread for the body.

Jesus is bread for the soul.

Before we walk, we must eat.

He is where humanity’s hunger is met. Where our souls are satisfied.

So much of life is spent trying to find “our fill.” The next thing that will keep our attention. That will distract from the pain of the day, the dred of what is ahead. That will make us smile, give us joy, and warm fuzzies. Or will match the emptiness, space we feel, however we describe it. Soul-longing.

Jesus, knowing the crowd was seeking food when the hunger was deeper than their stomachs, answered that he is the source.

John 6:35 “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.” (ESV)

“First, he’s saying everybody has a spiritual hunger. Everybody. Underneath your physical hunger is a spiritual hunger. He says in verse 27, “Don’t labor for the food that spoils, but labor for the food that gives you eternal life.” What he simply means is we are looking; we have some kind of hunger in us that’s very deep, and anything we put there, whether it’s family, food, social acceptance, money, or comfort … Whatever we put there is never going to satisfy us.

Secondly, he says, “I am the bread of life.” When he says that, this is where people are moving away from him. If he said, “I have the bread of life; I will give you the bread of life,” then he’s a teacher saying, “I can show you the way to spiritual reality.” But when he says, “I am the bread of life,” he’s saying something utterly unique.” Timothy J. Keller

Jesus is saying He is that which satisfies. Some may say this is terribly egocentric, but there has never been anyone that has taught this and actually had an impact on the world like Jesus.

He satisfies because Jesus gives life, he doesn’t show us the way to life. When we come to Him we are not given a guide to life, a set of rules to life, we get life.

The works of God have been done for us by Him, we believe.

What was required for righteousness has been satisfied by Him, we receive.

Eternity is secured in Him. No hunger, no thirst.

“What is that spiritual need? That spiritual need is for God to introduce the long-awaited hero to the plot of the world’s story. Jesus is that hero. The spiritual need is for God to keep his promises about defeating evil and renewing creation and causing life to triumph over death, blessing to overwhelm cursing, justice to be done on evildoers, recompense given to those who knew their God, stood firm, and took action. Central to all this is the reality that people stand guilty before God, condemned for their evil deeds. Our spiritual need is such that if God’s wrath is not satisfied by a substitute, if God’s justice is not established through the death of a sufficient sacrifice, we will face the everlasting displeasure of the Almighty. Jesus meets that need. He has come down from heaven to give life to the world. We need him to live spiritually just as we need bread to live physically. Apart from Jesus we will die. Jesus has come to give life. He is the hero. He brings about the story’s resolution. He meets our spiritual needs so that those who come to him hunger and thirst no more, ever.” James Hamilton

For a long time I have looked at John 6 and thought surely the disciples ditch Jesus because they couldn’t get over the eating flesh and drinking blood bits - as He alludes to communion establishing a new covenant reminder of His finished work for us.

But as I reflect more on Jesus being the bread, I think they are more unsettled that they can’t earn eternity. They can’t control the exchange.

“How can we acquire this life-giving bread? The only “work” that guarantees the possession of this redemptive manna is to believe in Jesus (John 6:29). The gospel sabotages any notion of legalism or performance-based acceptability with God. The only thing we bring to Jesus is our need. All we offer is the admission that we have nothing to offer.” GTB

The food of our souls is not earned and that is meant to free us from burden, release us to enjoy what we have been given, and end the cycle of continual pursuit for that which the soul longs for, belonging, identity, eternity with our Creator.

Jesus wants to be our lives. Before the Father, we stand and say “not what I have done, but only what Jesus has done is my life now. Because of what Jesus did, O Father, save me.”

His record is yours. In Him you have passed from death to life. Changes our place and perspective.

As Paul says in Colossians, Christ is our life.

This is the bread that satisfies our souls.

“Jesus is everything anyone will ever need. Jesus is altogether adequate, satisfying, nourishing, life-giving. Those who go to Jesus and believe in him need nothing else. He is enough.”

With souls satisfied our minds will mine the depths of His grace for us and we will live in His way for His glory.

Realize what he’s done. Realize who he is. Make him your life.

Jesus is the whole meal of Christianity.

Jesus is bread for the mind, body, and soul.

He is the full meal, every course.

Thinking again of table manners in light of this meal, Erika shared her experience that at her cotillion they only served a snack. Never getting the full experience they were meant for. Oh the danger of seeing Jesus as merely a snack…

Determine to live following Paul’s example and exhortation. 1 Corinthians 2:2 “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (ESV)

Know - Use your mind and see Jesus. Read. Talk. Study. Listen. Wrestle. Believe.

Walk - Move as He moves - a cruciform life, living like our Savior.

Rest - Crucified for your freedom, for the life of the world. Ask Jesus to be your satisfaction.

We come to the table of life hungry and he seats us at a feast beyond our wildest dreams. Take, eat, remember.

Jesus is the bread of life. Whoever comes to him shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Him shall never thirst.