Jesus - The Bread of Life

I don’t know about you, but when I start eating popcorn or potato chips and get a taste of them I want more. Some foods seems to stimulate our appetite. The same is true spiritually. When we get a taste of God and His word we want more.

Jesus has recently miraculously fed a large multitude, and when He left them many of them came looking for Him. They wanted more. He tells them that they didn’t come because they believed He is the Messiah but because they had their physical hunger satisfied. They didn’t realize it but this miracle made them hungry for something deeper than plain old bread and fish. Jesus encourages them to seek what gives eternal life which He alone can give them.

John 6:35 NIV84

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

How often do people try to satisfy their spiritual hunger with material things? The real human need is to know God. When God begins to work in a person’s life He creates in them a desire to know Him, a hunger for something more than this world can give.

Blaise Pascal put it this way:

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”

During several summers in the 1950s, Howard Mumma, a Methodist pastor, served as a guest minister at the American Church in Paris. After Sunday service one day, he noticed a man in a dark suit surrounded by admirers. Albert Camus [the author] had been coming to church, first to hear Marcel Dupr, playing the organ, and later to hear Mumma’s sermons.

Mumma became friends with the existentialist Camus, who by then was famous for his novels The Plague and The Stranger and for essays such as “The Myth of Sisyphus.” The two men met to discuss questions of religious belief that Camus raised. In one conversation, Camus told Mumma:

The reason I have been coming to church is because I am seeking. I’m almost on a pilgrimage—seeking something to fill the void that I am experiencing—and no one else knows. Certainly the public and the readers of my novels, while they see that void, are not finding the answers in what they are reading. But deep down you are right—I am searching for something that the world is not giving me.…

The psalmist puts it this way:

Psalm 63:1 NIV84

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Bread of Life

Just as our bodies need food to be healthy, so our spirits need to be fed as well. Bread is a basic staple in the diet of people around the world. In saying that He is the bread of life Jesus claims to be the basic source of spiritual nourishment. Before we will seek out that nourishment we must acknowledge our need.

Why is Jesus the bread of life? Why is He the only one who can satisfy our need? It is because He alone laid down His life for us.

Jesus’ sacrifice

John 6:51 NIV84

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

To eat this bread is to have Jesus be a central part of our lives, to be in the closest union with Him.

Sustains life

He is able to meet our need today because of His resurrection. That’s why He can say He is the living bread.

Jesus is telling us that He is the spiritual food which can satisfy our hunger and thirst.

Psalm 34:8 NIV84

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

Coming to Jesus

What does it mean to come to Jesus?

Believe in Him

To trust that His sacrifice provides forgiveness for our sins. His death brings us life.

Following Him

Become a disciple. Follow His teaching and example, obey His command.

Never hunger or thirst

Contentment

While physical food provides temporary relief from hunger, Jesus provides eternal satisfaction, not based on material possessions or happy circumstances.

Philippians 4:11–12 NIV84

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Peace

Jesus tells His disciples that He gives them peace. The world can only give temporary peace at best.

John 14:27 NIV84

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I ask you this morning, are you satisfied or do you hunger and thirst? Are you trying to meet that hunger by filling your lives with the things of this world? Hear the words of Isaiah:

Isaiah 55:1–3 NIV84

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.

We have to pay for the food we eat, we have to work in order to meet our physical needs. The good news is that our spiritual food is given to us. In fact, there is nothing we can do to earn it, no work that help us afford it.

Why do we spend so much time and money on that which will not bring us peace? Why do we put so much effort into things that do not satisfy?

As we come to this table we do not come to receive a small piece of bread and a little cup of juice. These are given to simply remind us of what Jesus did for us on the cross so that we could be truly satisfied. When we take them in the right manner we are acknowledging our need of a Savior and trusting in Jesus to be that Savior.