Who likes bread?
Sourdough bread, Garlic Bread, Cheesy bread, White bread, Wheat bread, Cinnamon Bread, Sister Schubert Rolls, Hawaiian Sweet Rolls! And the list goes on and on!
Anyone getting hungry yet?
I know there are people who are gluten free or perhaps on a diet where you don’t eat bread for one reason or another and I get that. I understand.
But for thousands of years people have been making bread and for most people in most places around the world for generation after generation, this is true:
Bread = Life.
When I was growing up my grandmother would make something called bread pudding.
Anyone ever had that before? I know, it sounds weird if you’ve never had it. But she made the absolute best bread pudding and I loved it. Part of the secret was her recipe. The other part was her special bread pudding pan. I think she had made so much bread pudding in that pan that it was seasoned to perfection and it just didn’t taste the same unless it was cooked in that pan.
What was true for me and it was probably true for you, our family always had plenty of bread growing up. For us, bread = life was true in the sense that we ate a lot of bread and it gave life to our family, it gave life to our dinner table, it gave life to our conversation, our holidays, as often as we gathered around a table and broke bread together, it gave life.
No Bread = No Life
But there were generations before us where this was true on a more literal level. There were times in our history where there wasn’t an overabundance of food, of bread.
In a more literal way this was true, BREAD = LIFE. To be without bread meant to be without life! To starve. To die!
People would do just about anything to get a scrap of bread. To have something to eat. To have something to feed their families.
In his book, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” about the Great Depression, Milton Meltzer writes:
By the end of 1932, the Great Depression had affected some sixty million people.
At one count in 1932, there were as many as eighty-two breadlines in New York City.
This situation spiraled downward, and did so quickly. Breadlines and soup kitchens were packed, serving as many as eighty-five thousand meals daily in New York City alone.
Children, in particular, felt the brunt of poverty. Many in coastal cities would roam the docks in search of spoiled vegetables to bring home. Elsewhere, children begged at the doors of more well-off neighbors, hoping for stale bread, table scraps, or raw potato peelings. Said one childhood survivor of the Great Depression, “You get used to hunger. After the first few days it doesn’t even hurt; you just get weak.”
This is just one example from a dark time in our history. But this kind of thing has happened throughout history and even happens to people in different places today.
Physically speaking:
Bread = Life.
And… No Bread = No Life.
I AM…
Spiritually speaking, the idea that Bread = Life is always TRUE.
And I want to show you why I say that today.
This summer we’re taking time to sit with Jesus in the gospel of John. John’s gospel is unlike the other three gospels in almost every way.
One of the unique things about John is that Jesus over and over again reveals who He is to the people. Using the same words God spoke to Moses in the burning bush when God revealed His name to Moses, when God told Moses, This is my name. I AM that I AM. Jesus says over and over again in John’s gospel that He is “I AM!”
And then Jesus takes it one step further as He reveals who He is. He follows the I AM declaration with an added description of who He is.
In John 6, before Jesus tells the people who He is, He does something that had never been done before. Something anyone and everyone would have thought was impossible. So impossible that it didn’t even occur to His disciples to suggest it even though at this point in the story, they’ve seen Jesus do some impossible things!
We aren’t going to read the whole story, I want to encourage you to do that later today, but I want you to hear how the story begins and the question that introduces all the tension into the story and into all of our lives.
1 After this,
After what? Jesus has just instantaneously healed a lame man. Something that even with modern medicine is impossible to do. But Jesus did this on the Sabbath. The religious leaders are upset because Jesus, in their view, broke the laws concerning the Sabbath.
They are more caught up in their traditions and laws than they are astounded by the healing of a man lame for 38 years!
1 After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick.
So there is a crowd of people who are surrounding and following Jesus because He is doing impossible things. They have seen his miraculous power, His ability to heal the sick. And they want to see more.
But what Jesus wants to show them isn’t miracles for the sake of miracles, He’s not a traveling magician with a bag full of tricks trying to attract a crowd, He’s not trying to become an influencer, get more subscribers, grow His platform, and get more traffic on His YouTube channel so He can generate more AD revenue and retire at an early age.
No! Jesus has something greater He wants to show them, He wants to reveal to them. Every miracle, every sign, it points to something. It has a purpose. It reveals something about Jesus, about who He is and about His mission and mandate in this world.
But make no mistake about it, He’s attracted this crowd on purpose, or for a purpose. There is something He wants them to COME & SEE and something He wants us to COME & SEE as well.
So this huge crowd has followed Him across the Sea of Galilee. And then this happens…
Passover & Bread
3 Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. 4 (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.)
John adds this little detail… by the way, it’s about time for Passover! Why does John mention this? Passover was an annual celebration for the Jews where they remembered their Exodus from Egypt. That night when they put the blood of the lamb over the doorposts of their homes and their children were spared, they were passed over, they did not die that night when the 10th plague fell across Egypt and every firstborn child died.
Every year since that night they celebrate Passover with a lamb and with the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine as well as other things. Everything they do in the Passover meal has meaning and significance.
They use unleavened bread because in their hurried escape from Egypt that fateful night, they did not have time to let the bread rise before they baked it. But they knew they would need bread for the journey ahead because, Bread = Life.
It’s nearly time for the Passover. Jesus has gathered a crowd around Him on a hillside beside the Sea of Galilee. And then Jesus asks a question.
The Impossible Question
5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?”
What I want to suggest is that this is the question that holds all the tension in this story, in this gospel, and in our own lives.
Jesus asks Philip the one question everyone is already thinking about. The crowd is hungry. The disciples are hungry. My best guess is that Jesus is hungry. How close was the closest town? I don’t know. But it wasn’t going to be quick to get anywhere, find a place that sold enough bread to feed a crowd of more than 5000 people, and then somehow transport that bread back to this field.
Jesus is asking an impossible question.
There is no place to buy that much bread for this many people. And even if there were, how would we get it here. But that wasn’t even Philip’s biggest push back. He knew there was another insurmountable problem. They didn’t have enough money to buy that much bread.
I think Philip felt the same way I felt in 4th grade when our teacher gave us word problems during math. Something about a train leaving New York going this fast and traveling this distance making this many stops at varying intervals and we had to figure out what time it would arrive. And my answer was always the same. Who cares!? It’s an impossible question. At least, I couldn’t figure it out!
And Philip couldn’t either. Philip doesn’t know WHERE to get that much bread and even if they could, he doesn’t have a clue HOW they would pay for it!
But of course, Jesus already knew what He was going to do!
The Impossible Answer
Another disciple, a guy named Andrew, brings Jesus a boy whose mom had packed him a lunch! He had 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and… he was willing to share. You probably know the rest of the story. Jesus has the crowd sit down into small groups.
Yes, small groups date back to the days of Jesus! 🙂
Then Jesus gave God thanks for the bread and the fish, and then handed it out to the people. John writes that there were at least 5000 men. Counting women and children, it’s not hard to imagine that there could have been 10-15 thousand people on the hillside that day.
And after everyone was full, nobody was left hungry, no one was begging for scraps or even hoping for a little bit more, Jesus instructed the disciples to gather the leftovers. There were leftovers!? Yes. You see…
Our God is a God of abundance.
BTW – If you’re ever facing an impossible situation and you don’t know what to do, just remember – Jesus already knows what to do and our God is a God of abundance.
Some of the people thought this miraculous sign meant Jesus was a prophet. Others were ready to make Him their king. But it wasn’t time for anything like that. So Jesus slipped away.
But the next day, the crowd came looking for Jesus. They found Him on the other side of the lake. And when they found him you know what they wanted?
They wanted a sign! Many had seen him heal a lame man. Most, if not all of them, had eaten the miracle bread. But they WANT MORE.
Have you ever been there? Ever been on the receiving end of God’s blessing and found yourself looking for more? Wanting more? Needing more? Asking for more?
Even though God has already done more than you could have asked or imagined, somehow enough is never enough and you want more?
A Different Kind of Bread
26 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. 27 But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”
28 They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”
29 Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”
30 They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? 31 After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. 33 The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”
Jesus challenged them to believe in Him. They were seeking Him because they wanted perishable things. But what Jesus wanted them to understand was that He was pointing them to eternal things.
They were seeking the perishable.
Jesus wanted them to seek the eternal.
Physical bread = Physical life.
Yes! But, what He wanted them to COME & SEE was the spiritual reality that physical bread pointed to.
Spiritual bread = Eternal Life.
That sounds good to them! Like the woman at the well who wanted Jesus to give her living water so she would no longer have to come to that well and draw physical water, so that she would never be thirsty again, the crowd wants Jesus to give them this bread from Heaven so they will no longer be hungry again!
So they ask Him,
V34: “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”
To which Jesus responded,
V35: “I Am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Bread =Life
Jesus is the Bread of Life!
God spoke to Moses in the burning bush and God revealed His name to Moses, I AM that I AM. Jesus says over and over again in John’s gospel that He is “I AM!” And then Jesus takes it one step further as He reveals who He is. He follows the I AM declaration with an added description of who He is. And right here, Jesus says this about Himself.
“I AM the Bread of Life.”
And by the way I AM MORE THAN ENIUGH FOR YOU.
Enough?
So maybe the question for you today isn’t, “Do you like bread?” Maybe it’s, “Are you hungry for something more?” “Are you thirsty for something more?” “Are you facing an impossible question, an impossible situation, and are you ready to discover the answer you’ve been searching for?”
Are you wondering if you have enough?
If you are enough?
For this people living in first century Palestine, having bread was a matter of life and death.
The reason millions of people waited in bread lines during the Great Depression was because having bread was a matter of life and death.
And the reason our world, our culture, and maybe the reason you are struggling today is because you’re starving and you may not even know it. You’re malnourished and you don’t even know it.
You may have plenty of food to eat but just like those people on the hillside in Galilee,
there is a hunger in you that is not and cannot be satisfied with any bread, any wealth, any provision, any thing this world has to offer you.
You may be looking around at everything you think you need. And you may be wondering, where am I going to get enough bread? Where am I going to get enough money? Where am I am going to get enough time? Where am I going to get enough help? Where am I going to get what I need?
And to every question you ask Jesus has one answer.
I AM.
You have enough because Jesus is enough.
You are enough because Christ in you is enough.
Communion & the Bread of Life
Biblical scholars pretty much agree that this passage in John’s gospel is NOT about Communion, but they also agree that it is hard not to come to a better understanding of what happens in Communion than when we read this story.
I think for John’s original audience, the followers of Jesus he wrote this letter to, they certainly couldn’t help but think about these words of Jesus when they gathered together to brake the bread and drink the cup.
You can almost imagine them huddled together in HOMES, gathered around TABLES to share a meal. And then someone takes the bread… at Passover it would have been unleavened bread, but on any other Sunday it was probably the bread that was served with the meal, and one of them might say something like… Today we remember Jesus who told us, “I AM the bread of Life!”
And then they would take that bread, break it, share it, and eat it together.
One of them might even tell the story of how they were there that day, or their parents were there that day, when Jesus fed more than 5000 with 5 loaves of bread.
And then they would eat this bread and in one way, it would satisfy their physical hunger. But in another way, it would feed their souls because they believed that this is true: Jesus is the Bread of Life. And anyone who comes to Him will never be hungry again.
Psalm 34.8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
When we break this Bread together around the table, it gives LIFE!
Jesus is the Bread that leads to Life.
Today, may we depend on Jesus wholly, Jesus only, as the Bread of Life, the bread that Gives Eternal Life! May we taste and see that the Lord is Good.
Jesus is the Bread that leads to Life.
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