Today’s Reading: John 6:22-71 - The Bread of Life
The five thousand who were miraculously fed with bread and fish by Jesus chased Him to Capernaum. Jesus correctly confronts their motive. It’s not because they had their spiritual fill by way of God’s miraculous sign, but because they had their temporal fill of food for their bodies. In verses 30-31, they have the audacity to ask Jesus to provide a miraculous sign in order that they may believe in Him. The problem here is that they have it stuck in their traditional thinking that a prophet of God would repeat a miracle of Moses’ day, such as raining manna from the sky.
Jesus explains that manna fed them temporarily, but the true bread from heaven yields life which satisfies for all eternity. This, Jesus explains, is needed far more than any temporal thing and it is He who provides it. “IAM the bread of life” (v35 clarifying vv32-33). Several times in this reading today, we see Jesus declare Himself to be the source of eternal life to all who have faith in Him. He says we must eat his flesh, a metaphor similar to the one used with the woman at the well when He described Himself as living water that, when taken in, no one would ever again thirst.
Now, not understanding “eat my flesh” to be a metaphor, his disciples are left with a decision; continue to follow Him or depart from Him, based on their own human inability to understand God’s Word. In fact, many of His disciples do turn away and no longer follow Him. To those who remain faithful to Him, Jesus freely gives explanation. Beginning in verse 61, Jesus states that, living food (like living water) is not physical, not something they would be asked to put in their stomachs. His physical flesh He counts as nothing; it is the Spirit who gives (true eternal) life. The words he’s speaking, He clarifies, are spirt not temporal.
How well do you understand the Word of the Lord? Which decision do you make in times of misunderstanding?
For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. -Matthew 25:29 (NIV)
