feed me with life

Jesus, the Bread of Life

Who does Jesus claim to be? In our passage, he says, “I am the bread of life.” To understand that, we have to understand a little background to this passage. John 6 begins with Jesus feeding the five thousand. He takes a few loaves of bread and fish, and he multiplies them (in a miracle) to feed five thousand people. Then, after he has fed them, he sends the disciples across the Sea of Galilee—but he doesn’t cross with them. They go over in a boat, and then he chooses to do what only he could choose to do: to walk across the sea in the middle of the night.

The next day, the crowd of five thousand people, who had just been fed the previous day and had gone to bed that night with full bellies, wake to find that the disciples and Jesus are gone. Then they figure out that he must have gone to the other side, so they begin to cross themselves and track him down. John 6:24 tells us that they were “seeking Jesus”. That sounds awfully good, but when they find him, Jesus’ response is not what we would expect. He doesn’t commend them for travelling across the Sea to find him. Rather, he chides them for seeking him because they are not (in reality) seeking him. Rather, they are excited about the bread that he gave them and are foolishly seeking more things like that—things that are perishable.

But Jesus is concerned that they seek that that is eternal. As the good and loving pastor he is, not wanting them to die in their folly, he says (verse 27), “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” “What you seek is too small,” Jesus is saying. “It disappears. How good it was to have full bellies when you went to bed last night, but you should labour for the food that sustains you forever.” He gave them a little nourishment and sustenance, but it was temporal. They’re hungry again.

I cook at my house. It was a pretty easy gig when it was just Leah and I, but now I have two other mouths to feed. Those mouths don’t just want to be fed—they also talk! Often, when I come home in the evening, the greeting I get when I come in the door is, “Daddy, what are we going to have for dinner?” I think, “Didn’t you already get fed twice today?” They seem to need to be fed every three hours, especially the boys. They’re always hungry. If I could cook something that would last and fill them for even one day, it would be wonderful. I would be happy. They eat, though it is temporal and not long-lasting. The problem is that if I don’t feed them, they die.

This conversation leads these Jews to bring up the bread God supplied from Heaven to the Israelites in the wilderness. They say, “God provided this manna. Moses provided this manna. It would fall from the sky and land on the ground six out of seven days, and we would eat it.” It was another amazing, miraculous provision, but that bread was also only temporal. They would go out and collect it and eat what they could, but eventually, it would be filled with worms, mould and decay. Jesus says, “There is the bread you can eat that surpasses what I fed the five thousand. There is the food you can eat that surpasses even the manna that fell from the sky.”

That is worth seeking. What is that food that endures?

You can almost see Jesus thumping his chest: “This is the bread that came down from Heaven!” He not only gives this bread—he is the bread. Whoever feeds on him can live forever. How clear his point is. How foolish it is for people to say that Jesus made no grand claims about himself. It’s not only his followers attributing things to him. Have they considered even one of these “I am” statements? “I am the bread of life!” He’s saying that as our bodies need food, so our souls need him.

He’s making a bold declaration about himself. Verse 27: “For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Christ has been appointed, commissioned, and given all authority by the Father. He’s been sealed with the privilege of being the Savior of mankind. He’s pointing to himself and saying, “I am the bread you must eat. If you eat of me, you’ll live forever.” C.S. Lewis famously said that Jesus must either be Lord, a lunatic, or a liar because this is a bold assertion.

Bread is the most basic of human needs. It’s a fundamental part of daily life. It provides nourishment, sustenance, and vitality. “Give us this day our daily bread”, we are taught to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. Why? Because we need it. For goodness’ sake, there wouldn’t be pizza without bread! So our souls need him. He is the very food our souls crave. They remain famished and dying apart from him. Anything else is just empty calories—junk food. He alone is the answer to end all of our spiritual cravings.

One thinks back to the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve in that Garden. God gave them a command: “You shall not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you do, you shall surely die.” As we know, Adam chose to eat the fruit of the tree, and he died. Jesus was saying, “As the curse came in through eating, so the remedy is only found in eating the bread which God provides in the person of his Son. Whereas death was a result in the garden, life is the result of feeding upon me.”

What does feeding upon him mean? Christ isn’t talking about us grinding him with our teeth and chewing upon him. Cannibalism is a bad thing! Rather, he is telling us that we must digest him by faith.

We often see the imagery in the Scriptures of eating representing faith. For example, when the Passover was celebrated by the Jews each year, it was a ritual of faith. They were to sit down to eat a lamb that had been sacrificed and was sitting on their table. But they weren’t just to eat the lamb—they were to consume all of the lamb. As they consumed this provision that had been made for them, it was an act of faith that a sacrifice had been made for them to atone for their sins, pointing forward to Christ Jesus to come—that they had a God who was their deliverer. And so they would consume this entire lamb. It was an act of faith.

We believe in this God who delivers us and does the same thing when we come to the Lord’s table. We break the bread and pour the cup, and then we eat the bread and drink the cup in faith. It’s a sign of our faith in and belief in him. Jesus makes it very clear that he’s not talking about physically eating but consuming him with our souls. He says in verse 29: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Verse 35: “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” We eat him by believing in him.