I AM the Bread of Life

This morning I’ll talk with you about Jesus being “the bread of life” in John 6.  I want to share a story with you first so that you can understand the background why Jesus said what he did to the Jews.  You will see the true heart of the people of Israel and how they compare to the heart of the Jews in John 6.  Hang in there because it will all connect in the end.  

The people of Israel just went through a very traumatic event.  In front of them was death.  They couldn’t move forward because the waters would have engulfed them.  They couldn’t turn back because death was following them.  The Egyptian army was bent on snuffing the light of every single person.  They couldn’t turn to the left or right because the steep mountainsides entrapped them.  They had their children with them.  I can withstand a tremendous amount of suffering, but to see my children suffer, and even face death, is something I wouldn’t be able to bear.  After being freed from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites traveled a grueling 60 or 70 miles to get to the Red Sea.  That’s when they faced all those dangers.  Then, God did the miraculous.  He parted the Red Sea.  They didn’t just read or hear about God intervening.  They saw and experienced it themselves.  It was a miracle that would show to even the hardest of hearts that God was real and that he could provide anything they would need to survive the journey.   

Tired, hungry, and thirsty they finally made their way across.  There was a little hint of faith because they trusted in what God had done for them by parting the Red Sea.  Really, they didn’t have any choice unless they wanted to figure out how to save themselves and die in the process.  When they were under tremendous pressure of impending death they had to trust him.  We go through that in our own lives.  We come to a place where there is no way out.  In a moment of dire need we trust him.  There seems to be some hint of faith.  We believe there’s a God and that he might be able to help us with our money situation.  But we won’t bow down to worship him.  We only relied on him when there was no other choice.  

God did something very interesting that revealed the bitterness that was in the heart of his people.  Their thirst had compounded as they had to travel an additional three days to find water.  Then they found it.  I imagine that even from a distance they could feel the cool water going down their scratchy, dry throats.  I don’t know who was the first to taste it, but they had to spit it out immediately.  It was horribly bitter.  So, as they looked into the bitter waters they saw a reflection of themselves.  Their own bitterness was staring back at them.  The place was called Marah.  The name in Hebrew means bitterness.  You would think it would cause them to call out to God for help.  After all, he did clearly show them that he could provide what they needed.  Instead, they complained saying, “What shall we drink?” (Ex. 15:24).  It was Moses who cried out to the Lord.  The LORD showed him a log and Moses threw it into the water.  God turned the bitter waters into that which was sweet.  God will often allow hard times to enter our lives to reveal what is really inside.  As my family has gone through hard times he’s done the same for me.  I’ve realized my own selfishness.  

They traveled further to the wilderness of Sin.  Just by the name it sounds like a place you don’t want to go.  By now you would think they learned their lesson.  They could have sat down and given thanks to God for getting them this far and give thanks for how he rescued them from slavery.  They had seen ten incomprehensible plagues. Obviously, God had revealed his eternal power and divine nature in this process of rescue.  But what actually happened?  In Exodus 16:2 it says, “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.”  Paul talks about this kind of person in Romans 1:20-23: 

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. – Rom. 1:20-23 

In Exodus 31 and 32, when God was inscribing the Tablet of the Testimony and giving it to Moses what were the people of Israel doing?  They were making an idol.  This is one of the ways of the godless nations around Israel.  What did the idol look like?  It was a calf, a calf made out of gold.  The apostle Paul addressed this kind of people.  He said that certain people made images to look like “mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”  Now, I know that not everyone was doing this.  I think God was dealing with the nation collectively.  For example, Moses wasn’t worshipping the calf.  He was doing the things that God had told him.  In Romans 1:24, Paul goes on to talk about how God dealt with those people, 

Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts… – Rom. 1:24 

How did God respond to the people of Israel in their travels through the wilderness?  In Acts 7, Stephen was preaching to the Sanhedrin.  He’s giving a brief history of their fathers.  He said, 

“But our fathers refused to obey him.  Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.  They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us.  As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’  That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf.  They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made.  But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies…” – Acts 7:39-42)    

Let me go back to our story in Exodus.  In Chapter 16, they had grumbled about their hunger.  

The Israelites told Moses and Aaron, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!  There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”  Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.  The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day…” – Ex. 16:3-4  

God was gracious to give them meat in the evening and bread in the morning.  His number one desire was for them to know “I am the LORD your God.” (Ex. 16:12)  He wanted them to know that he desired relationship with them.  He would provide what the Israelites needed each day.  Instead of trusting him they started hoarding the meat and the bread.  They disregarded how he commanded them to collect the meat and bread.  Above that, they were rejecting him.

This is the backdrop of our story today in John 6.  Have you ever sat down to watch a movie that had already been playing for 20 or 30 minutes?  You feel lost.  Certain things seem confusing.  Some people get confused by this story like I was at one time.  They try to interpret this story without using the context of the history of Israel.  It has led many churches to have some very strange teachings about what Jesus meant when he said that he was the “bread of life.”  Now that you know the context, let’s look at a passage from John 6. 

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” – John 6:25-27

Jesus was talking to the crowd.  He wasn’t talking just to his disciples or even just to the twelve apostles.  The people of Israel wandered through the desert.  They followed where God was leading.  But collectively they had no desire to have fellowship with him.  They just wanted some food.  In the same way, there were people that were following Jesus because he was filling their stomachs.

Continuing with the passage:

 

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” – John 6:28-31

Throughout Israel’s journey through the wilderness, God wanted them to trust him.  He wanted to provide for them.  He wanted fellowship with them.  He performed miracles showing that he could be all that they needed.  He would do the work.  What did they need to do in order to be free from slavery in Egypt?  He told them to put the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their homes.  Then the angel of death would pass over them.  He killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt, those whose homes didn’t have the blood on the doorposts.  He would do this.  They wouldn’t have to rescue themselves.  The work they needed to was to believe him…to take him at his word.  God was the one who parted the Red Sea.  He did the work for them.  They only needed to believe him.  He said to cross and they crossed.  They didn’t have to do any work to make bread or capture meat.  He did the work for them.  Jesus was telling the crowd to do the same…to believe him.

Continuing with John 6:

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” – John 6:32-33 

In the desert, the Israelites had very few options for food.  If they went much further they would have starved to death.  They would have been without life.  Without Jesus, the Bread of Life, we are without spiritual life.  

“Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.” 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. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” – John 6:34-40

They don’t really understand who he is.  They don’t call him “Lord.”  They call him “sir.”  It sounds respectful but still way far short of who he really was.  This is where he dropped the bomb on them.  He said, “I am the bread of life.”  The people of Israel experienced all the miracles and yet they didn’t believe.  Their hearts were hard.  He, like the manna, or bread, came down from heaven.  He was the heavenly gift.  Jehovah had provided salvation through only one way, through Jesus.  The Jews knew about the resurrection of the dead.  This doctrine didn’t begin in the New Testament.  

At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 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.” – John 6:41-51

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. – John 6:52-59

Jesus didn’t just come to those who would accept him.  He came to those who would hate him, reject him, and talk evil of him.  Just like the manna was laid down on the earth, so Jesus laid down his life as well.  The crowd knew what story he was referring to when he was talking about the manna.  They knew what kind of people the Israelites were as they wandered throughout the desert.  They knew he was saying that a rejection of him would be the same as the Israelites who had rejected God in the wilderness.  That’s one reason why they started grumbling.  

This is the kind of people God was dealing with in the desert.  In Hebrews 3 and 4, the author gives us a more detailed picture of the specific group of Israelites that he rescued from slavery and wandered through the desert for 40 years.  He said that their hearts were hard and that they provoked him.  They tested him even though they had seen his works for forty years.  It actually says that he loathed that generation.  They went astray and didn’t know his ways.  He swore in his wrath that they would not enter his rest.  In the Old Testament, rest is often equated with salvation.  He warned them not to come short of entering his rest (salvation).  He said that they never united his word with faith.  

When Jesus talked with the crowd about the manna, like I said earlier, they knew what he was getting at.  They had tasted of the heavenly gift sent down from heaven to them.  But they grumbled against it.  They were partakers in the work that God was doing among them and in them, and yet, they rejected it.  God had given the Israelites his word through Moses on Mt Sinai.  The Father had sent his only son, who John calls “the word” in John 1:1.  The crowd had tasted the word but spit it out.  The Israelites experienced the power of God among them.  In a later age, when Jesus came, the crowd experienced even more of God’s power through the miracles.  But their hearts were too hard to believe.

In John 6, salvation was standing right in front of the Jews.  The bread of eternal life was sent from heaven.  Later on, in John 6, we see that many people in the crowd turned away.  The Jews came right up to the point of finding salvation but they fell away.  Many of those Jews had experience with God.  They participated in the sacrifices and worshipped in the temple.  But if they refused Jesus then they would be without spiritual life.  In America, not many people go without food because of financial reasons.  Some do.  Most of us in this room haven’t experienced anything like that.  We might miss a meal because we forget to eat or we’re too busy.  Bread is something nice to add to a meal.  If you’re eating spaghetti, then you can probably taste the crunchy, buttery bread that’s covered with garlic before you even put it in the oven.  Or you might want to drop by the bakery between breakfast and lunch to get a bear claw with all the sugary icing dripping off the sides.  But for the Israelites who wandered through the desert bread wasn’t a nicety to add to their meal and it wasn’t a snack.  They needed bread to survive.  It was the difference between life and death.  They had to have it.  There was a time in my life when I was just adding Jesus to all the other things I was doing.  But I came to the point where I realized that I had to have Jesus.  It was the difference between life and death.  How do you see Jesus right now?  Is he something that you’re adding to your interests, or do you see him as absolutely necessary for life?  

In John 6, many of the Jews chose to fill their bellies with what this world was offering them.  It wasn’t just the crowd that walked away.  John said, 

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (John 6:66)  

In other words, there were people who were following him, learning from him, and benefiting from his miracles.  Do you remember what miracle he performed shortly before the passage we went over in John 6?  He fed them fish and bread.  Jesus said that some of them were his followers or “disciples” because he fed their bellies.  But these disciples had rejected the bread of life.  They didn’t walk away because he said some confusing things.  Jesus was very clear.  Why did these disciples walk away?  Read John 6:61. The NIV ‘84 says that they were “offended”.  

I’ve known quite a few people over the years who were reading the Bible and trying to live a different life.  But after a period of time they walked away.  They had come right up to the point of realizing their desperate need for the true bread, but they decided to turn away.  They either wanted to have their bellies filled with the things of this world, or they were offended by Jesus.  What was the one big difference between the disciples who left versus the ones who stayed?  Jesus asked the ones who stayed, 

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” – John 6:67-68