I am the bread of life

 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven."  And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?  How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven'?"  Jesus therefore answered and said to them, "Do not murmur among yourselves.  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, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'  Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.  Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.  Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.  I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

- John 6:41-51

In Saturday's reading, we were told that those who had been fed on the mountaintop by Jesus (and who sought to make Him king) followed Him to Capernaum, still seeking Him.   Yesterday, we read that Jesus taught them, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him."  Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?"  Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."  Therefore they said to Him, "What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You?  What work will You do?  Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"  Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father 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."  Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always."  And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life.  He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.  This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.  And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven."  And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?  How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven'?"   Jesus is "home" among the Galileans, where His family is known.  Once again, John uses the commonplace to take us to a deeper understanding.  "The Jews" in this Gospel is used like a political term, mostly denoting the religious leadership, the leadership of this party, so to speak.  By the time the Gospel was written, Jesus' followers had begun to be called Christians, and were persecuted in the synagogues.  But everyone concerned here, including Jesus, His worldly father and mother, and the author of the Gospel, were Jews.

Jesus therefore answered and said to them, "Do not murmur among yourselves.  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, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'  Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.  Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father."   Here is again a very important theological statement, because it tells us that the Father is active within us, at the root of faith.  It makes it very clear that "no one has seen the Father" face to face, to so speak.  That is reserved only for the Son, who is of the same essence with the Father.  But as human beings, we can "all be taught by God."  The spark of faith in Jesus' identity as Christ denotes the Father's work in us, as Jesus has said elsewhere.

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.  I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."  My study bible says, "The eucharistic significance of this passage is indisputable.  Jesus' declaration that He is Himself the living bread which brings us life is intended to reveal the eucharistic feast.  His offering is not for His people only but for the life of the world."

In John's Gospel, we see Jesus as the summation and culmination of all of Jewish tradition and spiritual history.  Here, Jesus is the bread from heaven, He is personified, so to speak, as the living manna from heaven (that which fed the Israelites in the wilderness).  But He Himself is the living bread that sustains not just worldly life, but to an eternal life.  In fact, He's that which has been given to the world, for the life of the world.  And here we are given an intimation of what is to happen, when Jesus says, "the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."  It is a beginning of the understanding of the sacrifice, again an understanding that in Him is all Jewish tradition and spiritual history personified.  He will be the sacrifice, a voluntary Passover sacrifice, for the life of the world.  And in this is the great element of a true gift.  It not only is a gift from an immeasurable God, but a gift that is a sacrifice, one in which God will experience the limitations of our lives, and make the extreme sacrifice of death.  But in that sacrifice is the bread of life for all of us, for each of us.  In the Lord's prayer, when we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," this is precisely the bread we pray for.  (The word translated as "daily" quite literally in the Greek means something like "super-substantial" -- that which has more "essence" atop it.  It is a word that is unique to the Gospels:  epiousion/ἐπιούσιον.)  And so, even beyond the sacrifice, what we turn back to here is a God of love, who will go to all lengths to assure us of this tremendous gift that is born of God's love.  He is the redeemer, as is so clear in all of the Gospels, who comes here to the world to rescue us from death, to give us life in abundance, to free us from that which limits and enslaves, which causes toil and pain, and which denies to us a place with Him.  All the Gospels portray our world as bound by the "ruler of this world," from whom Jesus comes to liberate us, in an act of sacrifice and tremendous love. He's sent by the Father for this mission, He is the bread of heaven, who feeds us with this life that He's brought here to bestow, so that He may keep us with Him, take us back with Him to the Father, in an eternity of life and love.  But the sacrifice is immediate, it is always here with us, the bread from heaven that is our daily bread, which we need each day.