I am the Bread of Life

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Debra Barber
6 years ago
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1 I am the Bread of Life JOHN 6:25-40 Recognising the taste of what really satisfies How am I feeding? Bread - Listen to this description of the importance of bread in Middle Eastern thinking: As the son of a Syrian family I was brought up to think of bread as possessing a mystic sacred significance. I never would step on a piece of bread fallen in the road, but would pick it up, press it to my lips for reverence, and place it in a wall or on some other place where it would not be trodden upon. What always seemed to me to be one of the noblest traditions of my people was their reverence to the aish (bread; literally the life-giver ). While breaking bread together we would not rise to salute an arriving guest, whatever the social rank. Whether spoken or not, our excuse for not rising and engaging in the cordial (Near East) salutation before the meal was ended, was our reverence for the food (hir-metal- aish). We could, however, and always did, invite the newcomer most urgently to partake of the repast The aish was something more than mere matter. Inasmuch as it sustained life, it was God s own life made tangible for his child, man, to feed upon. The Most High Himself fed our hunger. Does not the psalmist say, You open your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing.? (From The Syrian Christ by Abraham Rihbany, published 1916.) A Semitic poet wrote: Back of the bread is the snowy flour; Back of the flour, the mill, Back of the mill is the wheat and the sower, and the sun, and the Father s will. A valid translation, in some cultures, of I am the Bread of Life could be: I am the banana of life I am the rice of life I am the cassava of life what is basic to sustaining life, the source of which is God. Jesus said: I am the bread of life (I) give life to the world (v.33) He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty (v.35) He who feeds on this bread will live for ever (v. 58)

2 What is the context of Jesus profound and astounding proclamation: I am the Bread of Life He says this after feeding the 5000, after which they wanted to make him King (v. 15) after which they followed him to be fed again (v. 26) after which they asked Jesus What do we need to do? (v.28) after which they asked for another sign (v. 30) To all of these scenarios, Jesus says: I am the Bread of Life Feeding the 5000 was a sign and the people, instead of understanding the sign, wanted just more of the same: a liberator / more food / a list of rules / more special effects But the effect of signs such as these is always transient:- The victim who is freed can fall prey to other oppression The hungry man who is fed, hungers again The man given rules to follow as the way to heaven, will create more rules The sick man who is healed will die The feeding the 5000 was a sign, one sign amongst other signs, pointing to a gift that is never exhausted and a satisfaction that never passes. The gift is JESUS. He himself is what they need. She had just started college She had just started college and one morning, she woke up, put on her coat, walked a few blocks to the grocery store, and bought a tub cottage cheese and a pack of rice cakes She d never bought cottage cheese before, never bought rice cakes before but for some reason she felt compelled to do it She knew it was a diet food and she felt compelled to be on a diet and for the next three days, she ate nothing but rice cakes and cottage cheese What ensued was three years of struggling with anorexia What ensued was three years of meticulously controlling everything that when into her body For three years this is what she ate one plain bagel for breakfast, toasted and dry, one container of yogurt for lunch, coffee flavored, and one apple and a small cube of cheese for dinner For three years this is what she ate and for three years there was this hunger, this deep, deep hunger She dropped below ninety pounds

3 Her knees grew wider than her hips She dropped below ninety pounds and for three years her family said nothing For three years, knees wider than her hips, and her family said nothing One spring she went home and she was bound and determined to show her mother her body She just wanted her mother to look, to see her hunger and so, when she found herself in the same room as her mother, she made a point of changing her clothes She undressed and stood there, a little too long, she wanted her mother to look at her and to say something, she wanted her mother to see her deep hunger to be loved, to be accepted, to be cared for So she stood there in front of her mother and you know, her mother said nothing she said nothing and looked away [Old South Sermons: Bread of Life by Rev. Elizabeth Myer Boulton.] Had this girl been in that crowd of 5000, Jesus would have looked through the mass of people until he saw her, the girl whose knees were wider than her hips, and finding her would not look away, but would say: I am the bread of life. I am manna straight out of the heart of God. If you come to me, you will never be hungry. If you believe in me you will never thirst. There are many sorts of hunger as many sorts of hunger as there are people in church this afternoon: the hunger for Recognition Invisibility Company Solitude Justice Money Friends Acceptance Love Understanding Forgiveness Peace of heart But underneath and reflected by all these hungers is the hunger for God, the one need as basic as daily bread, which Jesus came to meet for you and me. Jesus says, I am the bread of Life

4 He says, I am God s gift to meet your need. Just as Jesus fed the 5000, in the same way the Israelites had been fed by manna during their wanderings in the wilderness. Manna (= What is it ) was miraculously given by God to teach them that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In the beginning of his gospel John describes Jesus as God s Word saying that The word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Later he records Jesus saying, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. (John 4:34) The Bread of Life is the WORD of God as lived by JESUS The Bread of Life is the WILL of God as fulfilled by JESUS The Bread of Life is the WORK of God as completed by JESUS Do we recognize the taste of the bread really satisfies our deepest need? Today, this afternoon, do you hear the voice of Jesus speaking to you? Do you hear Jesus saying I am the bread of your life. I want to satisfy your most basic hunger; I want to quench the thirst that goes right down to the ends of the roots of who you are a spiritual being created in the image of God. Believe on me, I was sent by God that you may have eternal life, a life that will never die. We need to receive him all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God. How am I feeding? We receive him to begin a new life with God, we must then nourish that spiritual life by feeding on the Word of God that speaks of Jesus, the bread of Life, the one who satisfies and sustains us. Cockerels: The handsome bantam cockerels in our backgarden.! Feed them bread the male ducks just gobble it down, but the cockerels don t. They are very chivalrous - they point it out to the hens like this.and let them take it! MEN S RETREAT BOOK SESSION like a bunch of cockerels! It all helps to keep our focus last week What was your best book of 2008? What was yours? PASTOR SAMUEL LAMB from China. He writes: When I was young, we lived in a little hut not even a house, but my parents did not complain. The beauty was not in the house but in those who dwelt in it.. My father called our residence the Hallelujah hut. A strange name maybe, but it that was that word which was heard and spoken many times in that hut. Around the hut we hung all kinds of verses from the bible a very strange sight for other people, but very good for

5 me because I started to memorise them. Throughout the years that I had a bible, I started to memorise the scriptures and by the time that I was thrown into i prison I had memorized the Bible from Romans to Hebrews, as well as many psalms p and some other parts in prison I had the word of God in my heart and nobody could steal it away from me. It took me a few years to learn it it was a blessing for 20 years. And it still is. 20 years in prison is long. Very long. But not worth comparing with the eternity that awaits us. What a future what a joy! Taken from: BOUND TO BE FREE, with the Suffering Church, by Jan Pitt. How are you feeding on Jesus, the bread of life? How do you keep your focus on Him, the author and finisher of our faith. The gospel is the story of a God who embraces us in spite of who we are and what we have done; it tells us that God s embrace enables us to embrace God back and to embrace others, and that this double embrace is intended for the good of others and the world. This grace, the absolute and unrelenting goodness of God towards humans, comes to us in Jesus Christ, in his death and resurrection, and in the gift of the Holy Spirit. There are many and various ways Christians have found to explain the work of Jesus on the cross [recapitulation / ransom / satisfaction / penal substitution / example ] New Testament writers raided their own vocabularies to explain the saving work of Jesus death for us on the cross and since then one story hasn t been enough to adequately describe it. Kevin Vanhoozer says, We gather round the Lord s table as we have been instructed awaiting the elements that signify more than our starving theories. Then, like the 5000, we discover that after our centuries long banquet of Atonement theology, there are still more fragments of the cross left over. Let us then fill our baskets and keep the feast. It was there on the cross that Jesus was the bread of life broken for us that we might live with God; that we might live and never die. Jesus said, 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. A little piece of bread can fill no one, such a small drink can satisfy nobodies thirst but what they represent is full and everlasting satisfaction. AMEN.

"Table For One, Please" August 5, th of Pentecost

Table For One, Please August 5, th of Pentecost "Table For One, Please" August 5, 2012 -- 10 th of Pentecost 2 Samuel 11:26-12:15 When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David