Who is Jesus? This is a persistent question throughout the Gospel of John. Many are asking today, when there are so many religious options on offer, what is so special about Jesus?
Jesus claims to be at the centre.
He is at the centre of our knowledge of God.
He is at the centre of the Father’s divine purposes.
He is at the centre of our lives, now and forever.
He is at the centre of our knowledge of God.
One popular theory about Jesus was that he was the mysterious ‘prophet’, like Moses, whom God would raise up in the distant future (Dt. 18:15). So if Jesus might be like Moses, would he perform miracles like Moses had done, such as producing Manna, divinely provided bread from heaven? Jesus reminds the people that the bread came from heaven: it was God who gave it to them and not Moses. And he now makes this bold claim: ‘I am the bread of life.’ As we heard last week, bread is the staple, the main thing in most people’s diets (although this differs in other cultures). He is not the seasoning or the clever garnish that helps a meal along: he is the meat and two veg, the heart of it, the main thing. Who is Jesus? He says in John ‘I am … the bread of life (6:35,51), the light of the world (8:12, 9:15), the door (10:7,9), the good shepherd (10:11,14), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way, truth and life (14:6), and the true vine (15:1,5).
As you can see, John loves to record Jesus’ use of image and metaphor as he tries to put divine realities into human words and terms. This is why I do not believe that this passage is primarily about the Eucharist or Communion service. It is about Jesus as the centre of our knowledge of God. The Communion service is also about that, and any first century Christian would have picked up references and allusions to it; but the gospel was written primarily so that we ‘may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing … may have life in his name.’ (John 20:21).
Now, Moses had taught the people that God had fed them manna to make them realise that ‘one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’. (Dt. 8:3). Over the years the Jews often used manna and bread as images of the word of God, for the Law and for divine wisdom. Thus Wisdom invites people ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.’ (Pr. 9:5), and in Ecclesiasticus we read that Wisdom feeds those who fear the Lord, and hold to the Law ‘with the bread of understanding’. So when Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life’, he is making a staggering claim, that he is at the centre of Jewish devotion and knowledge of God.
He is at the centre of the Father’s divine purposes.
The people began to grumble. It was in response to the grumbling of the people of Israel that Moses cried out to God to send the manna (This Moses and his strange God have led us out of Egypt into the wilderness to die of starvation!). The people who escaped with Moses refused to acknowledge the work that God was doing among them, and could not bring themselves to believe that God was on their side. So now the people of Jesus’ time receive this incredible claim that Jesus, whom they had known since childhood, was not only the ‘bread of life’ but the ‘bread that came down from heaven’ and was saying that personal trust in him would give them eternal life. They grumbled. ‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us …’ (John 1:10-14).
Jesus challenges the people to stop grumbling, but he does not answer the question. There are those who are determined to repeat the sin of Adam, to make up their own minds, to chart their own course. But God has been in the business of drawing people to himself. The Greek version of Jeremiah 31:3 says ‘I have drawn you with an everlasting love’. There is a certain shock in hearing Jesus maintain ‘I am the bread of life’, and that he is the only way to the Father. There are those who ‘hear’ this, who believe it. They have thought it through intellectually, and made a firm decision to follow and obey, but above all they love and trust Jesus. It may be that you are feeling a tug, a nudge, this morning … You still have questions, and you have concerns from the past, but above all you would like to know more about this Jesus.
He is at the centre of our lives, now and forever.
Those who feed on Jesus, who believe in him and trust him with all their lives, are guaranteed to live for ever. In this world we face troubles and sickness, persecution all manner of evil. We are never free from temptation and, to our sorrow, frequently fall into sin. This is true for each one of us, all the days of our lives here on earth. We hear the words of Paul to the Ephesians and are tempted to think of them as the counsel of perfection; we are only human and cannot aspire to live so well. Sometimes we feel ground down and perhaps just motivated by a sense of duty. Where is the joy? What is the point of carrying on?
Jesus says to each one of us this morning who knows themselves drawn to the Father : ‘… I will raise him up on the last day.) (John 6:44). A day is coming when every tear will be wiped away, every sickness and hurt healed, every evil and injustice put right and this earth cleansed and renewed. We will be beyond the reach of temptation and sin. Jesus guarantees it and asks us to trust him.
But this is not just a hope for the future. Jesus says to each one of us this morning: ‘I tell you the truth, whoever believes in me has everlasting life.’ (John 6:47). To believe in Jesus, to live lives centred on his word and open to the presence of his Spirit, is to allow God to fill us with love, joy, peace, perseverance, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. Look for God to reveal his presence, active in your life today.
If we eat of this bread, we will live for ever. This bread is his flesh, which he has given for the life of the world. The life of God that we receive by trusting in Jesus is centred on the death that Jesus died for each of us on the cross. Just as he was physically born amongst us (the Word became flesh), so he also died and was buried – a physical, historical fact; and he was raised again on the third day – a physical, historical fact. And we are invited to feed on him: ‘I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.’ (John 6:35). As we gather this morning around his table, remembering his death for us, so he comes and fills us with new life as we believe in him.
Questions for Discussion
1. Many images and metaphors are used to describe Jesus. Which one means most to you, and why?
2. What do you understand by the concept of ‘feeding on Jesus’?
3. What are the ways that you are aware of God ‘drawing’ you to himself?
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