Bread of Life

John 6:32-38 says,

Jesus said, "I assure you, Moses didn't give them bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

"Sir," they said, "give us that bread every day of our lives."

Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again. Those who believe in me will never thirst. But you haven't believed in me even though you have seen me. However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do what I want."

This passage holds so much. I only took a portion of the passage, which consists of pretty much all of chapter 6. It starts off talking about Moses and the Israelites who were walking in the wilderness. Basically it starts of discussing the physical symbolism of bread. Then it switches to the spiritual symbolism of the bread; comparing and contrasting the physical and spiritual meaning of bread of life.

In the physical aspect, physical bread provide nutrition such as sustaining life in the desert for 40 years. God provided manna from heaven to the Israelites. Then the passage switches to the spiritual aspect. As humans, we have a void in our life that needs to be filled. We are hungry to fill the void. We can fill it with junk food, that goes right through us, or we can fill it with real food, which is the word of God. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again." When we fill our lives with Jesus, he fills the void in our lives. He makes our life complete. God has sent Jesus from heaven, like he sent manna from heaven, to fill our void. Unfortunately, people would rather live off of junk food, that never satisfies, than to accept Jesus, who satisfies.

Taking this a step further, the bread of life is the symbolism that is used in communion. The Israelites did not wonder in the desert just to wonder. God had a purpose to teach them obedience. Now, we can learn from their lesson.

Lastly, the passage talks about the promise made by Jesus. Those who reject the bread, will turn from God. But those who accept the bread, Jesus will NEVER reject them. Obedience comes up once again as Jesus talks about how he does the will of God, not to do what he wants, but what God wants us to do. This is the example Jesus sets before us. Sometimes we want to do what we want to do. But if we follow Jesus' example, we do what God wants us to do. This is hard sometimes. Our flesh gets in the way and we want to do what we want to do. Paul talks about this in Romans 6. But if we are to be obedient to God and to reap his blessings, then we need to do what God wants us to do.