Wanting the bread but rejecting the Bread of Life.

We see during election season here in South Africa that politicians go to different stadiums canvassing for votes. They usually go to poor areas in the township or rural areas with food parcels. They give them to the poor who are in need. I remember they asked this particular lady when a certain party was campaigning if she believes in the party and  its leader and if she would vote for them. She answered and said no that she does not believe in the party and its leader,  but she will continue to get the different t-shirts and free food parcels because she was poor and she needs their free food and clothing.

Just like the crowd that follows the politicians during the election season wanting to get their hands on food parcels and clothes, we see in John 6:1-14 that Jesus miraculously feeds the 5000 men who are mentioned excluding women and Children with bread and fish. In verses 22-25, they searched and followed Jesus to Capernaum and they eventually found him on the other side of the lake as we are told in verse 25. 

But unlike the politicians who are after the vote and don’t ask those who want food parcels if they do they believe in them and what they stand for, Jesus confronts the crowd in verse 26 when Jesus says “ Very truly I tell you, you are not looking for me because you saw signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill”.

People in our days follow Jesus for different reasons and mostly it is not because they believe in him as the Son of God who is the true bread that gives life (John 6:40). Some come to Jesus looking for him to relieve themselves of their difficult situation like being poor so Jesus is a way out of poverty and into prosperity. 

It is a bit of an unfortunate situation that their being poor and hungry ended up distorting their expectation and motivation for the Messiah as they ultimately see Jesus as a way out of poverty and not one who is the Son of God and the Bread of Life that they desperately need. I am in no way ignoring their plight which is real and needs intervention but if that’s all they see Jesus for -  a way out of poverty and nothing more than that, then it is problematic and it is a short-sightedness of who Jesus truly is.

Since we live in a temporal world with many temporal things, it is no surprise that we would look out for Jesus to fill us of our temporal hunger like where we will work one day, what career should I choose, who we will marry and who will I have enough money to be able to survive myself and my family. All these things are good and because of God’s grace He gives us these things but we should look at them from the perspective that they are temporal which can come in many forms and we can lose focus of more permanent things like what happens when we finally leave this temporal earth. We risk losing the perspective of eternity.

Verse 35 is the climax of this passage as it says “ Then Jesus declared I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty “ Jesus HIMSELF!!!! Is the food -  the substance that nourishes our spiritual life and life after death. It is only from this bread that people obtain life. It is only through faith in Jesus that they can get this eternal food which is Christ himself. He is the bread of life.

Jesus is the answer to the needs of the human heart as he was surely not talking about physical food. There is no physical food that can fill you once that you never go hungry. Jesus claims to fulfill the yearning of the human spirit which no relationship, possession, experience, spouse, children, or education and career can ever fill, only Jesus can fill you.

By Jesus claiming that He is the true bread that was sent by God and came down from heaven it is not surprising that eventually all who came to him for temporal fulfillment which was to feed their belly eventually reject him as his demand and his true identity was too much for them to handle (John 6:66)

But we see Peter answering Jesus in John 6:69 when he says “ Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” We should never see Jesus as just the one who offers us bread for this short life that we will leave behind, but he is actually the true bread that was sent by God to give us eternal life so that we will never go hungry or thirst again (John 6:35).