GOSPELS 13 THE BREAD OF LIFE
Today we are continuing in the story of the feeding of the five thousand and the disciples rowing across the lake and finally arriving at the other side at Capernaum. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and John we looked at the stories of Jesus walking on the sea and we saw the different points of emphasis that the writers had about what happened when Jesus entered the boat. But in Mark’s Gospel there is another point of emphasis about getting into the boat th...
GOSPELS 13 THE BREAD OF LIFE
Today we are continuing in the story of the feeding of the five thousand and the disciples rowing across the lake and finally arriving at the other side at Capernaum. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and John we looked at the stories of Jesus walking on the sea and we saw the different points of emphasis that the writers had about what happened when Jesus entered the boat. But in Mark’s Gospel there is another point of emphasis about getting into the boat that is not mentioned in the other Gospels, and it is about the bread that was miraculously multiplied to feed the crowd. Mark writes ‘And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves of bread, but their hearts were hardened’. (Mark 6:51)
So what did they not understand about the bread and what has this to do with their hearts being hardened?
The Greek word for understand here is syniemi which means putting two ideas together in the right way. It means having the right perception of the thing that is perceived – is there something more to what I just saw? Was there something more to what Jesus did with the bread that just solving the economic food supply problem in the Middle East, and was this the way things were going to be from now on? Or was there some radical deeper idea here just as there was to all that Jesus had been doing and saying since they first met him?
The answer is yes, this was another radical reality that Jesus was gradually unfolding in everything that had to do with the mention of and the meaning of bread. And we will look at this now and also look at the matter of their hearts being hardened a little further on.
The story about God’s provision of bread for us began in Gospels 9 when Jesus taught the disciples the ‘Our Father ‘which mentioned the request of give us this day our daily bread. He enlarged upon the idea of the prayer for provision of bread in Gospels10 when he said So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing… and live in surrendered togetherness with God, and all these things shall be added to you. Then in Gospels 11 Jesus not only expanded on the idea of provision of bread but put the idea into action by performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes. And now in Gospels 13 Jesus is expanding the idea of the miraculous provision of bread to its ultimate spiritual fulfilment by declaring that he is the Bread of Life, and we will unfold the perceptions of the people about what he was saying. The story continues with the crowd at Bethsaida following Jesus to the other side of the lake the day after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.
John 6:22 The next morning, back across the lake, crowds began gathering on the shore waiting to see Jesus. For they knew that he and his disciples had come over together and that the disciples had gone off in their boat, leaving him behind. Several small boats from Tiberias were nearby, so when the people saw that Jesus wasn’t there, nor his disciples, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him.
When they arrived and found him, they said, “Rabbi, how did you get here?” Jesus replied, “The truth of the matter is that you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you believe in me. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
Jesus knew that no one saw the miracle of the bread the way he wanted them to see it (and us as well). They were only interested in seeing miracles of bread being multiplied. Jesus asked them to believe in him because that is all he wanted them to do, but they demanded more signs, they wanted to have more bread miracles. And they obviously wanted them on a daily basis because they said that Moses gave their fathers the Manna bread from heaven every day for forty years in the wilderness.
They said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, You must show us more miracles if you want us to believe you are the Messiah. Give us free bread every day, like our fathers had while they journeyed through the wilderness! As the Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave 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.”
They said to him, “Master, keep giving us this bread.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me… Then Jesus says to them a few verses later. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Let us now look at what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples that their hearts were hardened. They had perceived the bread miracle but what did they believe about the bread miracle? How did the seeing and believing come together. Seeing is not all there is to believing – believing is believing – faith and believing is knowing beyond the seeing.
They saw that for Israel eating bread was what gave them the energy for the sustaining of their natural lives, but what they did not see beyond that was that Jesus was giving them himself, the Bread of Life. This Bread would be the spiritual energy for the sustaining of their inner lives – eternal life. What the mind perceives is what the heart believes, and it would take faith for them to perceive in their minds and believe in their hearts the power of this truth about that inner spiritual energy. But a hard heart cannot believe, and he knew that their hearts had become hardened as do all human hearts, because of the perplexities and hurts and disappointments of life. This was not a condemnation of them because there was a Scripture in the Old Testament that promised that God would one day give people a new heart, a soft heart. ‘And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you, and bring forth in you (asa) the acting out (yalak) of my decrees (hoq) and to take heed and attend to (samar) all that I say to you (mispat) (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
That promise would only be made good by God in the New Testament when Jesus would come and give his life for us on the cross and be raised up again from the dead and then send the Holy Spirit for humanity to receive that new heart, a soft heart that could believe in the spiritual energy of his life within us as the Bread of Life. The Bible says that our faith is not our own but a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8) and that comes when you ask God to give you the Holy Spirit who energises faith within us – ask now! The Holy Spirit is actually working in every human being on the planet to break down our resistance to living that life of faith in Jesus. We can receive the Holy Spirit and believe.
Jesus had just said that he had come to do the will of his Father and the way he did that was he would hear his Father speak to him and then step forward into the doing of what he heard, and the Father would do the supernatural work from Heaven. Jesus was spiritually at rest in his soul when he did this, and this act of faith actually energised him. Jesus had said a little earlier ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. (John 4:33).
He is now saying that he is our bread, our spiritual food that energises us. When we know that Jesus lives within us to continue doing the work of the Father through us by the Holy Spirit we can be at rest in our souls and be fed with that heavenly energy. This is the answer to the question that they asked Jesus when they said “What must we do, to be doing the work of God?” and Jesus said ‘this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’. This rest of faith is what happens when we can be still in the presence of God and ask Jesus to speak to us when he chooses to, through his word and through the Holy Spirit. We can be assured that we will hear and we can then step into the doing of that. This is allowing Jesus to be the bread of Life to us – the food that sustains us, spirit soul and body. Amen.
