GLUTEN-FREE BREAD - (1)

John 6: 1-69 – Part 1

“I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will not hunger.” John 6:35

How many people would like to end world hunger?  Throughout the ages how many agencies, ministries, fund raisers, soup kitchens and so forth do you suppose have helped to feed the hungry?  I would not even venture a guess.  Just on the commercials I’m watching on cable, and on the ads on the internet I see each day, there are several.  That is without my doing a search.

When I go to the grocery store, amidst the aisles of plenty, there are reminders about those who can’t walk in and help themselves.  I can add a donation to Capital Area Food Bank to my grocery tab, or I can purchase pre-bagged groceries that will be delivered to a needy family later.

Hunger is universal.  When Jesus stated “I am the BREAD of life” he was not fooling around with our hopes and dreams.  And to prove that, he DID that – fed people literally, that is.

Read the story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%206:1-15&version=NIV

Listen to story here:  http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/John.6

John 6:1-15 tells the story.  A large crowd gathered in a deserted rural area.

They were hungry.

They had gathered for a good purpose – to hear Jesus speak.

They were far from a store.

They were far from their homes where they did have food.

There wasn’t enough for everyone.

They didn’t have enough money.

He used the whole situation as an object lesson. (“…he already had in mind what he was going to do.”)

He gave them bread.

But this object lesson was no magic show.  He did not wave a wand and produce an egg.  What happened was so over-the-top that it not only met the need but it ASTOUNDED people.  They tried to seize him and MAKE HIM KING!  Think about that.

And before we move on to what he taught them about this event, let’s make sure we have really grasped the enormity of the event.

YOU DO THE MATH!
TOTAL AVAILABLE AT START	1 meal
There were 5,000 men plus an uncounted number of women and children (use your best guess)	+5,000 +5,000 +5,000 15,000 meals
There was Jesus and his 12 special disciples	+13 meals
They had 5 small barley loaves	-1 meal
They had 2 small fish.
It was enough to feed one boy.
TOTAL NEEDED	15,012 meals
EVERYONE had plenty to eat	15,012 meals
12 baskets full of leftovers (basket holds 10 meals – use your best guess)	120 meals
TOTAL AVAILABLE AT END *	15,132 meals*

When was the last time you went to dinner and had MORE food left at the end than at the beginning?

What is the point that you get from this object lesson?

*[If you calculate a literal 5,000 meals, and figure in very small baskets (2 meals worth), there were 5,024 meals produced from the original 1 meal.]

GLUTEN-FREE BREAD TO EAT - (3)

John 6: 1-69 – Part 3

”Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” John 6:58

Read the story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%206:35-69&version=NIV

Listen to story here:  http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/John.6

Everyone wants to live forever.  So why – as soon as Jesus said: “Whoever eats this bread will live forever”—did the crowds desert him?

It was because of one simple word: eats.  Jesus’ Jewish audience was very careful with what they ate and with how they ate it.  There were ceremonial food laws that covered all the “dos and donts," and Jesus was breaking several of them. 

First off, Jesus switched from saying “eat this bread” to saying “eat my flesh.”  That is where his faithful Jewish followers got off the train. They had very strict rules about eating flesh.  Some meats were kosher and some were not.  What Jesus seemed to be proposing wasn’t kosher!

Second, no Jew would consume the blood along with the flesh, because the life was in the blood.  And here was this man telling them to “Drink my blood.”  What was he, a vampire!?

And finally, was this man insane!  What person in his right mind would insist that people must “eat his flesh and drink his blood.”  If he really did mean this as a figure of speech, then why did he keep repeating it and driving home the point?  He KNEW how angry and upset this audience would become if they took his words literally, so was he trying to drive them away?

Good question.

No, Jesus wasn’t driving them away, he was separating them.  He knew that many in the audience didn’t believe him, and that is why they kept grumbling and arguing. They were offended and scandalized, when they should have been amazed and transformed.

First, they got offended when he told them he came from heaven.

Then they were scandalized when he seemed to be proposing cannibalism.

They weren’t really listening.  If they had been, they would have heard and accepted his explanation: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are spirit and life.”

The ones who had already written him off, left; the ones who really believed who he was, stayed.

Which one are you?

GLUTEN-FREE BREAD FROM HEAVEN - (2)

John 6: 1-69 – Part 2

“I am the bread that came down from heaven.” John 6:41

 

Read the story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%206:1-51a&version=NIV

Listen to story here:  http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/John.6

I am bread.  Every age and culture understands that bread is physically life-giving. It has been called the “staff of life.”  So the comparison we talked about in Part 1 – I am the bread of life – was a universal metaphor:

But today’s metaphor comes from an ancient Jewish story that everyone in Jesus’ audience knew: God fed Moses and the Israelites in the desert a bread that fell from the sky and collected on the ground every morning.  Bread from heaven, literally.

Jesus and the crowd of people who had been supernaturally fed by him just the day before had a long discussion, and that story was background to the discussion.

So, the crowd had followed him because they got their bellies full.

But when Jesus had fed the 5,000, and given them an object lesson so they would experience his desire and ability to care for their needs, he wasn’t focused solely on the physical needs.  These people were.

After they tracked him down, he instructed – “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you”

He had the big picture – eternity – and he kept trying to get them to look deeper, to look UP.

Instead, they asked him for his credentials!  The irony of their request, after he had just fed 5,000 of them with one small boy’s lunch, didn’t derail Jesus from the point he was making.  He tried another angle.  Hey, remember that bread, that “manna,” God gave the Israelites in the desert so they wouldn’t starve?  That’s me.  I am “the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (v33)

At first they seem to get it, because they say: “Give us this bread always!”  But really, they are still just focused on physical bread.  The minute that Jesus stops speaking in figures of speech and states directly: “For I have come down from heaven,” they turn on him. 

They are offended because he is equating himself with God.  They grumble: Who do you think you are!  We know your parents, Mary and Joseph! Ha! Like you really came down from heaven!

He knows that they are grumbling and many don’t believe him, but then he clearly states the spiritual lesson of the bread: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Wow.  At that point I’m wondering why they didn’t bow at his feet in gratitude and amazement.  Everyone wants to live forever. 

Instead, they desert him in droves.

In tomorrow’s blog, find out why.