Tag Archives: Bread from heaven

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Bread of Heaven (Part 5)

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 25-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook here (the message starts at 30 minutes). Or read the text summary below.

We complete our five-part series on the Bread of Heaven, this week focusing on John 6:56-69. Over the past four weeks, Jesus has been consistently redirecting us to himself and presenting himself to us as the source of life. Among other things, he has show that:

  • He cares about us.
  • He feeds us, meets our physical needs, abundantly.
  • He redirects us from earthly things to heavenly spiritual things.
  • He directs us towards himself.
  • He invites us repeatedly into a relationship with him.
  • He says he is the bread of life, come down from heaven
  • He invites us to feast on him.
  • He offers us and the world eternal life.

Now the question is: How will you respond to all this?

There are two sets of responses in our reading: the response of the larger group of Jesus’ disciples and then the response of the 12 disciples, voiced by Peter.

The response of Jesus’ disciples

Today’s reading indicates that Jesus’ teachings are hard – who can accept them? What is it about Jesus’ teaching in John 6 that is hard to accept, offensive? In part, it is his claim that he came down from heaven (John 6:42) and in part that he invites us to eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:52). On the one hand, he is too heavenly and on the other hand he is too earthly and fleshy. He is too high and too low!

Jesus responds to the first point by asking how they will feel when they see him ascending back into heaven (John 6:61-62). If his claim to have come down from heaven is hard to accept, how much more witnessing him ascending back into heaven! And he respond to the second point by saying they should forget about earthly flesh and concentrate on spiritual flesh and words, which are full of Spirit and life (John 6:63).

But, recognising that his teachings are hard to understand, Jesus acknowledges that some do not believe and some who believe will fall away. It is our choice whether or not we believe in him. Yet, it is important for us also to know that God the Father enables our faith, enables us to believe and even to accept hard, difficult teachings. Indeed, three times in this chapter, Jesus emphasises that it is the Father who inspires and enables our belief:

  • The Father gives us to Christ (John 6:37).
  • The Father draws us to Christ (John 6:44).
  • The Father enables us to come to Christ (John 6:65).

God is sovereign. God does the drawing of our hearts towards Jesus. We rely and depend on God to enable and inspire our faith. And so we pray to him when our faith frays.

Nevertheless, many of Jesus disciples turn away and leave him. God does not force them to stay or force them to believe. We have free well to listen to God’s call and to follow him. God may give, draw and enable our faith, but he does not coerce – we still choose.

The response of Peter

Finally, Jesus turns to the 12 disciples – they are not among those who turned away and left. He asks them, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” (John 6:67). The phrasing of the Greek implies a ‘no’ answer. Jesus is hoping that they will not join the others who have turned away.

Peter’s reply is wonderful:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!” (John 6:68) Peter knows the options out there, and concludes that they are all wanting. Even if Jesus’ teaching is hard to fathom, he can think of no better options. And besides, despite the difficult of Jesus’ teachings, he recognises that these are words of eternal life. Not words about eternal life, but the words of eternal life! Jesus very words are Life itself! As Jesus said earlier (v63), “the words I have spoken are full of the Spirit and of life.”

“We have come to believe to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:69) Here Peter describes a process – the same process that we have been following these past five weeks: there is a process (“we have come”) of learning to trust Jesus and to entrust ourselves into Jesus (“to believe”) that leads to knowledge about who Jesus is and what he means to us (“and to know that you are the Holy One of God”). There is a process of trusting Jesus that leads to us knowing him.

All of this (this entire chapter 6 in John’s Gospel) has been about drawing us closer into a trusting relationship with Jesus, redirecting us from the things of the world to himself, and learning to trust that he himself, as the bread that has come down from heaven, is the source of all the nourishment that we need, of life, of Spirit.

Again, the question is: How will you respond to all this?

Featured image of sourdough bread from https://www.independent.com/events/how-to-make-sourdough-bread/
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Bread of Heaven (Part 3)

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 16-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook here (the message starts at 26 minutes). Or read the text summary below.

We continue with our series on the Bread of Heaven, this week focusing on John 6:35-51. Last week (Part 2) we saw how Jesus persisted in redirecting people from worldly work and food to heavenly work and food, from our actions to Christ’s actions, from our small vision to God’s grand agenda, and from bread to Christ. Everything was focused on getting us to redirect ourselves towards Christ, to orientate ourselves towards him.

Our passage today continues that theme, as Jesus unpacks what it means to orientate ourselves to him and how he takes the leading in enabling us to do that. I’ll be extracting five word themes from the passage. We’ll see that Jesus is once again persistent in using the same phrases over and over to drive home his message.

Christ’s invitation – come to me

First, Jesus repeatedly uses language that speaks to us coming to him, believing in him, eating of him, looking to him. Eleven times in 14 verses he uses these terms. He issues us an invitation, an open and generous invitation, to come to him. It is the central message of today’s text – come to me!

35 Whoever comes to me will never go hungry
37 All those the Father gives me will come to me
37 whoever comes to me I will never drive away
44 No one can come to me unless the father draws them
45 Everyone who has heard the Father comes to me
35 whoever believes in me will never be thirsty
40 everyone who believes in him shall have eternal life
47 the one who believes has eternal life
50 anyone may eat and not die
50 Whoever eats this bread will live forever
40 everyone who looks to the Son shall have eternal life

God’s grace – the Father’s will

Our ability to come to Christ is, however, by God’s grace. It is through the will of Father, and not through our own efforts or initiative that we can come to God. Only by grace, through faith in Christ. Six times, Jesus emphasises that it is through the work of the Father that we can come.

37 All those the Father gives me will come to me
39 this is the will of him who sent me
40 For my Father’s will is that
44 the Father who sent me draws them
45 They will all be taught by God
45 heard the Father and learned from him

Christ’s initiative – Christ comes down

As much as our capacity to come to Christ is through the grace and will of God, Christ himself also assists in coming down to us. We don’t have to go far to find him – he has already come to us. In the three places where Jesus refers to his coming down from heaven, he uses three different tenses: I have come, I am coming right now, I came. This suggests that his coming is timeless: yesterday, today and tomorrow, Christ is coming down from heaven.

38 I have come down from heaven
50 here is the bread that is coming down right now from heaven
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven

Christ’s inclusivity – each one and everyone

Jesus conveys his inclusivity in the way he refers to people in both the singular (9 times) and plural (8 times). It seems that he wants us to think of ourselves as being of special importance – just me, every single person, you the individual. And he also wants us to appreciate that he includes everyone, a radical inclusion that, in the last verse, encompasses the whole world!

35 whoever comes to me
35 whoever believes in me
38 whoever comes to me
39 I shall lose not one
44 No one can come to me
46 Not one has seen the Father
47 the one who believes has eternal life
50 any one may eat and not die
51 Whoever eats this bread will live forever

37 All those the Father gives
39 raise them up
40 my Father’s will is that everyone
40 raise them up
44 raise them up
45 They will all be taught by God
45 Everyone who has heard the Father
51 for the life of the world

Christ – the Bread of Life

And finally, Jesus repeatedly refers to himself as The Bread. Six times he calls himself the bread. In Parts 1 and 2 of our series, we encountered this only once – in the same verse that opens today’s reading. But here, he drives home that the bread we hunger after, the bread that sustains life, the bread that fills us up, is indeed Christ himself. If we are hungry and thirsty for something, Jesus is the one who satisfies us.

35 I am the bread of life
48 I am the bread of life
50 here is the bread that comes down from heaven
51 I am the living bread
51 Whoever eats this bread will live forever
51 This bread is my flesh

Today’s reading emphasises, repeatedly, that Jesus is the one we are after, that he is the one who, with the support of the Father, initiates the invitation for us to come to him and makes it easier by coming to us, so that each and everyone of us and all of us together can feast on the bread of life that has, is and continues to come down from heaven.

Come to Jesus!

Featured image of roti from https://www.cookhalaal.com/recipe/my-mothers-roti-recipe/