Tag Archives: bread

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Bread of Heaven (Part 4)

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 27-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook here (the message starts at 23 minutes). Today’s sermon is delivered by Gaba Tabane, a lay preacher at my church. Or read my text summary below.

We continue with our series on the Bread of Heaven, this week focusing on John 6:51-58. In today’s passage, Jesus dives into the deep end of his teaching so far, focusing squarely on himself as the bread of life, and calling us to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. This is a difficult reading:

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Jesus appears to confront us this almost cannibalistic image to make intangible spiritual truths as tangible and tactile as possible, even to the point of being gross. He is speaking of the Eucharist (communion, Lord’s Supper, Holy Mass). He wants us to understand that we obtain eternal life by filling ourselves with his presence. By making him an essential part of ourselves. Thus, eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a metaphor or image to help us grasp how seriously he wants us to allow him to fill us up spiritually and diffuse through every cell of our body and every thought of our mind.

When we let Jesus into ourselves, we have life eternal in ourselves. But if we refuse to let him in, we have no life in us. This is what he says in verses 53 and 54. When we let him in, we will have deep, lasting life and we will be raised up again to new life on the last day. He says in verse 56 that when we allow him in, he will come make his home in us. The NIV says “you remain in me and I remain in you”, but this ‘remain’ means to ‘take up dwelling in’, to ‘make your home in’. Jesus dwells in us – in our body, in our mind, in our emotions, in our spirit.

Jesus says that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink. Some churches think of the eucharist bread and wine as symbols of his body and blood. Others think of them as actual flesh and blood. Our church thinks of them as bread and wine that have been transformed in such a way that the real presence of Christ is present in them. They are real bread and wine, and also real flesh and blood – Jesus makes himself present and available to us in these elements, so that we can feast on him. Jesus says, at the last supper, “This is my body” and “This is my blood”, yet he is sitting right there, alive and without any loss of flesh or blood. So, this middle way between symbolism and transubstantiation is the most workable way of understanding his meaning. Jesus is genuinely and actually present in the bread and wine, but the bread and wine are still bread and wine, and yet far more than just that. We call this consubstantiation, which means both substances at the same time. This is a sacrament: “An outward and visible sign (baked bread) of inward and spiritual grace (bread from heaven), given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace”.

Bruner (2012, p. 436-437) summarises his passage like this:

“Here it is; here I am; take a good look; this is it; the Great Heavenly Visit is now right here in front of you in this little space. You are very privileged to have access to this cosmic, once-in-a-lifetime event. You are looking straight at the meaning of life. This is what it is all about.”

Featured image of rye bread from https://dexam.co.uk/rye-bread
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Bread of Heaven (Part 1)

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 22-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook here (the message starts at about 31 minutes). Or read the text summary below.

Our reading this morning is from John 6:1-21. We will be spending five weeks on this chapter. I think that this is the most consecutive Sundays we spend on any chapter in the Bible. (I stand to be corrected.) This is because we receive here some of Jesus’ most profound and important teaching – about the Bread of Life, the Bread of Heaven. It starts with a story about ‘real bread’ and becomes a story about ‘Real Bread’ (Bruner’s commentary on John).

In the first 15 verses of John 6, we are introduced to bread. It sets the scene for the rest of the chapter. We can read this story at two levels: on the ground floor, it is a story about Jesus feeding 5000 men from five small barley loaves and two small fish – a story of compassion and care; on the first floor, it is a story about an invitation to faith – faith in Jesus, who is the Bread of Life.

The ground floor – a story about caring

Jesus is on the mountain side and he sees a large crowd heading his way. John writes “Jesus looked up and saw”. Jesus is always looking up and seeing. We get this again and again in the Gospel narratives. He has his eyes open and sees the needs of those around him. If you listen to my messages over the past month, you’ll hear it over and over. He sees. And he has compassion.

So he asks his disciples how they can arrange bread to feed the people. It is a huge ask, of course, with 5,000 men, plus children (we know there are children there, because soon we meet a ‘boy’ in v9) and women (if there are children, there are surely women). So, there were perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 people! Andrew brings a boy who has a little bit of food – not much more than a snack. Jesus gives thanks for the food and distributes it to the people. (One wonders what the boy thought about having his lunch annexed by the Andrew and Jesus!) Everyone eats their fill, so much so, that there are 12 large baskets (big baskets that could hold a man) of leftovers of the barley bread.

Many of us believe that Jesus performed a miracle, in which he multiplied that little bread into much bread. Others believe that when people saw Jesus’ (and perhaps also the boy’s) generosity and compassion, they were moved to share what they had with those who had less. And so, what we see is a social miracle about people moved to caring and sharing. Either way, this is a story about Jesus caring for others – caring for our everyday needs. As we often pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. Bread is life in come communities. In others, it is maize meal porridge. In others, it is rice. Every society has a staple food that provides the foundation of life. Jesus cares about this and wants people to have food in their stomachs. And to have it abundantly.

The first floor – a story about faith

The feeding of the 5000 is an important miracle story in the Bible. It is the ONLY miracle, taking place between Jesus’ baptism and his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, that appears in ALL FOUR Gospels. There is no other miracle that appears across all four Gospels, except this one. And in John’s gospel, it introduces a lengthy chapter about the spiritual meaning of Real Bread. Still, even on the first floor, the real bread is just bread. But the interactions between Jesus and the others are an invitation to faith.

John tells us that the event takes place just before the Passover festival (v4). The Passover symbolised, as it still does, liberation and redemption from slavery in Egypt, God standing up for the people of God, God caring for God’s chosen ones. It is central to Jewish faith, like the cross is central to Christian faith. This cues us that this is a story about faith.

Seeing the large crowds, Jesus invited Philip to faith: “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” For sure, this is a big ask – it is a big crowd. But Philip was there in John 2, when Jesus changed water into wine – a lot of wine, a lot of really good wine! Jesus invites Philip to have faith. A faith response might have been, “Lord, I can’t imagine where we could get or afford so much bread. But I know you can make a plan! If anyone can feed this many people, it is you!” That would be a faith response, particularly after witnessing the water into wine miracle. Instead, all Philip can see is the large crowd. He loses sight of Jesus. His faith fails him.

Andrew shows a little faith, however. He finds a boy with some food. He emphasises the smallness of what the boy has: “five small barley loaves and two small fish” (v8). And then his tiny bubble of faith pops: “But how far will they go among so many people?”

Yet, that is all Jesus needed: a tiny morsel of faith. He takes those small loaves and small fish and gives thanks for (literally ‘eucharists’) them and feeds 5000+ people. Jesus is not constrained by the size of our faith. Andrew’s faith is feeble, small and easily fizzles. But what is important is not so much our faith, as the one in whom we place our faith: Jesus is more than capable of calming our storms, feeding us, healing us, helping us. He is the Lord of lords and King of kings. He is God incarnate. He can do anything.

It is only in the collecting of the leftovers that the disciples and the people recognise a miracle has taken place. I think Jesus instructs the disciples to collect the leftovers so they can see and touch the miracle, much as Jesus does with Thomas in John 20 – “Put your finger here; see my hand”. As Thomas was invited by Jesus to see, touch and respond in faith, so were Philip and the other disciples invited to see, touch and respond in faith. And so are we. Particularly during times of turmoil, illness, loss, distress and hunger.

Postscript

Immediately after the story of the feeding of the 5000, we have John’s version of the story of Jesus walking on the water (see my sermon on this same story from Mark’s Gospel, a month ago). The disciples are alone in a boat on a lake in a storm and struggling to make headway. Jesus sees their plight and walks across the water to them. They are terrified to see him, but he says, ‘It is I; don’t be afraid“, and he climbs into the storm-rocked boat with them – he chooses to be in the boat in the storm with them – and immediately, they find they have reached the other side of the lake, where they were headed.

Jesus remains more than capable of riding out and calming the storms in our lives.

Featured image from https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/artisan-bread-recipe/
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Pick your bakery

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 8-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below, or read the text summary after that.

In John 4:35, Jesus says “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” And later in the same chapter (v48-51), he says,

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.

Earlier in John’s Gospel (4:13-14), Jesus says something similar to the Samaritan woman at the well:

Everyone who drinks this water [from the well] will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

When we are going through stressful, difficult times, or are feeling out of sorts, we have to choose what kind of bakery we go to, to get some bread to satisfy and calm ourselves.

Sometimes, we engage in things that are psychologically and socially healthy, like meditation, going for a walk or some other kind of exercise, meeting up with a friend or resting.

But oftentimes, we engage in things that are not psychosocially healthy and that can even have harmful consequences, like going on a shopping spree, drinking too much alcohol, watching pornography, lashing out physically or verbally at our loved ones, driving too fast, using drugs, skipping work and so on. These mechanisms provide temporary relief, but leave us hungry for more, and often create more problems than we had in the first place. They do not truly satisfy our hunger. Indeed, we might end up more hungry than before, and need more of this kind of bread next time.

Jesus invites us to come to his bakery when we are hungry for something to satisfy our souls. The bread he offers is healthy, wholesome, long lasting and satisfying.

When we reach these points of difficulty in life, we have the opportunity to make a choice – to pick our bakery. Do we go to the one on the corner where we can buy the soft white bread that lasts only a moment? Or do we choose to drive a distance to get the healthy bread that lasts a long time?

Or can we choose to turn to Jesus, the master baker, to get the bread that will last for eternity, bread from heaven?

Featured image from https://www.countrykitchenlisburn.com/bakery/