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We continue with our series on the Bread of Heaven, this week focusing on John 6:24-35. Last week (Part 1) we read about Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 men (plus children and women) with just five small barley loaves and 2 little fish. We recognised that there were two levels to the story – on the ground floor, this is a story about Jesus caring about people being hungry and doing something about it; on the first floor up, this story is an invitation to have faith in Jesus, that he is more than capable of taking care of our needs. This week (in Part 2 of our series), we add on a third floor, which is to faith in Jesus, who is the Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life.

Today’s passage involves four interactions between the crowd (who had followed Jesus after his feeding them) and Jesus: they as a question and Jesus answers. With each Q&A, Jesus seeks to redirect the people from focusing on the things of this world, on things of the past and on ourselves, and to rather focus on him.

Redirection from worldly work and food to heavenly work and food

The crowds ask Jesus, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus is quite critical of them, saying they are just chasing miracles and food for their tummies. The then urges them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but rather work for food that endures to eternal life.” Note Jesus’ emphasis both on work and food, contrasting work and food that are temporal and can go off and have to be discarded, versus work and food that are enduring, even to eternity.

This reminds me of Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, just two chapters earlier, where he said, “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” (John 4:13-14).

Jesus is redirecting us from the things of this world – from food and water and even miracles – towards the things that are of eternal significance – towards faith, towards heaven and (we shall soon see) towards himself.

Redirection from our actions to Christ’s

The crowd seem to be getting with the programme, so they ask, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” This is a laudable question – they want to do the works of God, they want to meet God’s requirements, so they want to know what they should do. It is hard to fault them for wanting to do the work of God! But Jesus gives two redirections.

First, he shifts the focus from that they must do to what God does. The tells them what they must do by referring to the “work of God“, not ‘your work’. This is a huge hint towards the centrality of salvation through faith in Christ. Jesus says that the work we must do is in fact the work of God. This reminds me of Phil 2:12-13, where Paul writes, “[you] work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.” He gives what sounds like a contradiction! You work out your salvation because it is God who is working in you…” We cannot do anything, except what God does in us. We are dependent on God for everything that we do.

Second, he shifts from “the works God requires” to the “work of God” – from plural to singular. The crowds were thinking in terms of the many things they needed to do as signs of faith, but Jesus says, ‘No! There is just one work of God. Just one thing is required. And that is to believe in the one God has sent’. That’s it: to believe, or have faith. Faith alone is what God requires. And this faith is almost a falling into Christ, like a relaxing into him, reclining into him, resting in him. It is hardly ‘work’ at all!

Jesus is redirecting us from a focus on the many things we think we need to do to satisfy God’s expectations, towards a simple (yet also hard) just trusting in God to enable our faith in Christ.

Redirection from a small vision to God’s grand agenda

The crowds now get cocky and impertinent, asking Jesus what sign he will given them to prove that they should deign to listen to him. They seem to have entirely forgotten that he just fed thousands of people from a small lunch box! They refer back to Moses, when they were wandering in the desert, centuries before, who gave them bread from heaven (manna).

But in Jesus’ response, he contradicts everything they have said (and in the process, declines to give them a ‘sign’):

• It is not about Moses, but about my Father.
• It is not what was given to them (in the distant past), but what the Father gives them right now.
• It is not about bread from heaven (manna, which lasted only one day), but The True Bread from heaven.
• It is not just for you, but for the whole world.

Jesus directs them from a rather small and long-gone longing for manna from Moses towards a far greater, more enduring and more inclusive bread that is True and from Heaven.

Redirection from bread to Christ

Finally, it seems they get it! Instead of referring to Jesus as “Rabbi” as in the start of this passage, they now refer to him as “Lord” (or “Sir”). And they now ask, “always give us this bread”. They recognise that everything they had been setting their eyes and hearts on was quite worthless. But this True Bread that Jesus was talking about now – that was bread worth having! This is like the Samaritan woman, who says “Lord, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

And Jesus replies,

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Jesus has completely redirected them away from bread to himself. Jesus IS the bread of life. He does not give them the bread of life; he is the very bread itself! If we want bread, we want Christ.