Jn 6:41-51 The Bread of Life (Evangelistic)
I have been in Sydney for 18 years and I have also witnessed the rapid change of the life style in this metropolitan. Good and bad in the change, but I miss very much the neighbour relationship in the past. Today many of my neighbours are too busy to chat and to know each other, let alone helping or supporting each other. On the other hand the traffic at each weekend is terribly busy, on both Saturday and Sunday the malls are full of people. As we are more adapted to a hectic lifestyle, we have the comfort as the compensation for us: consumption. Among the various choices of consumption, food and cooking become more and more popular. A good meal, a good dining out is really an enjoyment, isn’t it? As a Chinese, of course I fully agree with this idea. According to the academic research, the memory from smelling or tasting can last very long, and probably that’s why we human beings like good food. However, no matter how good is the food we have taken, no matter how much pleasure and good memory the food has given us, we have eat again. And even worse, in the end, despite of our continual eating, we can’t save us from our final destiny, the end point of our life. Moreover, there is pleasure and enjoyment in various consumptions, but this kind of happiness can only last for a short while. In the new year’s eve of year 2000 there was a sign hanging onto the Sydney Bridge saying: “eternity”. It happened 9 years ago, but where is eternity? Why people shout for eternity, when it gradually disappears at the horizon?
With this in our minds perhaps we can find something special to us in today’s Biblical passage. It tells us a kind of food which is very unusual. It is the food of necessity, the necessity for eternal life. As in V.51, Jesus tells us that: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” So, here saying, Jesus himself, who was sent from heaven, is the food for eternal life.
In the same passage Jesus did not just proclaim this message, but also told us some interesting, which are related to the ancient past. They all related to the stories of Moses. Some of us might not have read too much about the Bible, but I believe many of us have heard about the stories of Moses, maybe from movies like The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt. Actually the Bible tells us that in ancient time God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites leaving Egypt, passing through the Red Sea, wandering in the desert, and then lead them entering the promised land. It is a thrill to see those miracles. Here Jesus mentioned one of them, that is the manna from heaven for the Israelites’ daily food. God supplied the Israelites the manna 6 days in a week, for 40 years. Although the manna was from heaven, the ancient Israelites still all died, just like the fate of everyone of us. Even the manna, the food for the angels, could not save them from the curse of sin, because as what the Bible says, “For all of us have sinned, short of the glory of God.” And it also says: “And the wages of sin is death.” No one can escape this curse. But here we have the one who is much more powerful than the heavenly manna. Jesus is the bread of life, whoever comes to Jesus, confess his sins with a repentant heart, and believe in Him, will have eternal life, because if you have faith in Him, your sins will be blotted out, and the curse of sin will have no effect on you. This is the meaning of the bread of life, because Jesus can provide us the necessity for eternal life.
Another messages which is also about the story of Moses is grumbling. Grumbling is not an unusual behaviour. When the children think that their parents have done something not in favour of them, they will complain: “not fair!” And for adults, the art of grumbling is more sophisticated. Same for the ancient Israelites, they kept on grumbling to Moses throughout the 40 years of the journey in the desert. Even worse, they grumbled directly to God. Grumbling is a symptom of lacking of trust, a symptom of disbelief. Back to Jesus’ time, the Jews also grumbled to Jesus. They did not believe in Him. Apparently they had a reason. They knew the past history of Jesus that he was just an ordinary man. How can an ordinary man be the Son of God? Therefore they grumbled, they didn’t believe. But is this grumbling justified? In Moses’ era, we know that even there were a huge number of miracles done by God in order to save the Israelites, they still did not believe. Similar situations in Jesus’ time, He had done a great number of miracles, and later on He even died on the cross and resurrected in his glory, but the Jews still did not believe. And that’s Jesus’ reply to them: “Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.” In other words, everyone who listens to the Bible, the Word of God, will come to Jesus and believe in Him, because all the messages in the Bible point to Jesus. Do you believe in the messages of the Bible? Do you believe in Jesus?
Some people may think that there might be some other ways that can satisfy the requirement from God and then lead us to eternal life. One of the popular candidates is by our own virtuous work. We can do good work for our community, or we can do meditation to please God, or through some other means, that we may be able to earn the merit points for the entry ticket to heaven. But that is not what Jesus says. In an earlier verse, when He talked with the Jews, in V.28: “Then they asked Jesus, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."” I.e., believe in Jesus. Only faith in Jesus Christ can save us, there is no room for earning the eternal life by ourselves, because deep in our hearts we fully understand that. If we are honest enough to ourselves, we do know that no matter how determined we are, we just can’t make it. As the Bible says: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
Today Jesus has proclaimed to us an important message about Himself: He is the bread of life. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. In this fleeting world of consumerism, we can easily lose the horizon of our life. We can also easily lose our direction in the maze of temporal pleasures. If there is a cry out from your soul, the voice concerning your life after the physical death, the voice about the guilt of your sins, and the voice about the broken relationship with God, Jesus has given you the answer. What you need to do is to come to Him in faith and repentance. That is exactly what Jesus has said: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
With this in our minds perhaps we can find something special to us in today’s Biblical passage. It tells us a kind of food which is very unusual. It is the food of necessity, the necessity for eternal life. As in V.51, Jesus tells us that: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” So, here saying, Jesus himself, who was sent from heaven, is the food for eternal life.
In the same passage Jesus did not just proclaim this message, but also told us some interesting, which are related to the ancient past. They all related to the stories of Moses. Some of us might not have read too much about the Bible, but I believe many of us have heard about the stories of Moses, maybe from movies like The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt. Actually the Bible tells us that in ancient time God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites leaving Egypt, passing through the Red Sea, wandering in the desert, and then lead them entering the promised land. It is a thrill to see those miracles. Here Jesus mentioned one of them, that is the manna from heaven for the Israelites’ daily food. God supplied the Israelites the manna 6 days in a week, for 40 years. Although the manna was from heaven, the ancient Israelites still all died, just like the fate of everyone of us. Even the manna, the food for the angels, could not save them from the curse of sin, because as what the Bible says, “For all of us have sinned, short of the glory of God.” And it also says: “And the wages of sin is death.” No one can escape this curse. But here we have the one who is much more powerful than the heavenly manna. Jesus is the bread of life, whoever comes to Jesus, confess his sins with a repentant heart, and believe in Him, will have eternal life, because if you have faith in Him, your sins will be blotted out, and the curse of sin will have no effect on you. This is the meaning of the bread of life, because Jesus can provide us the necessity for eternal life.
Another messages which is also about the story of Moses is grumbling. Grumbling is not an unusual behaviour. When the children think that their parents have done something not in favour of them, they will complain: “not fair!” And for adults, the art of grumbling is more sophisticated. Same for the ancient Israelites, they kept on grumbling to Moses throughout the 40 years of the journey in the desert. Even worse, they grumbled directly to God. Grumbling is a symptom of lacking of trust, a symptom of disbelief. Back to Jesus’ time, the Jews also grumbled to Jesus. They did not believe in Him. Apparently they had a reason. They knew the past history of Jesus that he was just an ordinary man. How can an ordinary man be the Son of God? Therefore they grumbled, they didn’t believe. But is this grumbling justified? In Moses’ era, we know that even there were a huge number of miracles done by God in order to save the Israelites, they still did not believe. Similar situations in Jesus’ time, He had done a great number of miracles, and later on He even died on the cross and resurrected in his glory, but the Jews still did not believe. And that’s Jesus’ reply to them: “Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.” In other words, everyone who listens to the Bible, the Word of God, will come to Jesus and believe in Him, because all the messages in the Bible point to Jesus. Do you believe in the messages of the Bible? Do you believe in Jesus?
Some people may think that there might be some other ways that can satisfy the requirement from God and then lead us to eternal life. One of the popular candidates is by our own virtuous work. We can do good work for our community, or we can do meditation to please God, or through some other means, that we may be able to earn the merit points for the entry ticket to heaven. But that is not what Jesus says. In an earlier verse, when He talked with the Jews, in V.28: “Then they asked Jesus, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."” I.e., believe in Jesus. Only faith in Jesus Christ can save us, there is no room for earning the eternal life by ourselves, because deep in our hearts we fully understand that. If we are honest enough to ourselves, we do know that no matter how determined we are, we just can’t make it. As the Bible says: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
Today Jesus has proclaimed to us an important message about Himself: He is the bread of life. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. In this fleeting world of consumerism, we can easily lose the horizon of our life. We can also easily lose our direction in the maze of temporal pleasures. If there is a cry out from your soul, the voice concerning your life after the physical death, the voice about the guilt of your sins, and the voice about the broken relationship with God, Jesus has given you the answer. What you need to do is to come to Him in faith and repentance. That is exactly what Jesus has said: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
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