The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Sunday March 22, 2009

The Bread of Life

Today we find in the book of John chapter 6 Jesus is talking about Himself as “the bread of life.”  He is being questioned by the people about who He is. Jesus said, “Do not labor for meat that goes rotten but labor for meat that endures to everlasting life.  Which the Son of man shall give unto you for him hath God the Father sealed.”  The Lord Jesus is telling them not to labor or work for things that die or waste away but labor for those things that will give you life after death.  Then the people said to Him what then shall we do to work the works of God?  And Jesus answers them; “this is the work of God that you believe on Him who He hath sent.”  The people then in verse 30 want a sign from Him “and they said unto Him what sign shewest thue then, that we may see, and believe thee?  What does thou work?  Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”  We saw this today in our first lesson in the book of Exodus chapter 16 versus 4 through 15.  The Israelites murmured against Moses, as they did quite often, and they were hungry and wanted food.  The Lord knowing of their murmurings told Moses to gather the people together and tell them that he would feed them.  Moses told the people that their are murmurings were not just against Moses and his brother Aaron, but against God Himself.  The Lord in His love for the people fed them with birds in the evening and manna in the morning.  The Israelites who gathered around Jesus knew this very well.  We see in verse 31, those gathered where more impressed with the feeding of Israel in the wilderness then all the miracles of Christ.  Let us also remember the Lord Jesus had just fed 5000 people with 2 loaves of bread and a few fish. But the people refused to believe the magnificence of what He had done just like their ancestors who refused to believe the magnificence of what God had done by feeding them with birds and manna. The Lord Jesus Christ now in verse 32 tries to rectify their error by telling them that Moses gave you not that bread from heaven but my father gave you the true bread from heaven. This manna which God had sent was from the clouds and it was a pretty figure out the true manner that would come later who of course was Christ. In verse 33 the Lord Jesus tells them that the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven and He gives life to the world. The Lord Jesus would have them know that He is that bread, and it is only through Him that we can have everlasting life. In verse 34 the people then asked Him “Lord evermore give us this bread.” They were ignorant of what He was telling them and when they found out what He meant by this bread of life they then despised it.

From verses 35 to 40 the Lord Jesus explains to them that He is the bread of life, and for those who come to Him they will never go hungry and they will never thirst.  He assures them in verse 37 “that all the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and all that come to Jesus will never be cast out. I came down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of the Father that sent Me.” The Lord Jesus does not have a will separate from the Father, and He wanted the people to understand that His will was the same as the Father's many in that day doubted His intentions, and he wanted to put that rumor to rest. The Lord Jesus then tells them that this is the will of the Father “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and that He will raise them up at the last day.

We can take comfort in these words from our Lord Jesus. A few weeks ago we saw the Lord Jesus had stopped at the well of Jacob. While He sat there a Samaritan woman came to draw water and He asked her to give Him a drink. After discussions between the two the Lord Jesus explains to her that if she accepted the water that He offers she would never thirst again. But unlike those today who are gathered around the Lord Jesus, this woman believed, and that belief saved her.

It is no question that the Lord Jesus had a way of speaking in circles, but today the Lord Jesus was very much to the point in His speaking and made it very clear His purpose here. Food goes bad if not eaten on time, and if we eat rotten food we become sick. What happens to the body if we do not eat? It breaks down and we die, but that is all fleshly. I spoke to a friend this Saturday, a fellow pastor, and we had a discussion on the spiritual food compared to earthly food. And he said to me what good is it to feed someone who comes into your church earthly food, but you have no spiritual food to feed them with? I have sat in the pews of many churches and I have seen many people who have been spiritually dead. They are content with the manna, they are content with the water they drink, but when it comes to their contentment of God's word they ignore it. The Lord Jesus is the tree of life and if you eat of him you shall also have life. Adam and Eve had a choice as do many of us today. That choice is the tree of life, Christ, or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the world. It should be a comforting thought to know that once we have eaten from the tree of life nothing can now cast us out of the beautiful Garden of Eden that God has prepared for us. I often ask people why it is that they refuse to believe in and eat of the tree of life. The answers that I get are quite disturbing. I am not worthy, I will have to give up all that I know, I'm happy with my life, and my favorite I'm just not hungry now.

When the day comes that this body breaks down and dies and they lay you in the cold dark ground will Christ come and take you home because you chose the tree of life and the food that is upon it?

AMEN