God’s care for His people was proven by the manna He rained upon them for food and the heavenly bread He gave them (Psalm 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54). It is the Son of Man who gives to the people the food that endures for eternal life (John 6:24-35).
He gave them heavenly bread
The psalmist recalls the wonderful things God did at the time of the Exodus, which mighty deeds have been proclaimed from generation to generation, heard from one’s father and retold to one’s children. This tradition is a way of ensuring that faith in God is passed on from one generation to the next. Of particular interest to us is how God manifested His power and mercy from the heavens; how He responded to the people’s persistent doubting of His power. God sent them manna to eat (Exodus 16:14-16). God’s sovereignty was undeniable as He exercised authority over the heavens, and ordered the doors of heaven to open and rain down manna upon the Israelites for food.
And man ate the grain of heaven, the bread of angels, in abundance. This recital of God’s glorious deed is capped with the establishment of the people in the promised land. The “bread of angels,” “the bread of the strong,” strengthened the Israelites to finish the passage to God’s holy land, to the mountain of Zion upon which God’s holy temple would be built. The recitation of what God had done for the people is to remind them of who they are by these divine acts, and to challenge them to live up to God’s love and care for them. The living memory of God’s loving kindness defines the consciousness of God’s people.
Work for the food that endures for eternal life
The people in the gospel narrative trailing Jesus and His disciples were curious about when and how He arrived. They were hungry for the miraculous, in search of a wonder worker: Did they miss another wonder by Him? Jesus tried to refocus them: They seek Him because they ate to the full of the loaves, but they have to understand that the bread they have eaten are signs of God’s loving care for people. They are very familiar with their physical hunger, but not enough about their spiritual hunger. The people need to work not only “for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”
The people heard Jesus’ concern with eternal food, but their consciousness was not on the same page with Jesus. They thought principally about the traditional emphasis on performing the works of God, to do as God does. So they asked, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus again redirected them: God’s work is about “the one He sent.” They have to connect with and believe in Him whom God has sent. The works of God (as in the law through Moses) must tie up with God’s one work of “grace and truth…through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Well, the people said, if Jesus is the work of God, what validating sign does He perform to lead people to believe in Him? Their ancestors ate manna in the desert, and so validated Moses and the law.
I am the bread of life
Jesus tried to correct the mind of the people the third time. It was not Moses who gave their ancestors manna; it is God who gives “the true bread from heaven,” and this “gives life to the world” beyond the history and people of Israel. The crowd did not completely follow Jesus’ restructuring of their thinking: They only heard the possibility of Jesus’ Father giving bread continuously and so they promptly asked Jesus to give them this bread always—a repeat of the crowd’s earlier wish to make Jesus king who would constantly provide them with bread (John 6:15).
For the fourth time Jesus redirected the people’s consciousness: He returned to what He was saying at the beginning that they must work for the food that endures for eternal life, which will be given them by the Son of Man on whom God, the Father, has set His seal. In claiming to be the Son of Man anointed by the Father, Jesus claims to be “the bread of life” who gives spiritual nourishment to all who comes to Him and believes in Him. He is the life that comes from God into the world, establishing communion with the eternal, and satisfying all spiritual thirst and hunger.
Alálaong bagá, Jesus is the final sign that leads to God, “the true bread from heaven” that gives eternal life. His coming among us is God’s definitive and most marvelous deed of loving kindness. Doubting no more the divine power and mercy, man needs to work beyond material nourishment and temporary wonders, and aim at finding what satisfies our inner, deeper hunger.
Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio-streaming on www.dwiz882.com.
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Please let people doubt. “I rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.” – Richard Feynman.