I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE
TEXT
John 6:25-35; 49-51
25 And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. . . .
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
COMMENTARY
This is a declaration that requires a complicated “back-story”, a working knowledge of contemporary Galilee in Jesus’ day, and some basic information on Catholic doctrine based on this reference.
This exceptionally important dialogue between Jesus and a hostile crowd, containing a reference from the Old Testament, took place at the synagogue in Capernaum, a small town on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.
The people who confronted Jesus were in whole or part the very same individuals who had been fed the day before in another small town on the Galilee’s north shores called Bethsaida.
Bethsaida was a way station for Jewish pilgrims who wanted to avoid going through Samaria on their way to and from Jerusalem. Even in those days, few if any suitable accommodations were available at that site. By this point in his ministry, Jesus’ reputation as a healer and worker of miracles had spread throughout Palestine. Great crowds, including believers, hecklers and ultra-devout Pharisees and Scribes – who most likely were present to collect evidence of Jesus’ heresies and Mosaic Law violations – had followed him to Bethsaida from Jerusalem.
With ridiculously small amounts of bread and fish, the text says Jesus had fed at least 5,000 men and their families. After the supper and during the night Jesus had gone off to the hills to escape those crowds while the disciples had set out to cross the Galilee to Capernaum. John’s account next details how Jesus rescued his disciples from a fast moving storm on the sea (6:16-21). Perhaps because this dramatic rescue, celebrated in familiar musical accounts, separates the plentiful meal for the 5,000-plus individuals and the “I Am the Bread of Life” declaration, we do not often tie the two together.
However, they most assuredly should be. On the following morning, the crowds saw that Jesus and the disciples had gone to Capernaum. They were hungry for more miracles as well as for breakfast. Bethsaida had neither. And so, many had taken to boats or run around the shoreline from Bethsaida to Capernaum, a distance of about three miles, to find Jesus to ask for another miracle.
Upon meeting them, he told them they came only to benefit from more amazing creations of free food. The crowd then engaged him, trying cleverly to ask for a sign like manna for the Children of Israel, or for another miracle of some sort, in order for Jesus to prove he was God or God-sent. In the past, they said, Moses gave hungry Israel something each day that they had harvested and were thus taken care of.
Jesus countered with two profound statements about himself and his relationship to the Father. First, he corrected them; it was not Moses who provided the manna; it was the Father. Likewise, he said, the Father had provided himself, Jesus, for these hungry people. And second, it was, at this point, that he declared that Ancient Israel had eaten only temporary nourishment and were, of course, dead. But he was the essential and eternal “Bread of Life”.
It should be noted that the problematic passage at the end of John 6 (52-56), which described the emblems of the sacrament as the literal body and blood of Jesus, is known as the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation.[1] But the doctrine does not consider the metaphoric nature of the preceding verses. In addition, Bible scholars argue that those verses were interpolated into John’s text at a later date. The utterly false doctrine fails to make the profound connection between Jesus and the Father’s concern for his children’s eternal nourishment and is therefore inconsistent with the other metaphoric “I Am” declarations to come.
I am the Bread of Life
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[1] The term Transubstantiation, describing the concept that the wine and bread are transformed into the blood and body of Christ, entered Christian vocabulary in the 11th century and was widely used after that point. However, as early as the first century, the idea of the mystical transformation of the sacrament into the body of Jesus was argued. See Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Transubstantiation.