The Bread of Life
(Ex.16:2-4, 12-15; Eph.4:17, 20-24; Jn.6:24-35)
In 1995, someone set a world record by making a loaf of bread, from harvesting the wheat through to baking, in 8 minutes 13 seconds. That’s fast!
In biblical times, breadmaking took much longer. The typical housewife got up early before dawn to start grinding the flour by hand. Grinding 800 grams of flour took an hour, but if she had five or six people to feed, she would have had to spend three hours grinding.
In those days bread was an important part of the diet, much like today, but it always meant hard work. Ordinary families had to plough and sow, seed and hoe, reap and thresh, winnow and sift, grind and sift again, knead and moisten, light the fire and then bake. Only then could they have a piece to eat.
It’s not surprising, then, that bread became such an important symbol around the world. Today it’s an icon of nutrition, wealth and comfort, and breaking bread has become an important symbol of peace.
It’s also not surprising that Jesus added bread to the Lord’s Prayer. When the early Christians prayed ‘give us this day our daily bread’ (Mt.6:11), they didn’t just pray for a good harvest or for enough flour. They also prayed for the strength to keep making their own bread each day.
In John’s Gospel today, the crowds of people that Jesus had fed earlier go looking for Him. They want more of His bread, and we can understand why. It was nourishing, it was easy and it was free.
But Jesus thinks the time’s come to offer them something even more precious. He says, ‘do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you’.
He invites them to look beyond their ordinary lives and to start focussing on more profound things. We’ve all been created by God to live with Him forever, and Jesus has come to show us what to do.
All we need to do is believe in Him and follow His way, and eternal life will be ours. That’s why Jesus is called the Bread of Life.
But the crowd doesn’t understand. They ask Jesus for a sign, and He tells them that the God who fed Moses and the Israelites in the desert all those years ago is the very same God who just fed the 5,000 on that hillside.
Then He tells them straight: ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.’
What Jesus is offering them isn’t just a full belly. Rather, He’s offering them the way to personal fulfilment. He’s offering them the answer to the riddle of life.
Many people in our world today regularly eat their fill and have all they need, but still feel ‘empty’ inside. They’re hungry for something more in their lives, but don’t know what to look for.
Some people think the answer is to focus on looking good and surrounding themselves with nice shiny things. They spend lots of time and money on their appearance; they’re obsessed with their image and possessions. But at the same time they’re ignoring their souls.
They’re ignoring God.
This is what Jesus is trying to teach us. He cares about physical hunger, but He cares even more about our spiritual hunger. He’s telling us that only He can satisfy our yearning for a life of peace, love, purpose and joy.
In our second reading today, St Paul says that if we accept the nourishment that Jesus offers us, our lives will be transformed. That’s when we’ll find that we’re no longer satisfied with full bellies and empty hearts and minds.
Paul encourages us to put aside our old lives, and instead put on a new self, nourished by the goodness, holiness and truth of Jesus Christ.
For He is the Bread of Life.
The kind of bread that Jesus offers us involves effort, but of a different kind. It means taking the time we need to develop a personal relationship with Him, by getting to know Him and allowing Him to nourish and transform us from the inside out.
When next you pray, ‘… Give us this day our daily bread,’ remember that Jesus is our daily bread. He is our Bread of Life, and He’s freely available to us all.
Please take as much as you need.