“I Am the Bread of Life”
John 6: 25-35
Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, August 18, 2024
In today’s gospel reading we read one of Jesus’ great “I am” statements: “I am the bread of life.” There are a number of similar statements in John: “I am the light of the world,” “I am the Good Shepherd,” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” This phrase echoes the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush. After being told he must free the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh and lead them out of Egypt, Moses asks, “What if the Israelites say, ‘Who is this God who has sent you? What shall I answer?” And God responds, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” By recalling these exact words, “I am,” John reminds us that Jesus is the Son of God. But what does Jesus mean when he says, “I am the bread of life”
Bread is one of the oldest foods known to humans. It is widely consumed – perhaps more than any other food except rice. It comes in many forms, from the familiar loaf, to tortillas, croissants, pita, and of course, sour dough. Our early ancestors collected wild grains, soaked them in water and ground them between rocks to create a rough paste. Then, they cooked this mixture over hot rocks, producing the first flatbread. The world’s oldest oven for baking bread was discovered in Croatia dating back 6,500 years. The ancient Egyptians were the first to add yeast, producing leavened bread, which was lighter and fluffier.
What kind of bread did people eat in Jesus’ day? Probably coarse whole-grain bread, mainly barley, rather than wheat, which was reserved for the wealthy. For festivals such as Passover, Jesus would have eaten unleavened bread, similar to Matzoh’s – the cracker-like flat bread Jewish people eat today during Passover.
But why does Jesus compare himself to bread? In many parts of the world, bread is synonymous with life, because it is synonymous with food. We recognize this in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Bread was probably the most common food in first century Palestine. Of course, there was wine, olive oil, fish, or fruit to round out a meal, but every meal contained some bread. Remember - earlier in this same chapter, Jesus feeds 5,000 people with five barley loaves and two fish. That was a typical meal for the poor of his day.
Bread is also one of the most common foods in the U.S. and in Europe. We love sandwiches, pizza, pretzels and tacos. But in some countries, “daily bread” might be corn tortillas, rice, potatoes, or noodles. In Cameroon, “daily bread” may be yams or corn meal mush. In northwestern Tanzania, the staple food is plantains. In the Central African Republic, where we used to live, people ate boule de manioc – a thick paste made from dried cassava, pounded to a fine flour and added to boiling water, something like extra-thick instant mashed potatoes. In fact, Christians in that part of the world pray, “Give us today our daily cassava.” Of course, in many countries, rice is the “daily bread.” It is the staple food for 3.5 billion people. There is a Taiwanese hymn in our hymnal called “The Rice of Life” which reinterprets “I am the bread of life” to “I am the rice of life”:
The rice of life from heaven came
to bring true life from God above.
Receive this gift; God’s mercy claim;
in joy and pain give thanks for love.
The rice of God for all is meant;
no one who comes is turned away.
Believe in Christ whom God has sent;
in humble trust God’s will obey.
If Jesus had come to an Asian country instead of the middle east, we might be celebrating communion with rice instead of bread. For those of European or Middle-Eastern heritage, bread is a comforting, familiar food. It gives us strength and energy. For Asians, rice is their staple, a comfort food they crave, and they need to eat every day, so it makes sense to think of Jesus as “The rice of life.”
“Daily bread,” – whether rice, tortillas, or sourdough - is a food that people can’t imagine doing without. When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” he was saying, in essence, that just as eating some food every day is necessary for physical life, Jesus is the spiritual food that sustains our spirits from day to day. What is something that you can’t do without? We need food and water to live, but is there something you really enjoy having every day, that you crave if you can’t get? Joe is famous for his Facebook coffee posts, because he loves to start his day with a good cup of coffee. Our daughter Christa is known for her love of chocolate – at one time “chocolate” was her computer password. But we need Jesus even more than coffee or chocolate. Jesus is the bread of life, the rice of life, the very force that sustains us in this life and the next. When people asked Jesus, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” he answered, “…believe in the one whom God has sent…I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” In a real sense, Jesus is our daily bread, at least our daily nourishment for our spirits. May our spirits hunger to be near him, as our bodies crave our favorite foods.
But there is another meaning to this phrase. If we take the Apostle Paul’s teaching seriously, that we, as the church, are now the body of Christ on earth, then Jesus’ statement, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” takes on a deeper meaning for us. As you recall, a few weeks ago I preached on the feeding of the 5000 as recorded in Mark’s Gospel. There, before performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus says to his bewildered disciples, “You give them something to eat.” We are indeed to give the bread of life to others – both literally and figuratively. That means we must obey the Great Commission, found in Matthew 28:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” We who have feasted on the bread of life cannot keep this good news to ourselves. We must tell others, and pass it on to the next generation.
Secondly, just as Jesus taught the multitudes about God’s love and grace, he also healed the sick and fed the hungry. We must do the same. We tend to divide life into the spiritual or intellectual on the one hand and the physical on the other. The ancient Hebrews had no such distinction. They had a wholistic view of life. Jesus fed people’s spirits, but if they were hungry, he also fed their bodies. He healed people’s spiritual ailments, and their physical ones as well. This same Jesus who taught us to baptize and to teach also taught us to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, and visit the sick and those in prison. Since we, as the church, represent the body of Christ, let us act as Christ’s hands and feet.
I saw a small example of this yesterday at Santa Maria Urban Ministry, in downtown San Jose’, where their food pantry serves 100 families a day each week from Monday to Friday. We have the opportunity to help SMUM, as we call them, by bringing peanut butter and cereal to share with them. Later in our service, we will be dedicating our Christmas in July gifts and baby quilts for the Buea Maternity Clinic in Cameroon. These donations assist a ministry of healing which helps prevent illness and death among newborns and their mothers in a part of the world where infant and maternal mortality is high. We have the opportunity to share Christ’s spiritual bread by volunteering to work with our children in Sunday School or youth group – even if it is just once every month or two. I am sure you can think of many more opportunities to share the bread of life with those who need it – whether in body or in spirit.
Someone once said that when we share the good news, we are like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.
Jesus is the true bread…which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…the bread of life. Let’s not keep this bread to ourselves, but share it with a world that badly needs it. Amen.
©Deborah Troester 2024