Day 16: Don't spit out your food (bread of life, part 2)
Popular posts on Social Media include videos of kids having horrific reactions to food. Their parents are often the canvas upon which they paint their disgust. Ever had that happen to you? Ever try again to get your children to eat that food?
I recently was in China where the local food of choice was stinky tofu. Its name was spot-on. Walking through the streets, I thought the smell was a backed-up sewer. It was in fact the collective aroma of the street vendors with this local delicacy – stinky tofu. Ugh.
A friend of mine tried some. It remained in his mouth for a few micro-seconds.
This is the second post in a series on John 6. Yesterday we talked about security, looking at verses 22 through 40. Today we read that Jesus’ hearers, you know the ones that got in boats and tracked him down to the other side of a lake, are grumbling.
Why are they grumbling?
Because he says he is their source of security, of eternal food—He is the Bread of Life.
They grumble more. Isn’t he “just Joseph’s son”?
He presses in. He is offering more than security. He is offering them their destiny.
In verses 41-51 he tells them their destiny.
He asserts that that He has come down from heaven. Like Manna He is supernatural. Their destiny is the conquest of death. Their and our destiny is eternity. In and through Him.
You might want to just re-read these 10 “little” verses. Jesus is offering them outrageous “stuff” – eternal life. Their destiny is eternal life with God, the Father, through Him, Jesus.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. …I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”
At this point, let’s just recall where we have been in this little story. After we read the beautiful opening in the first chapter, we have been meeting Jesus.
We have eavesdropped on a few conversations he has had with people (calling his first followers, Nicodemus, and the woman at the well)
We have been invited to be present at several miraculous signs (water into wine, the healing of a son, healing of a paralytic, feeding 5,000 people, and a little water-walking).
We have also been present with those who struggle with him, especially those who have different ideas about God.
Right now people are really struggling with him. He is telling them that he is much more than perhaps they imagine. He is telling them to stop living for the “food of this life” and live for the “food of eternal life”.