Daily Bread

So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

In this passage, Jesus again asserts that if we want to find life, then we find it in him.

The Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, and their sustenance came from the manna — the bread from heaven, but Jesus pointed out that even the bread they ate was provided by God, and in the same way that bread gave them life (literally keeping them alive), that they would find true life in and through him.

Now, we must be careful not to project a popularist Christianity onto the message here. Jesus is not saying that eating bread keeps us alive on earth and that when we die we will live because we believe in him. No. Life means life means life! Life in the here and now.

In our culture people hunger for their souls to be satisfied, and we look for it in all kinds of places — through food, sex, drugs, wealth, work, travel — whatever we feel will meet our needs, and all these things are wonderful, but they don't bring inner peace or a deep sense of worth and purpose. They don't stop our cravings to be loved, accepted, secure, and content. They might bring us temporal happiness but they don't bring us joy — and I mean proper, deep down, overflowing, abundant joy.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he talks about having life, for a life founded in Jesus is to draw from the deepest of wells. This is why Jesus says, "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Someone who has never experienced what it means to find God's peace, grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness cannot understand or comprehend what it is like. It truly is like a treasure discovered in a field, and the only way to find it is to come to Jesus, to abandon our own lives for the life of Jesus, and to give ourselves over to trusting in God's unfailing love.

Holy God
Thank you that I have found my life in you.
Thank you that despite my anxieties,
my worries, and the troubles that this life brings,
you give me an inner peace, an abundant joy,
and a firm hope that, in the end, love will win.
May I continue to always draw near to you.