John 6:25-35
November 23, 2025
When they found him on the other side of
the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell
you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your
fill of the loaves. Do not work for the
food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the
Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his
seal."
Then they said to him, "What must we
do to perform the works of God?"
Jesus answered them, "This is the
work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
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.”
*******************************
Jesus
made some problems for himself when, according to John’s gospel [6:1-13], he
fed five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. That identified him as someone who could
provide the basic needs of life for people who were living in desperate
conditions. One researcher has estimated that in first-century Galilee
“those who had no problems with sustenance were
altogether
at most 10%, whereas in continuous problems of
sustenance
were living some 90% of the population, more than two
thirds of them in severe or extreme poverty.”[1]
Can you really blame them for seeing in Jesus a means
to survive? Put him in charge, especially
when he would be replacing Herod, who taxed even the poor who had nothing to
give, and you’ve solved everyone’s biggest problem.
“When Jesus realized that they were about
to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the
mountain by himself.” [John 6:15]
He knew what was going on and when they found him
after he slipped away he was clear with them that he understood what it was
about.
"Very truly, I tell you, you are
looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the
loaves.” [John 6:26]
He had compassion on them. At other times he spoke on their behalf, both
to his disciples and to the complacent 10% who did not have to worry about
their next meal. In Luke’s version of
the beatitudes, Jesus doesn’t just say,
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom
of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.”
[Luke 6:20-21]
He goes on to say,
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received
your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and
weep.” [Luke 6:24-25]
He wasn’t going to be simply a means to an end. He wasn’t going to let himself be used as a
sort of cosmic vending machine multiplying the food supply all day, letting
everyone off the hook so that none of us faces the difficult realities of (among
other problems) hunger.
Hunger
is not going to go away simply by giving someone food. (Don’t misunderstand me here. That is a good and necessary thing. Jesus specifically tells us to do that, as he
did it himself.) Hunger has causes. Some of it has to do with crop failures,
climate change, natural disasters, and so forth. Some of it, though, has to do with human sin
and greed and the thoughtless acceptance of other people’s suffering as just
part of how things are. Jesus calls us
to look beyond ourselves to see others and to see life as more than what is
right in front of us. He calls us to join
with him in doing the work of God, which makes lasting change in human souls.
“Do not work for the food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give
you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal." [John
6:27]
You
know, there is more than one tale of starvation that comes to us from the
English settlement of North America. Two
of them are worth comparing.
The Jamestown colony in
Virginia faced the winter of 1609-1610, which came to be known as “the starving
time”. The settlers there had been
abusive toward the Powhatan as soon as they arrived, and there was no help from
them when the food supplies ran low (in part because some of the settlers saw
themselves as too good for farming). Before
the end of that winter, 80% of the English had died and some had turned to
cannibalism. The survivors had already abandoned
the settlement and boarded ship to return to England when they met a pair of
emergency relief ships sent from Bermuda and very reluctantly turned around. Nine years later, they began to import people
from Africa as slave labor.
The
other story is the one we tell because it’s less shameful. It’s about the Pilgrims who also nearly
starved in 1620, during their first winter in Massachusetts. If they had not cared for one another and –
more importantly – if the Wampanoag had not shared their own food and eventually
their knowledge of crops and farming methods, they would all have died of
hunger and sickness. Somehow, they faced
the situation with the attitude that they were all in it together, and in it together
with the Savior who had called them to live together with him.
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” [John
6:35]
Four centuries later, when people among us go hungry it is generally a matter of
distribution and access rather than of supply.
For us, food insecurity comes from a lack of access to food that exists
and sad to say often goes to waste. The
solution lies in how we see one another.
If we are in this world simply for what we can get out of it, even
treating Jesus that way, then we are in big trouble. If, however, we can deal with one another
with the same compassion and honesty that he showed the people around him, then
we can and will thrive together. He
himself is the true bread of life.
And
it’s a life worth living.
[1] Sakari Häkkinen, “Poverty in the First-Century
Galilee” found at
www.researchgate.net/publication/309254500_Poverty_in_the_first-century_Galilee
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