Daily Lectionary Reading
John 6:41-51
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
41At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
42They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43″Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44″No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.'[a] Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
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They began to grumble again because what Jesus was trying to teach them was outside of the box thinking. When he equates himself with Moses and the manna, they remind him that he is simply the son of Mary and Joseph. We know them and there is nothing special about you. How can you claim that you have come down from heaven?
Jesus must again assert his heavenly connection and try to get them to look not at the physical side of things, but to open their spiritual eyes and find the true meaning of God’s plan for their lives. Believe in Jesus—whom I have sent—and you will be saved. He has said this time and time again in the Gospel, but they do not believe. Their spiritual eyes are sealed shut and they cannot grasp the eternal import of his message for them.
As a pastor, this passage from John’s Gospel is as close as the writer gets to a communion scene as is found in the other Gospels on Jesus’ last night with the disciples. John does not have Jesus talk about the bread and the cup and doing these things in memory of him. Instead, he equates Jesus flesh with the Bread of Heaven and talks about those that eat this bread and the significance that such eating has for their lives.
For John, there is great symbolism in the I am statements: I am the Light of the World, I am the Bread of Life, etc. John appears to be giving us pegs onto which we can hang our faith. In this part of the Gospel, the peg is the Bread of Life comparison. We all know about bread and how we need it physically. John says, Jesus is spiritual bread that we also need and that we must not ignore.
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Prayer: Lord, let me taste, feel and eat the Bread of Life which you offer freely to me.
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