Free Food!
John 6:1-15, 25-40
One of the great things about college ministry was that it was relatively easy to attract college students. All you had to do was put up a sign that said, “Free pizza.” Everyone loves free food. I remember a really cool promotion held by Carmen’s pizza, the best Chicago deep-dish pizza place in Evanston (where I went to college) – during the first week of school, if you showed your student ID, proving you were a freshman, you got as much free pizza as you could eat. The line was a block long.
Free food is always a draw. But as this crowd gathered, they didn’t know they were going to get free food. They had seen Jesus doing miracles, healing people, and they wanted to get close to him. They certainly wanted to hear what he had to say, but most likely, they really wanted to see something cool. I remember doing an experiment when I was a teenager: we were downtown Indianapolis and we got a small group of people to all look up and point… at nothing. Soon people began to gather, all looking up. When people think there might be something to see, they gather. Thus the response: Move along! There’s nothing to see here.
Here, people are gathering because of Jesus’ miracles. And they are hungry. And there isn’t any food. So Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother finds a boy with 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish, a poor person’s meal, barely a meal at that.
This is a good time to mention that there isn’t “fluff” in the Bible – they don’t waste words. So even when John tells us the setting (the Jewish Passover was near: John 6:4), this is important. It reminds us of the Passover, of their ancestors’ exodus from Egypt. Important to remember: while they were wandering in the desert, God fed them miraculously with manna.
And here, Jesus feeds miraculously. And the people who saw the miraculous sign started to get it: Jesus is the Messiah. You see, it was said that the Messiah would come and renew the miracle of manna. So they see this miracle and recognize, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6:14). And with that, they began their attempt to make him their king. While they “get it,” they clearly don’t “get it.”
They completely miss the point. They have their idea of what the Messiah will look like and what he will do, and they decide to force Jesus to do what they want him to do. Here’s how ridiculous that is, as R.F. Bailey put it in his commentary on St. John’s Gospel: “He who is already King has come to open his Kingdom to men, but in their blindness men try to force Him to be the kind of king they want: thus they fail to get the king they want and also lose the kingdom He offers.”
This goes hand in hand with the reaction of the people who shortly thereafter make it across the lake and demand a sign (I’ll get to the storm at the sea next Sunday). They reference the same sign, this time with a combative tone. Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (John 6:31)
Really, all they want is free food.
Yet we have to remember that John recognized that this was not simply about feeding people: Jesus’ signs were never just about the miracles themselves. This sign is a reminder of how powerless we humans are. We aren’t even capable of providing enough food to survive.
This was something the people of God always anticipated: the time when they would enjoy the fullness of God’s blessings in the Promised Land: a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing (Deuteronomy 8:9), where you will eat and be satisfied (Deuteronomy 11:15).
Here’s the thing: Jesus is the supplier of peoples’ needs. Again the people miss the point; they are so concerned with the physical that they neglect the spiritual. They’re asking for food, but Jesus tells them, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33).
What the manna had foreshadowed, Jesus now gives perfectly. In fact, Jesus shows that He is greater than their most powerful historical figure, Moses: Moses didn’t actually provide manna; God did. And now Jesus demonstrates his superiority.
While God provided manna to Moses and the Israelites, Jesus proclaims, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35). This phrase “I am” isn’t simply a first person singular and a form of be. It’s not an accident that he uses this phrase either – he’s saying more than he’s saying. He is using the very phrase God used when revealing His Name to Moses through the burning bush. Do you remember that scene? Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘what is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14)
Now Jesus is using the same phrase “I AM” when he tells them “I am the bread of life.” There is no mistaking what Jesus is saying about himself here.
He is equating himself with God. He is making the statement that He Himself is the Promised One, the answer to prayer, the one thing we most need.
When the people ask him what they need to do (Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"), they completely miss the point. Though Jesus told them that the Son of Man would give “food that endures to eternal life” they missed the “give” part. They figured that they would have to work for it.
Quite the opposite, the point was that Jesus’ very life was a gift given to them. He Himself is the food that endures to eternal life. He is the bread of life. Jesus is not saying, “Hey, all you’ve got to do is just believe intellectually that I’m the one sent by God.” Intellectual belief is only part of the equation. Jesus went on to say “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (6:53-54). I want you to try something. Don’t hear this quote through “Communion ears” – in other words, put yourself into the situation of the disciples, who hadn’t yet been served Communion for the first time. To understand this, you’ve got to know that in Jewish thought, to eat and drink was to take something into one’s innermost being. So if you really want the life that Jesus died to bring you, you must take Jesus into your innermost being.
This is true transformation. This is what we’re all about: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. None of us is truly transformed outside of Jesus Christ – outside of taking him into our innermost beings and allowing him to remake us in his image, changing us from the inside out.
One of the great things about college ministry was that it was relatively easy to attract college students. All you had to do was put up a sign that said, “Free pizza.” Everyone loves free food. I remember a really cool promotion held by Carmen’s pizza, the best Chicago deep-dish pizza place in Evanston (where I went to college) – during the first week of school, if you showed your student ID, proving you were a freshman, you got as much free pizza as you could eat. The line was a block long.
But college students aren’t the only ones who love free food. Somewhat routinely, Chipotle offers free burritos (if you showed up on Halloween dressed like a burrito, you’d get a free one). The first time I experienced this, we were driving by and saw a sign proclaiming “free burritos today” and of course we stopped! People were waiting for 45 minutes in a thunderstorm to get free food!
Free food is always a draw. But as this crowd gathered, they didn’t know they were going to get free food. They had seen Jesus doing miracles, healing people, and they wanted to get close to him. They certainly wanted to hear what he had to say, but most likely, they really wanted to see something cool. I remember doing an experiment when I was a teenager: we were downtown Indianapolis and we got a small group of people to all look up and point… at nothing. Soon people began to gather, all looking up. When people think there might be something to see, they gather. Thus the response: Move along! There’s nothing to see here.
Here, people are gathering because of Jesus’ miracles. And they are hungry. And there isn’t any food. So Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother finds a boy with 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish, a poor person’s meal, barely a meal at that.
This is a good time to mention that there isn’t “fluff” in the Bible – they don’t waste words. So even when John tells us the setting (the Jewish Passover was near: John 6:4), this is important. It reminds us of the Passover, of their ancestors’ exodus from Egypt. Important to remember: while they were wandering in the desert, God fed them miraculously with manna.
And here, Jesus feeds miraculously. And the people who saw the miraculous sign started to get it: Jesus is the Messiah. You see, it was said that the Messiah would come and renew the miracle of manna. So they see this miracle and recognize, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6:14). And with that, they began their attempt to make him their king. While they “get it,” they clearly don’t “get it.”
They completely miss the point. They have their idea of what the Messiah will look like and what he will do, and they decide to force Jesus to do what they want him to do. Here’s how ridiculous that is, as R.F. Bailey put it in his commentary on St. John’s Gospel: “He who is already King has come to open his Kingdom to men, but in their blindness men try to force Him to be the kind of king they want: thus they fail to get the king they want and also lose the kingdom He offers.”
This goes hand in hand with the reaction of the people who shortly thereafter make it across the lake and demand a sign (I’ll get to the storm at the sea next Sunday). They reference the same sign, this time with a combative tone. Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (John 6:31)
Really, all they want is free food.
Yet we have to remember that John recognized that this was not simply about feeding people: Jesus’ signs were never just about the miracles themselves. This sign is a reminder of how powerless we humans are. We aren’t even capable of providing enough food to survive.
This was something the people of God always anticipated: the time when they would enjoy the fullness of God’s blessings in the Promised Land: a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing (Deuteronomy 8:9), where you will eat and be satisfied (Deuteronomy 11:15).
Here’s the thing: Jesus is the supplier of peoples’ needs. Again the people miss the point; they are so concerned with the physical that they neglect the spiritual. They’re asking for food, but Jesus tells them, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33).
What the manna had foreshadowed, Jesus now gives perfectly. In fact, Jesus shows that He is greater than their most powerful historical figure, Moses: Moses didn’t actually provide manna; God did. And now Jesus demonstrates his superiority.
While God provided manna to Moses and the Israelites, Jesus proclaims, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35). This phrase “I am” isn’t simply a first person singular and a form of be. It’s not an accident that he uses this phrase either – he’s saying more than he’s saying. He is using the very phrase God used when revealing His Name to Moses through the burning bush. Do you remember that scene? Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘what is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14)
Now Jesus is using the same phrase “I AM” when he tells them “I am the bread of life.” There is no mistaking what Jesus is saying about himself here.
He is equating himself with God. He is making the statement that He Himself is the Promised One, the answer to prayer, the one thing we most need.
When the people ask him what they need to do (Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"), they completely miss the point. Though Jesus told them that the Son of Man would give “food that endures to eternal life” they missed the “give” part. They figured that they would have to work for it.
Quite the opposite, the point was that Jesus’ very life was a gift given to them. He Himself is the food that endures to eternal life. He is the bread of life. Jesus is not saying, “Hey, all you’ve got to do is just believe intellectually that I’m the one sent by God.” Intellectual belief is only part of the equation. Jesus went on to say “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (6:53-54). I want you to try something. Don’t hear this quote through “Communion ears” – in other words, put yourself into the situation of the disciples, who hadn’t yet been served Communion for the first time. To understand this, you’ve got to know that in Jewish thought, to eat and drink was to take something into one’s innermost being. So if you really want the life that Jesus died to bring you, you must take Jesus into your innermost being.
This is true transformation. This is what we’re all about: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. None of us is truly transformed outside of Jesus Christ – outside of taking him into our innermost beings and allowing him to remake us in his image, changing us from the inside out.
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