August 3, 2015

John 6:35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

It is pretty obvious Jesus is using this as a metaphor. You don’t think he was saying his followers will never need physical food or drink again, do you? But if he is talking about the spiritual life of “whoever comes to me” what is he indicating? Will people who love and follow Jesus exist on a separate plane of reality where they never have struggles or doubts or depressing times or fall to temptations? If so there must not be many who truly love and follow Jesus. When people get married they sometimes think they will never be lonely again. That’s not often how it works. Married life has its ups and downs and times of being more and less close. But being married is a new reality- not a static one but a real one- where you are connected to something bigger than yourself, where amid the vagaries in life you function together, never quite in the same way you did before. I think that is where Jesus is going here. “Whoever comes” to him touches a different reality through faith that connects them with something permanent even in the midst of all the vacillation. There is a firm foundation of faith underneath that supports while things shift above and there is a promise of greater and deeper experience of this in the future for “whoever believes.” Yes, Jesus is using some hyperbole here, but it is hyperbole to make the point that there is more to life than we are currently experiencing. Where do you experience the bread of life this week?