Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Food

John 6:22-69

    This has been an incredible passage for me to rest in this week. I found it interesting that the events leading up to this particular discourse from Jesus were so very similar, and yet His response was dramatically different. On the previous day when the people chased Him down, He had compassion on them, healing and feeding them. This second time, He had some hard words for them to ponder. He said to them, "...you are seeking Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves." Literally, they were not seeking Him for the incredible display of sovereignty He had just shown, but because of the needs He met. It wasn't His power and lordship they were interested in--it was what He gave them. Don't we do that as a church in many cases? We come to Him with our hands out, not interested in who He really is but in what we want to gain from Him.

     This resonated with me on a personal level, too. My husband has been in the market for a new job, and we have covered this search with daily prayer. I have prayed with some anxiety even. As I read these words of Christ, I realized I was just as guilty as this mass of people following him from shore to shore. In my desire to have what I felt my husband needed, I had gotten things upside down. All we need is Christ. If we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all the rest will be added. The reminder gave me such great peace and joy that I cannot even express it.  There are no worries and nothing to be concerned about, not for this job search nor anything else. We have the first thing--the Bread that endures. We need not worry about the perishable bread that is here today, gone tomorrow. God has the details and the provision handled. I just need to trust Him with it.
 
     Even still, even knowing God as Provider, hardship can come. Things could get worse and we could lose the job, our house, everything--except Christ. Except our salvation. But if it is God's will for us to continue as we are, then He will give us what we need to do it. If it is not, well... what is most important, really? Filling our bellies or doing His will? Easy to say, but the question remains to me personally as it does to us as a church: Will we do it? Why do we seek Him? It is time to be brutally honest with ourselves: Do we seek the gifts or the Giver?

    Strangely, at this admonition, the people responded by asking what they had to do in order to do the works of God. Jesus replied that God's will was that they believe in the One God had sent. One would think that, at this point, they would readily believe the Man who had fed so many of them with such a small portion of food only hours before. However, that was not the case. They asked for a sign so that they could believe, demanding He perform some work of proof. This attitude of making excuses for unbelief is as rampant today as it was in that multitude. So many of us do not truly want to believe, at least, we do not want to believe in that way that would result in humility and a walk of obedience. We are holding out for some greater sign; some handwriting on the wall, perhaps or some sign that we deem worthy of our trust and belief. And so, in our waiting, the church has become largely stagnant and devoid of the Living Water that is so freely offered simply because we choose to wait rather than to partake.
   
    If we are honest, what we want is an excuse not to obey, not to fall dangerously in love with this Man who gave Himself for us. At another time when people were demanding a sign from Him, He replied, "If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." He did, and many still are not convinced.

     Jim Elliot, one of the missionaries whose death by spear later opened a door to an unbelievable redemption story for an entire tribe of Ecuadorean natives, was asked why he would choose to waste his God-given talents by leaving America when the country needed his zeal here. He quoted Jesus when he wrote of his reasons: "So what if the well-fed church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures, Moses, and the Prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers." It is true. Jesus said that those who come to Him will never hunger nor thirst. Our problem is not lack of talent in our churches. It is that we do not hunger for the Bread of Life. We do not hunger at all.

     Jesus went on to tell the crowd that He was the bread of life. He said some shocking, disturbing things: that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life in them. I can almost hear the thoughts of the crowd. "Cannibalism? Drinking the lifeblood which God has forbidden us to consume?!? Never!"  But they were missing something, and Jesus Himself gave them the key. He told them that the words He gave them were spirit and life, that the flesh profits nothing. He was not talking about a literal feast on human flesh here, but a metaphorical feast that was crucial to the true believer.

     He gave His disciples a reminder of this later on at the Last Supper. I cannot help but think that this shocking and angry scene was brought back vividly when He broke the bread and told them to take and eat, for it was His body, broken for the sins of the world. He also took a cup of wine, passing it around and commanding them to drink, saying that it was the new covenant in His blood. It is a commandment of remembrance, but it is also
more.

     When Jesus told the uneasy crowd to eat His flesh and drink His blood, He was telling them that what He would do must be more to them than an acknowledged fact if they were to have eternal life. Just as James later wrote, "...even the demons believe, and shudder," mere acknowledgement of Jesus's sacrifice is not enough for life everlasting. If we are true believers, we have to take that sacrifice within, internalizing it and allowing it to become a part of us. We have to digest it, ruminate upon it, and allow it to infuse our very cells. We've all heard the old saying, "You are what you eat." In this way we are to eat the Bread of Life and drink the Blood of the Covenant. It has to nourish us, sustain us, change us. Just as the vine feeds the branches and allows for fruit, so the Bread feeds our bodies and allows for us to produce spiritual fruit. In eating of His flesh, we are abiding in Him because we are being transformed by His power brought to bear in our lives.
 
     And so, after all of this, many of the disciples left. He turned to the twelve and asked, "Do you also want to leave?"  Peter replied, "No, Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life! And we know and have seen that You are the Holy One of God." It was enough. Was Peter perfect? No. But he believed in such a way that nothing Jesus said would shock him out of his belief, nothing was too hard for Jesus to ask or command. Even though he later denied Jesus, it broke his heart and he would never do it again. He knew beyond any doubt that even if Jesus told him something that was too hard to bear, too difficult to do, too strange to be accepted, there was nowhere else for him to go. Jesus had the words of eternal life. We, as a church, must come to that conclusion, too. There is no sacrifice too much, no trial too difficult to bear, no command too rigorous to follow if we know that there is simply nowhere else to go. Jesus is it. He is all. He is enough. Apart from Him, there is no life.

Lord, help us to overcome hesitation and to truly believe, not in ways that lead to interesting discussions but to believe in ways that lead to action and to the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Help us overcome our unbelief. Help us to love You more. We pray that we would not turn away when Your teachings are hard, but that we will follow You to the end, knowing that the journey will be worthwhile no matter how difficult the road ahead. You are Life and Light and Wonder. Infuse us with Your nature so that it is You others see in our lives and not our own, profitless flesh. Use us as beacons, no longer given over to the filling of our bellies and pleasing ourselves, but to walking humbly and obediently with our God and King. 

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