Or, Looking for Loaves for All the Wrong Reasons
Scripture: John 6:22-34
Date: May 13, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We are spoiled. As just one example, we have so much food that we need expiration dates to tell us when we should throw away all our extra food because we can’t eat it all. We’ve created chemical and packaging and refrigerating preservatives that let us keep food even longer before we have to discard it. As I said, we are spoiled; this is a first world problem. And it is a bigger problem than we want to acknowledge.
This isn’t an argument for fresh food or for sustainable systems or for supporting local growers or for all things organic and green. This is an admonition to those of us who have so many expectations that Jesus can’t meet them all. He can’t meet them, not because He doesn’t have the ability or the resources, but because these are expectations we hold with or without Him. Sometimes, they are expectations that we put on Him. That’s not how He rules.
In John 6:1-15 Jesus fed a crowd of over 5,000 with five barley loaves and two fish, with 12 baskets of leftovers, more at the end than at the start. The crowd recognized the power on display and intended to force the Breadmaker onto the throne. But Jesus directed His disciples across the sea and dismissed the crowd. He met the disciples on the water early the next morning (6:16-21) and, after they freaked out, He got into the boat with them and got them to their destination.
The apostle John picks up on the next day in verse 22. It is day two of the seminar and a famously hard yet satisfying lesson for those with tongues to taste it.
John already told us how Jesus and His disciples crossed the sea, now he explains what happened to the crowd.
On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. (John 6:22–24, ESV)
The crowd, or at least those who remained, woke up more than curious. They woke up hungry, and possibly even wet and cold from the overnight storm. They had eaten last afternoon (the disciples collected the fragments and taken the baskets with them to-go). They had spent the night in a desolate place. They had seen the disciples leave without Jesus in the only boat and wondered where Jesus was.
Some other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Perhaps some from among the crowd had walked around the sea and urged some boat captains to go pick up the rest. The boats came to the place where the crowd had been graciously provided for, the place where they had been made full. It’s ironic as a point of identification since someone else had given thanks. That someone else was the Lord, the actual King, though they misunderstood His reign. The crowd got into the boats and went to Capernaum, the home base of Jesus’ ministry, on the northwestern side seeking Jesus or “looking for” Jesus. They weren’t satisfied.
The following verses, all the way through verse 58, are a back and forth between Jesus and the crowd. The subject is not really bread, the subject is life. Bread is necessary for life, a simple summary word for food, a staple of diet for sustenance. Jesus is going to show them the sustenance for eternal life, the bread of life in verses 25-34.
In the first exchange, Jesus confronts their hearts.
When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking 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 to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” (John 6:25-27, ESV)
Their question is both instructive and ironic. We know from how they responded to the loaves (verse 15) and by how Jesus responds (verse 26) that their hearts weren’t right. They ask this question with a leading tone: they weren’t asking for sake of journalistic integrity. They are irritated and expectant. It’s ironic that they call Him, Rabbi, “Teacher,” and yet question and argue and dispute what He tells them.
Jesus doesn’t answer their question at all and changes the subject from Himself to themselves. He responds by calling out their selfishness. They don’t come to thank Him or worship Him, they come to demand from Him. They saw that Jesus could make something out of nothing. They expect Him to do it for them again. They aren’t seeking to exalt Him but rather to use Him.
Not only that, but Jesus explains that they’re looking for the wrong thing anyway. They are in the presence of the One who gives life, not only loaves. He provides for souls, not only stomachs.
He told them, Do not work for the food that perishes. There is nothing wrong with perishable food except when we try to satisfy heart hunger with it. Wonder Bread is only so wonderful. It has a short shelf life, especially compared to eternity. Even when we eat it, it only lasts so long. The crowd was looking for bread for now.
There is food that endures to eternal life. There is a food that satisfies heart and soul. There is a food with no expiration date, no best before date. Jesus doesn’t say what it is yet, but He does say where it comes from: the Son of Man will give it to you, sent and sealed by God the Father.
They had gone through a lot of effort to find Jesus so that they could get Him to make them breakfast. He let them find Him (by grace) and He offers them something better (by grace).
The second phase of the back and forth follows from more wrong expectations.
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28-29, ESV)
Jesus told them about laboring for enduring, eternal food. They got stuck at the laboring part. Not only did they miss the target, they wrongly assumed that they could earn it. Their response reveals an almost unbelievable belief in their ability.
Jesus had just said the enduring food was food given by the Son, not food that could be earned. It was food given just as the loaves and fishes were given and not earned. They heard “We must do something.” Jesus turns their expectations upside down.
He told them that the work of God, that is, the work that God wants, the work which pleases Him, is not really “work” in the sense they considered. The work of God is believing. This isn’t to say that believing requires no effort or activity, but it is a different sort of involvement. Believing is a receiving not a grabbing. Believing involves recognizing one’s need to be filled by another, not ability to fill oneself. Believing takes no credit, it takes help.
Jesus calls them to believe in him (Jesus) whom he (the Father) has sent. He calls this “work” because there were talking about work. But they believed in themselves, they believed in their abilities.
The crowd’s question comes from the same attitude of entitlement: they didn’t necessarily expect something for nothing, they expected what they wanted from what they could earn. They proved that they didn’t want grace. Jesus told them that they hadn’t given up enough.
Jesus is offering them greater than what they came to Him for, but they wanted it on their own conditions.
Ever unsatisfied and unteachable—as unbelievers are—after demanding answers and bread, they demand (more) evidence of Jesus. “What work are You doing?”
So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:30-33, ESV)
It’s as if they hadn’t seen a sign (maybe multiple signs including various healings) in the last 24 hours, let alone one that immediately benefited them. It’s as if Jesus hadn’t said that the Father set His seal on the Son. It’s as if Jesus hadn’t called them to believe, they put themselves in the judges chair over the judge.
They look back to the bread from yesterday and say, “That was good, but Moses gave all Israel manna in the wilderness for 40 years. What can You do to top that?” They perhaps are thinking of Psalm 78:24, Nehemiah 9:15, even a passage such as Deuteronomy 8. They are quoting Bible verses at the Word Himself.
Of course, Moses didn’t provide the manna at all, God did. Not only that, the manna didn’t last. It “bred worms and stank” if they tried to keep any of it to the next morning (Exodus 16:20). God was offering them true bread, eternal bread, heavenly bread from the Father.
Jesus identifies the bread for the first time in verse 33. The bread has a name, the bread is His own life-giving Person. The phrase comes down from heaven occurs seven times in John 6. Jesus not only gives the bread of life, He is the bread of life and we’ll hear Him say more about that in verses 35-51.
They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6:34, ESV)
Like Nicodemus, like the Sycharian woman at the well, they can’t think past the physical illustration.
They think He’s king and want to rule Him. They call Him Rabbi and correct His teaching. They seek His miraculous provision and assume they can do God’s works. They have no sense of irony. More importantly, they have no sense of their need for grace.
We will teach our kids (and our neighbors) what satisfies. Believing in Christ changes how and why and what we we live for.
For example, on a day like today (Mother’s Day), Jesus is not against moms (and other workers for perishable food). He is pointing out the emptiness of trying to make motherhood, or fatherhood or employment or home ownership or barbecues or anything, the end. “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). He made men and He made grain and He made men able to taste and enjoy bread. He miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes for their dinner. He’s not against the temporal. But “in him was life” (John 1:4).
We can hardly stay on the road. Either we think life is only about the here (earth and material things) and now (time), idolatrously serving our physical appetites and missing Jesus altogether. Or, we think life is only about the there (heaven and “spirituality”) and later (eternity), and miss living for Jesus. Serving Jesus does not mean waiting for later to serve Him. Serving Jesus means seeking our sustenance right now from Him with thanks in all things.
Jesus not only provides the bread of life, He is the bread of life. What is the point of eating bread? To have strength in Him to live for Him.