Bread of Life

John 6: 32-37

Lent Midweek 4

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.  There is probably nothing that smells better in the air of a kitchen than freshly baked bread.  The smell can fill a house, creating an appetite.  We eat bread almost every day as a food staple.  We enjoy it at breakfast with toast, bagels, or even a Danish.  We enjoy it with sandwiches at lunch and rolls at dinner.  Bread is as important today as it was throughout history.  To have bread is to be rich.  To be without it is to be poor.  Bread is one of God’s promised treasures, which we will address today.

Before the Israelites left Egypt by the hand of God, they were told to make unleavened bread to take with them on their journey.  It has no yeast in it to cause it to rise or spoil.  However, soon the bread started to run out, as tonight’s first reading indicates.  The people of Israel were wondering and grumbling about how and where they would get more bread.  The Lord told Moses that He would rain down bread from heaven for them.  God kept that word.  He soon provided a layer of thin flakes on the desert floor for the Israelites to collect every morning and feed their families.  They were also told only to collect enough for the day and nothing more.  However, some collected more.  When they did, it became smelly and full of maggots the next day. 

In today’s third reading, Jesus calls Himself the bread of life.  He reminds the people that it wasn’t Moses who gave Israel bread every day. It was God.  God sustained their lives day in and day out with manna. Jesus reminded all who listened to Him that God sustained all people with physical bread.  But only He can give bread that is eternal life.  The Father provided eternal life through the bread from heaven standing right in front of them, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He said, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die, I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6: 48-51).

The Bible doesn’t simply equate loaves of bread with physical life.  No, it equates Jesus Christ as the only source of spiritual life.  That is why Paul said Israel was led by Christ in the Old Testament: “Our fathers…all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10: 2-4).  The final source for all the manna the Israelites ate and all the water they drank was Jesus Christ.  And Jesus still leads and sustains His Church.  Until your life ends, and you enter heaven, He still feeds you with His holy Word and His holy Sacrament. 

Jesus quoted Moses when He told Satan, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).  Augustine, a faithful Early Church Father, described teaching the Bible like opening a loaf of bread.  However God’s Word is brought to you – through Scripture readings, a sermon, a hymn, or a devotion – it is all bread for your soul as it points you to the bread of life, Jesus Christ. 

We have talked about Moses and unleavened bread and Jesus as the bread of life.  Jesus also uses the bread of His Holy Sacrament to feed and sustain His church until He returns.  Just a few verses following Paul’s words regarding manna, he addresses the Lord’s Supper.  “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Corinthians 10: 16-17).  The bread you eat from this Table at the Divine Service is not ordinary bread.  No, when Christ’ Word is spoken over it, Jesus promises to give to you His body. To partake of this bread is to take Jesus true body into yourself. 

Like the Israelites of old, we journey in the wilderness of this life.  We live in this sinful world under the heat of sin and death bearing down on us each day just as the desert heat beat down on the Israelites.  We are waiting for a promised land.  Not Canaan, but heaven.  No matter how crazy or bad life may be for you in the wilderness of this world, you are not left wondering.  Where can I find help?’ True help is found where Christ breaks open His Word and offers holy food.  We should be fed in the way God chooses to feed us – through His Word and Sacraments. 

May bread always remind you of God’s rich love and bounty for you.  Bread is certainly a promised treasure.  Not only does bread remind you of Jesus, who gave up His flesh on the cross for you, but it reminds you of who you are now.  Just as numerous grains of wheat grow and are ground up to make one loaf of bread, we though many, are made one people through Christ Jesus. You are forgiven by the Lord.  As the Church, we are a new creation.  Until Jesus comes again, may you always long for the bread which only God offers you in His Son, Jesus Christ, the bread of life. Yes, daily bread is here today and gone tomorrow, but the bread of life, Jesus Christ, lasts forever.  Amen.          

From the sermon series Promised Treasures, Concordia Publishing House, 2023.