The Food of Life

(Gospel of John 6:25 - 6:59)

Those who sought him did find Jesus on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  They questioned him, "When, Rabbi, did you arrive here?"

Jesus would only answer, "I tell you truly, the reason you are looking for me is not because you witnessed miracles, but because you were able to fill your bellies with bread.  Crave not food that will spoil, but the food that brings life everlasting, that which will given to you by the Son of Man, in whom God the Father has invested his power.”

They then asked of him, "What must we do to accomplish the work God asks of us?"

Jesus told then, "The only work that God asks of you to do is to believe in the one he has sent."

They responded, "What miracle are you going to perform for us so we might believe in you?  Well, what are you going to do for us?  When our ancestors were in the desert they were given manna from Heaven to eat -- as it says in the scriptures, 'they were given food from Heaven to eat.'"

"Very truly I tell you, what Moses gave you was not food from Heaven.  It is my Father who now offers you the true food from Heaven.  For the food that God sends down from Heaven is that which brings life to the world."

"Please, sir, give us that food always."

Jesus told them, "I am that food of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.  But, as I said, you have seen me and still do not believe.  All those the Father sends will come to me, and no one who comes to me will be driven away.  I have come down from Heaven, not to accomplish my own will, but the will of him who sent me.  And this is his will: that I should not lose any of the souls he has delivered to me, but that I should raise them from the dead on the final day.  For it is my Father's will that those who come to me and believe in me should enjoy everlasting life.  And I will raise them from the dead on the final day."

The people grumbled among themselves, disputing his assertion that he was "the food that has come down from Heaven."  They declared, "Hey, isn't this Jesus; isn't he the son of Joseph?  Don't we know his parents?  How can he now claim, 'I have come down from Heaven'?"

Jesus admonished them, “Quit your griping!  No one can come to me unless the Father who has sent me draws them to me, and those, on the final day, will I raise from the dead.  Just as it is recorded in the Scriptures, 'They will all be instructed by God.'  Anyone who listens to the Father and learns what he says will then come to me.  Of course, no one has actually seen the Father, save the one who was sent by him.  He has seen him.

"I tell you truly, anyone who believes, he will achieve life everlasting.  Yes, I am the food of life.  Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they all eventually died.  But he who eats the food that has come down from Heaven will never die.  I am the food that has come down from Heaven.  Anyone who eats this food will live forever.  This food, which I offer so that the world may live, is my very flesh."

This precipitated a fierce debate among the people who posed the question, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Jesus told them, "Truly I say, that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you will not achieve life everlasting.  But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will enjoy life everlasting and that person I will raise from the dead on the final day.  For my flesh is the quintessential food and my blood the quintessential drink.  Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood becomes a part of me, and I, a part of him.  Just as the living Father sent me, and I have life because of the Father, so the one who feeds upon me will have life because of me.  This is the food that has come down from Heaven.  It is unlike the manna your ancestors ate.  They died, but whoever eats this food will live forever."

These things were said when Jesus was preaching in a synagogue in Capernaum.      

Notes
1.  Those pursuing Jesus after they had been miraculously fed find him.  They seem interested in catching him performing another miracle.  Jesus immediately suspects their motives and dismisses their interest in him as a craving for a free feed.  But their appearance gives him the opportunity to preach his message to them.  It is not clear, however, what part of the statements here were spoken to these particular people and what was delivered to an audience in the mentioned Capernaum synagogue.

2.  I have used the word "food" rather than the usual "bread," since that is what is meant.  Even today, bread is sometimes used in a general sense as a synonym for food of all types. But, for clarity, I have used the unambiguous, if less poetic "food."

3.  Many of the people are skeptical of Jesus' claim that he is the Son of God -- hardly surprising, one would think.  They knew him as the son of Joseph.  He was just a guy from the neighborhood.  Now they're supposed to believe he's divine.  --- This confirms two conclusions that the reader of this Gospel might have already drawn, firstly, that Jesus was generally believed to be the son of Joseph, not his adopted son, or stepson, and secondly, that no evidence of his divine origin was seen, at least by those outside his family, during his childhood and youth.

4.  Jesus, who often speaks symbolically, in metaphors and allegories, probably means that his followers should eat his flesh and drink his blood in some figurative sense.  (This, for the obvious reason: if he died and his body butchered, there would not be enough of it to go around for all his followers to consume.)  However, his listeners are confused and, as we will learn later, pretty much turned off by the analogy, for, on the surface, it seems an invitation to cannibalism.  The belief that by consuming a dead person's flesh one may acquire his attributes, eg. bravery, is commonly held by primitive societies who practice ritualistic cannibalism.  How one may metaphorically eat flesh and drink blood is not made clear.  So far Jesus has demanded acceptance and belief as a condition of enjoying the life everlasting he promises.  Why would he relate eating flesh to believing?  Did he merely want to shock his audience?  Was this his way of presenting himself as a human sacrifice?

5.  Jesus references Moses again and the manna, the physical food that Jehovah fed to the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert during the Exodus.  Jesus tends to put down Moses at every opportunity and seems to regard him in adversarial light.  He dismisses the importance of the manna, which did keep the Israelites alive, and extols his own "food" which bestows life everlasting.  Why does he find the situations analogous?  Jesus, though, never really explains what his food is, save that it is a message the people must accept and believe in.

6.  Those who are followers and believers of Jesus, those who come to him, are ordained by the Father to do so.  Are some people predestined to be believers and enjoy everlasting life and others not?  Or does God inspire worthy persons to seek out Jesus?