In today’s revelation of Jesus’s true identity, the crowd (who stands in for us) misses the boat entirely. They keep asking Jesus the wrong questions: When did you get here? What can we do? What can you do, like Moses did, to make us believe?
I can almost see Jesus rolling his eyes. He tells them to stop looking to him because of signs or miracles. Stop asking about what they can do or what he can do. Stop living in the past, and start noticing what God is doing right now before their very eyes. And stop asking for so little! God is feeding us not with bread that satisfies for a while but with a person, God’s own, sent from heaven to give life to the world.
God is feeding us not with bread that satisfies for a while but with a person, God’s own, sent from heaven to give life to the world. Click To TweetJesus signifies God’s new reality that upends everything. In God’s reign, the things we relied on in the past, the things that benefitted and comforted us—miracles, prophets, kings, systems, structures, societal norms—are meager crumbs compared to what God wants to give: eternal life to all forever.
Jesus, the Bread of Life, stands before us in this world where the gap between the insatiable rich and the hungry poor grows ever wider, where physical isolation has disconnected us from concern for others, and he asks: Will you yearn for more and believe in me?
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