True Bread from Heaven

Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
John 6:32

Jesus fed 5,000 people one afternoon because the crowd that came out to hear Him was hungry, and being the Creator, He had the power to make bread from thin air. The miracle didn’t go unnoticed and many decided to follow their leader to cash in on the free lunch. However, there was a problem; he was gone the next day and they took hours to find Him on the other side of the lake.

They wanted lunch, but since Jesus was a preacher, they would ask in a way that sounded spiritual: “Moses gave our ancestors bread from heaven in the wilderness for 40 years,” they said, “What can you do?” Some in the group were ready to make Him their King, if in fact He could provide them with a food entitlement program. However, by the time they got there, the cafeteria was closed.

Christ began His answer to them by declaring Himself the True Bread from Heaven. This was to distinguish Himself from the false bread from heaven (i.e. the manna that the Israelites ate). It’s doubtful that God made the angels bake sweet bread every morning and then beamed it down to the Sinai desert. Like most of God’s miracles, there may have been some natural explanation for it, but what they missed was the true miracle of God’s provision.

The miracle the crowd missed the day before was not baskets of food in a barren place, but that the Creator came down from heaven and stood in front of them, providing for their need. The would-be Jesus groupies were hung up on the all-you-can-eat fish sandwiches they had eaten a day earlier and were clueless to the fact that they had before them the True Bread from Heaven. Jesus tried to direct their attention to the more important spiritual truth, but all they could think about was, “Feed us! Feed us!” That is so sad, because they not only walked away hungry, they were spiritually lost.

November 18