37 “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
There are lots of messages God’s Spirit can bring home to your heart in a passage like this. Yes, Jesus is a miracle worker. He has power. He is God’s Son. To reveal Jesus on earth is revealing the message of salvation. All the Bible is the revelation of God to man and how we can know God in a personal way. We are aware of the larger story of God and His love to redeem mankind and bring us to Himself. The story of Jesus being sent from heaven to live and dwell among us is evident in this story. We see the central message through all the books of the Bible.
But what other lessons might we glean from a story like this? One lesson might be the need for people to get apart and rest. The context of the story comes, as we find in other gospels, following a very busy day. Disciples were preaching and Jesus was teaching and healing. To get away from it all, they left to go on to the other side of the lake. When we expend energy, we can get emotionally, physically, and psychologically tired and drained. We see in other passages that Jesus needed to get away from people and rest and to spend time alone with these disciples as well as spend time alone with God. I don’t know how so many people seek to live the Christian life with any victory without spending personal time with the Lord in meditation, prayer and listening to God in your own lives. It is easy to get burned out, to give and give and not spend time to recharge the batteries in God honoring ways.
Sometimes getting away or apart with some others also helps. Small group Bible studies, prayer groups, discussions in Sunday classes, one on one discipleship times and retreats are special in spiritual growth and understanding, but they do not take the place of personal times with God. The disciples needed to retreat with Jesus to carry on the work to which they were called.
Our church denomination provides retreats. Sometimes our church women set up retreats and men go on work mission trips. There are youth camps and get away retreats. These are wonderful times to be in a setting different from our usual experiences to be challenged by speakers, music and fellowship where Jesus is honored. It is an encouragement to listen to God in different ways with different people.
Jesus spent time with the twelve disciples and, frankly they resented the intrusion and interruption of people who started to follow them around and wouldn’t leave them alone. In Mark’s gospel records the disciples saying, “Send them away.”
We have discussed the need for rest and quiet before the Lord, but Jesus saw the people and had compassion on them. They were as sheep without a shepherd. He saw people as being victimized by the world and Satan. His response was out of compassion.
What a mighty message to the disciples and to us. This world needs a shepherd of truth and assurance of hope. We are called to touch people in their need, in grief and in sickness, in damaged emotions, in hunger, in prejudice, in injustice, in poverty and weakness. Other people need to become our concern. Jesus demonstrated that, in seeing the needy His heart was touched and He was filled with compassion. Philip missed that message. To provide food for so many cannot be done. It cost too much. Many church people take their cues from Philip. When Jesus presents us with possibilities, instead of turning to the Lord for the answer come up with answers - too expensive, can’t be done. Impossible. Our church can’t do it.
The right answer to Jesus could have been, “Lord, you are the Son of God; you can do anything. I saw you turn water into wine. I watched when you healed the man lame for 38 years. Surely you can provide bread to whomever and how many you want.”
Dale
