Jesus the Bread of Life

Will you take a walk with me along the Sea of Galilee?  As we wander north, the rising sun dazzles the waves on the rocking sea.  A small boy, maybe 8 or 9 years old runs along the edge of the lake.  As he turns toward a simple fisherman's cottage we see he's dangling a recent catch of fish from a string. As we approach the cottage we can hear the boy's mother humming and can't help but smell the scent of baked barley wafting on the breeze.

If we wait there for just a moment we will hear familiar maternal admonitions as the heedless child, hastily acknowledging and assenting, races away toward a nearby hillside carrying a small bag

Let's follow him along the shore road, up and over that hill.  We crest the hill, with the lake spreading out below us to our right and the Gallilean hillsides bathed in new sunshine to our left.

We stop short as the road descends.  What is this crowd of people we see below?  It occurs to us for the first time that the fishermen are not in their boats on the lake - they have joined many others, all standing, listening to an unimposing figure quietly teaching.

The morning wears on as we watch, shadows shorten, and the crowd grows restless.  We catch glimpses of the boy as he wanders in and out among the men, largely unnoticed.  He picks up a prize once, it looks like a stone or a small rock, we can't tell from where we stand, and he absentmindedly drops it into his bag - as boys are likely to do.

The Teacher has paused, some of the men close to Him appear to be in conference, and one  gestures across the lake, another points up the road toward us where we watch.  All seem to shake their heads.  The boy wanders close at this point, and is unexpectedly drawn into the conversation, and just as unexpectedly is relieved of his small bag. The bag is handed down the line to the Teacher.  The boy seems unconcerned, yet the teacher calls for him.  The contents of the bag are laid on a large rock.  The Teacher smiles and  calls the boy close upon discovering the stone, and together they examine the features of his prize.  The crowd mills about restlessly as  Teacher and pupil explore the facets of the simple creation.  The boy smiles, nods and laughs once as the Teacher lowers the stone back into the bag and returns both to the grinning youngster.

What else had been in the bag?  Well maybe by now you have guessed that laid out on that rock were 5 small barley loaves and 2 fish intended as lunch for the boy.

Another conference.  The Teacher's disciples move into the crowd and the crowd begins to cluster and sit among the stones and wildflowers.

Let's appreciate the amazement in the eyes of a small boy as handfulls of his mother's still soft bread begin to fill baskets, which are handed to the Teacher's disciples and then distributed to the men and women scattered across the hillside.  The fish are handled likewise.  The boy stands transfixed for the whole process, taking his own lunch of fish and barley bread directly from the hands of the Teacher, finally refusing to take any more as his small belly is completely filled and satisfied.

The day ends in the small fisherman's cottage with an excited boy, held in contempt by his dubious mother, till her husband returns home telling the same amazing story.  He sets a large basket of dark bread at her feet.   Her own bread that she had just baked that morning - still as fresh as the minute she pulled it from their tiny stone oven.

John's Gospel picks up the narrative the next day:

So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.  Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.  Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God,that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? (Did they not remember the bread they had just eaten the day prior?) Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”  Jesus then said to them, “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father, gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, 

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."

Is the Bread of Life enough to satisfy your soul?

Happy Father's Day

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

¹² 

as far as the east is from the west,

    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

¹³ 

As a father shows compassion to his children,

    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

¹⁴ 

For he knows our frame;

    he remembers that we are dust.

One day a fisherman had urgent business on the far side of a quiet cove. The cove was an active, cheery place where otters and dolphins could be seen to play in the gentle surf.  That particular day, there was no one to stay and care for his young daughter, so he made her a nest among the salty canvas and course brown coils of rope in the stern of his fishing boat.  The boat was small and as they were driven before the breeze the shifting winds would loft her blond curls across his bronze arm.  He held the tiller with his rough stained right hand, his fingers falling into familiar callus carved grooves in the burnished handle.

The breeze was gentle and the sea rolled green and soft beneath the gliding craft.  The capricious cove lay dormant,  protected by a far off reef which foamed, disturbed by thundering waves.  Beyond the reef the mighty sea stretched blue and green till it became the sky and raced back again in cobalt blue.  The girl gazed up enchanted, watching as puffy clouds formed and deformed into a menagerie of friendly shapes. The brief journey took them to a nearby village where an old friend lived alone.

It proved a warm day to patch an old woman's shingle roof and mend an aging barn door.  The fisherman worked with purpose and at his side his small helper would hand him nails or tie the rough wood shingles to a length of rope for him to hoist to the roof.  Hungry for lunch, the little girl squinted into the face of the climbing sun, and wiped a bead of sweat from her porcelain brow.  She smiled and tossed her hair gratefully as the first of many clouds soon shaded her from the unrelenting rays.  However, her father would not share her garden bench or join the lunch of fresh strawberries and cream.

Late into the sticky afternoon, father and daughter completed their tasks.  They were invited to stay the night, but the fisherman declined.  Hand in hand the pair strode across the sand, then drifted along the shore in their little boat as the orange afternoon sun was tucked in and blanketed by lowering clouds.  The friendly figures in the sky had now been replaced by furrows plowed by a contrary wind.

The girl rested in her nest of ropes and sacks dwarfed by the fisherman's coat, which warmed her and conspired with the bobbing craft to send her softly off to sleep.

She awoke with the first crash of thunder, peeped out from beneath the hood, felt the sting of rain on her cheeks, and anxiously looked to her father's face.  Silhouetted against a flickering backdrop and soaked by the driving rain, he stared ahead with stolid determination and focus.  Sensing the glow of her gaze, he offered a gentle smile and a practiced wink.

She glanced around at an angered sea.  She felt the shift and roll and buck and slide, heard the timbers groan and dripping ropes creak as boat and captain refused to submit to the greater force.  She looked again at her father's face, then settled down among the musty coils.

She next awoke to the sound of chirping birds and the warmth of sunlight streaming through her bedroom window.  Her father's singing filtered in from the barn.  Propped on her elbow she could see out her window, and above the sill she spied the little boat bobbing gently, tied just beyond the sandy shore.  She lay still and listened again for her father's soft singing, then lay her curls back on the pillow and breathed a child's contented sigh.

Jesus Said:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  –Matthew 6:26