Thoughts from John 6

Starting with five barley loaves and a couple of fish, Jesus ends by feeding 5000 men ready to go to arms. After each of the mob has had his fill, his disciples collect twelve basketsful of leftovers. The 5000 man army sits impressed, so the men conclude he must be the long-sought-for prophet as they prepare to take Jesus forcibly to make him king. Jesus, however, will not become anyone’s king by force. He neither forces his kingship over men, nor will he be forced into kingship by men. If you are to crown Jesus as king of your life, it will be on his terms, with his agenda, and not on your terms with your agenda.

Jesus makes his way across the lake, walking on the water's surface tension. Meeting his disciples rowing hard against the churning wind, he enters the boat with them, calms the storm and their fears, and they find themselves suddently, immediately at Capernaum, their destination.

The next day at the synagogue in that city, the army finds Jesus. Wasting no time, Jesus readily challenges their motivation for seeking him out. They have not come, he says, because they saw signs, that is, because they saw signs pointing to spiritual realities. Rather, they have come because they found a way to feed their bellies, they have come because they found a way to satisfy their political passions. So they think.

Jesus uses a press to draw from people faith in him. Like most presses, an oil press has two plates that slowly move against each other in order to squeeze oil from the olives placed between the plates.

One plate of Jesus’ press consists of the signs which he performs, the miracles for which there simply is no natural explanation and which therefore stand as unequivocal evidence for a supernatural source. The other plate consists of his teachings. He says, “Do not work for food that perishes, but work for food that endures to eternal life.” 6:27.

A main goal of work is to acquire food in order to live. We eat bread in the sweat of our collective face, just as God decreed would be the case (Gen. 3:19) ever since the fall of man to the present day. And now Jesus says, so to speak, “Don’t do that.” Instead, he calls us to labor for a different type of bread, the eating of which enables one to endure in eternal life.

Jesus introduces a profound irony related to this labor inasmuch as he will give this bread. The bread is a gift that cannot be worked for! Understandably, the army asks, “What must we do to be doing the works of God?” The irony is now fully developed, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 6:29. The work to be pursued is not work at all, but is faith in Jesus!

The people are not ready to hear talk about faith in Jesus, so they ask for proof, for a sign that tells them they should accept Jesus’ teachings. (We remember that Jesus had accused them earlier of not seeking signs, so now that they’ve collected something of their wit, they’re asking about them.)

We human beings are a curious lot: Jesus had just fed us the day before and we were going to make him king violently. Today we’re asking for a sign whether we should accept bread from Jesus that gives eternal life.

What this rag-tag army asks for, of course, is a continual daily feeding as was the case with Moses so many years before in the wilderness. When Jesus speaks of bread that abides to eternal life they are thinking of manna in Moses’ day. Under Moses’ leadership, for forty years Israel ate manna found on the ground and collected every morning (save the Sabbaths).

Jesus makes two assertions concerning the matter. (1) It was not Moses who gave the bread, but God. It did not simply fall out of the sky because Moses was a wonder-worker. It came from the Father himself in heaven. He later points out that this bread, manna, as providential as it was, did not confer life. All the ancients died. (2) The real bread of God is what comes down from heaven and gives life.

So the sign of multiplying the barley loaves and fish pushes one plate in Jesus' press. Here’s the other plate.

The people clamor for this bread of God that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, and Jesus says, “I’m it.” “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” 6:35. Jesus is that which comes down from heaven and gives eternal life.

Jesus' press works: the signs give evidence, the teaching causes stress. Considerable argument and eventually even fighting among the people broke out on account of Jesus’ claim that he has the power to give eternal life.

Now, there are two strands in Jesus’ discussion: a premise strand and a promise strand. Here is the premise.

Jesus presses ever more the claim that the Father and he are of one mind: All people that the Father gives to Jesus will come to Jesus. 6:37. Jesus came from heaven not to do his own will, but the will of the one who sent him, God. 6:38. It is the Father’s will that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. 6:40. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. 6:44. Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Jesus. 6:45. Jesus, who alone is from God, has seen the Father. 6:46.

Throughout his talk Jesus returns to the notion that he is the bread that came down from heaven. 6:41. I am the bread of life. 6:48. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. 6:51. My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 6:55.

The promise strand in Jesus’ statements to the people in Capernaum consists of eternal life.

“Him who comes to me I will not cast out.” 6:37. “I should lose nothing of all [the Father] has given me, but will raise it up at the last day.” 6:39. “Every one who see the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” 6:40. “He who believes has eternal life.” 6:47. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” 6:54.

Then Jesus states: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” 6:63. This is the final squeeze of the press. Jesus clearly identifies the bankruptcy of the flesh. You can eat all the steak you want, but you will die. You can eat all the tofu you want, but you will die. You can labor for all the varieties of food there are in this world, but you will die.

Jesus’ promise stands that he will give life, eternal life, to those who come to him. He gives life to those who hear him, to those who feed on him, on his words. His words give life. He gives life to those whose sustenance and power to live remains the living and abiding word he speaks, the word that he is. He himself is the Word that feeds the spirit. And he gives life to any that come to him.

“This is why I told you no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 6:65. The Father and the Son are one in purpose and nature so that Jesus will not receive whom the Father has not sent.

Some use the thought to support the notion that God preselects destinies of all human beings, some he selects for eternal life, the rest he selects for eternal condemnation. It is not difficult to see why this verse should be used in such a manner, however mistaken the notion may be.

Nonetheless, Jesus’ plain meaning remains that in order for someone to come to him, and for Jesus consequently to save such a one, that person must accept God’s condition: belief in Jesus as his Messiah. It is not adequate to believe that Jesus was a good man. Not adequate to believe that Jesus was a pretty special guy. Not adequate to believe that Jesus is the world’s best moral teacher. Not adequate to insist that Jesus was the top religious figure in all history to be admired.

God sent Jesus as his own personal, unique, one-and-only, never-to-be-repeated representative as a lamb sacrifice for the sins of the world. Jesus is God's own son. Jesus is God in the flesh. God with us. If a man or a woman will not believe this of Jesus, then Jesus promises nothing of coming to him for salvation.

As the immense crowd of disciples concludes that Jesus’ statements are too hard for them to accept, they begin to leave. The army, once ready to make him their king, disbands. Jesus demands too much of their passion, of their food, of their comfort.

This is the difference between olives and human beings. Olives can have no say concerning placement in the press. People, however, are in Jesus’ press only as long as they choose. They either get out as the pressure mounts, as their own desires conflict with Jesus' call, as friends or family turn against them, as the values of the world entice them; or, they yield in the richness of faith to Jesus to eternal life.

One of the saddest phrases in all the Bible comes now. It says, “They no longer walked with him.” 6:66. These who a day before would make him king, today no longer walk with Jesus. This is no slipping away slowly from mounting cares of the world. This is a deliberate choice that wants to leave the glory Jesus offers in order to find approval among men.

But really, even the slipping away slowly finally comes to the same thing: Leaving the glory of Jesus for the decay and rot of the world.

Jesus turns then to the few people left, “Do you also wish to go away?” 6:67. And they say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

(However, even among them who do not leave, Jesus warns, is a devil, speaking of Judas who would eventually betray his Lord. 6:70.)

Still, the question comes not only to them 2000 years ago, but to us, to you. Are Jesus’ words too hard for you? Are you walking with Jesus? Or have you decided no longer to walk with him?

Jesus asks you the same question: Will you also go away ...

... yet, to whom shall you go for real life, if not to Christ?

Come to Jesus, come to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Pt. 2:4-5.