Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 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." John 6:35, 41-51 (RSV)
"Truly, truly, Isay to you, he who believes has eternal life." (v. 47)
No one wants to die. Yet, who among us would like to live forever? This is our paradox. This is our dilemma. To die means the end of what we are and have; it signifies also the cessation of whatever yet we had hoped to be. But wouldn't living forever be equally undesireable? For it holds out endlessness and sameness, like Shakespeare's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ..." Such would not be much even of a respite from sheer nothingness. On the other hand, however, who would want to play a harp throughout all time, or listen endlessly to "The Hallelujah Chorus"?
It is obvious, on second thought, that such questions and thinking are colored and even determined by our worldly concepts. Our idioms come from the vocabulary of time and space, and borrow pictures from the poetry of the ages. Maybe such cannot be avoided for good or for ill, nor can our dialogue about religion be completely free from it. What is needed, therefore, is serious caution and concern about the human frame of mind and heart behind it.
Jesus was aware of this when he attempted to teach a mixed gathering of curious folk, whose thinking about his mission and his person was entwined with strains and threads of nationalism, ambition, religious prejudice, and downright spiritual immaturity. Note the verbs in their questions: "What must we do, to be doing the work of God?" (v. 28); "Lord, give us this bread always" (v. 34); and "The Jews murmured at him" (v. 41). There were the activists among them for whom any alliance with God was a matter of "doing." There were also the takers for whom religion meant give me, i.e., welfare checks, adequate and regular. Then there were the murmurers, whose religion existed and was exercised in one dimension only and featured no fusion between the earthly and the heavenly.
Now Jesus cut straight across these confused and confusing perspectives and declared, "He who believes has eternal life." Should he say this today to our generation, what would we understand by it? Would it satisfy us who, in our own day, bring notions before the bar of the Christian faith that are equally perplexed and confused? "He who believes" - believes what? Or whom? "Eternal life" - what meaning can the average person put into this phrase today? "Live forever" - did Jesus mean endless existence or life on the deepest level now? Or both? All these seem like separate questions, but they belong really together and the answers can be instruction in our Christian faith.
I
It is important to note how the word believe is so crucial and critical in any New Testament discussion about life, especially eternal life. Modern folk, however, raise a red flag and say: "Yes, we yearn for a better life, but beliefs are so many and varied that we do not know where to start." Do not think for one moment that these Jews were in any better situation with their ancient Law and its 613 separate regulations. For us the first step must be: to believe Jesus. To believe in Jesus raises a score of questions - who he was, what about his strange power, what he meant by giving himself to men and women as bread to eat, and what would be the situation after he had gone. To believe Jesus, however, is to accept him as a person, not this or that about him, but in his totality. After all, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, we read, simply quit their jobs and followed him. Then they went on to accept his word, observe his teachings in action, and come to grips with the truth he declared.
To believe Jesus is living as if what he said about God is true, the good life in the long run spells victory, our human nature has a potential which God alone can bring to fruition, and the lifestyle described in the Sermon on the Mount is the only one that satisfies.
Anyone who has doubts here must remember that Jesus underwrote all this with his own life. He never flinched, even from the Cross. He was indeed the bread of life; and all who would partake of it, i.e., all who believe Jesus and appropriate his person into their life, should discover they have acquired a quality of living which is never lost. It pours its essence into every community and in the ongoing destiny of the human race. This is not a matter of space and time; it is the world of our everyday experience being infused and absorbed by the world of eternity. Doubt it if you will, but to believe Jesus is to hearken to his words to his own disciples: "If it were not so, I would have told you." (John 14:2)
II
A further step: believe Jesus and let his person operate within your life. When you and I consume bread and allow it to go through our digestive processes, its nutrients nourish and strengthen our whole body system so that we can work, think, and aspire as human beings. Jesus claimed to be the Bread of Life. His life, if accepted and received by us, would provide what is necessary for our souls. Paul experienced this working of the person of Christ within his own life when he wrote: "... I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
All this, of course, involves commitment to Christ's person. In so doing, you and I ally ourselves (a) with one who is willing and ready to involve himself in the struggle of life with us; and (b) with a purpose which appeared alive in him, and the ends and aims of which are good. We are not on our own; that gets us nowhere. God's intention for all of us is the abundant life and, in Christ, he has shown us the way to it. We need not strain or struggle or force the issue; all we need to do is to ask
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,Feed me till I want no more.
To believe Jesus opens up a new relationship with God. This is the life. As William Barclay wrote: "Jesus is the essential without which real life can neither begin nor go on." It is a satisfactory way to live here and now. And it bears a glimmering promise that this life with its love, its faith, and its will to become more and more, will never die.