Scriptures: Deuteronomy 8:3,18:18, John 6, Leviticus 24:8-9
In Deuteronomy 18:18 Moses tells the people God’s promise to him: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.” While God sent many prophets to Israel, none did miracles like Moses. Moses parted the water with his staff, but Jesus calmed the waves with his voice. Moses turned the water in Egypt to blood while Jesus turned water to wine. When Jesus multiplied bread to feed over 5000 people they saw his miracle as a sign that God had raised up the prophet like Moses, under whose leadership God miraculously supplied bread from heaven. “They began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world’” (John 6:14).
The next day, the people began asking Jesus for a sign that he was the prophet spoken of by Moses. “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ 32 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ 34 ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘always give us this bread.’ 35 Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:30-35). In a shocking twist, Jesus declares he’s not just the prophet who gives bread but he IS the bread!
The people wanted physical bread, but Jesus was talking about more than bread. In Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses tells the people that God “humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” The manna that came down from heaven in the wilderness to feed the hunger God had induced was a symbol of the Word of God, Jesus, who would satisfy our souls with truth and revelation from God. Jesus quoted this scripture to overcome the devil’s temptation to gratify self instead of serve God when he was in the wilderness because when we feed on the word of God, meditating on it daily, we are enabled to overcome.
We don’t like to think of God causing us to go hungry, but in Matthew 5:6 Jesus promises, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” One of the ways the Holy Spirit leads us to Jesus is by producing within us a dissatisfaction with the brokenness of this world. When we begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness, he leads us to the Bread from heaven through whom every need is met. Jesus promised that if we seek first his kingdom and righteousness, our physical needs like bread will be met, as well (Matthew 6:33). Jesus is the Bread from heaven who came to give us eternal access to God’s presence and provision. He is the fulfillment of the bread in the Holy Place in the tabernacle, called the Bread of the Presence, because by his Spirit his presence is always with us.
God instructed the priests to set out twelve loaves of bread, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. “This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant. 9 It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the Lord” (Leviticus 24:8-9). The bread was a sign of God’s continual presence with them. The priests offered the bread to God each Sabbath, but then God gave it back to them to eat as a fellowship meal with him in the sanctuary. Jesus came to fulfill this covenant promise as the Bread from heaven who brings all who believe in him into eternal fellowship with the Father who abides in us. Those who eat the Bread from heaven will never die but remain in fellowship with God forever.
Jesus said, “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.” Jesus explained to Nicodemus the mystery of how he would give us eternal life as the Bread from heaven. “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (John 3:13-15).
Jesus is speaking of Numbers 21 which tells us that the children of Israel grumbled against the Lord, so he sent venomous snakes to bite them, causing many to die. It pointed to the curse pronounced on the serpent in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” The father of the twelve tribes of Israel was originally named Jacob, which comes from the Hebrew word for “heel.” By tempting the children of Jacob (later renamed Israel) to sin and invite God’s punishment, the serpent struck at the “heel” of the woman. What happened next, however, foreshadowed how Jesus would crush the serpent’s head.
When the people confessed their sin, Moses interceded and the Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live” (Numbers 21:8). Just as the people looked on the serpent on the pole and lived, all who see Jesus on the cross as the sacrifice for their sins will be saved from death. By his sacrifice, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent. Moses interceded for the people in the wilderness, but Jesus “is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25). The Bread of life is always available.
Just like the priests ate the Bread of the Presence in the tabernacle, we must eat the Bread to have life. Jesus said, “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” (John 6:53-56). On the night Jesus was betrayed, he broke the bread of the Passover meal and explained that it now represented his body, his flesh that he was offering for us. Eating the bread symbolizes receiving both the salvation he offers us and his teachings. Jesus said whoever eats his flesh, the bread, and drinks the cup of wine that represents his blood “remains in me, and I in them” (v. 56). In John 15:7 Jesus says we must remain in him, and his words must remain in us. We feed on Jesus’ life-giving words as our daily bread that comes down from heaven.
The mystery of eating Jesus’ flesh as bread is explained in God’s instructions to the priests who were allowed to eat the sacrificial bread and meat. The sacrificial meat was “to be eaten in the sanctuary area, in the courtyard of the tent of meeting. 27 Whatever touches any of the flesh will become holy” (Leviticus 6:26-27). We are made holy not by our own effort, but by partaking of the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus’ words and Spirit continually make us holy. In the same way that the bread we eat becomes a part of us, sustaining our lives, Jesus’ holy presence remains in us as we consume his words in the Bible, eat the communion bread in remembrance of his sacrifice, and worship him in the tabernacle of our hearts as the Bread of the Presence. His life-giving presence is always with us, refreshing us and helping us live as overcomers.
Response:
Jesus, I worship you as the Bread of life. Fill me with life by your Holy Spirit in me. I love your presence. I am hungry for your righteousness. Fill me with the daily bread I need and draw me nearer to you.
(To keep with my theme of pictures from my trip to Israel, today’s picture is of giant bagels at a bagel stand in Jerusalem because I think we can all agree that bagels are bread from heaven.)
