I'm Getting Hungry Again

The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John opens with the feeding of the five thousand, after which Jesus heads up a mountain to get away from the people. The disciples boat on out into the Sea of Galilee, Jesus walks out to them on the water, and once He gets into the boat, they land in Capernaum. The next morning, the crowds realize that Jesus and the disciples are all gone - and, conveniently enough, so's their boat. So the crowd hops aboard a few boats that have just arrived for the morning's commerce and sail on over to Capernaum, looking for Jesus.

When they found Him on the other side of the lake, they asked Him, "Rabbi, when did You get here?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for Me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval."

Then they asked Him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent."

So they asked Him, "What miraculous sign then will You give that we may see it and believe You? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, 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. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

"Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."

Then Jesus declared, "I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen Me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day. 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 him up at the last day."

- John 6:25-40

Sometimes I read through the Gospels and I get this sense that everybody living in 1st century A.D. Judea, including the 12 Apostles, was an idiot. There are so many of Jesus' lessons in the Gospels that people completely miss, even the Twelve, that I am quite often simply amazed at the infinite stretches of human stupidity.

And then I turn around and realize that I could just as easily have been a member of any of those crowds that completely missed the point, because I'm still missing the point from time to time here and now.

The crowds were already impressed by Jesus. John 6:2 says that "a great crowd of people followed Him because they saw the miraculous signs He had performed on the sick." The interest in the power of Christ was already there.

But then they ate! It seems that the crowds of Jesus' time had a lot in common with me - once the question of dinner is brought up, it doesn't matter how impressive anything else you showed me, said to me, or did for me was, because when I'm hungry, food takes precedence over all of it. But if you provide me with food, then I will remember you forever with kindness in my heart. My opinions of people who have prepared food for me are very closely tied to the quality (and quantity) of that food.

Notice how the people initially react to their miraculous dinner:

After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make Him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by Himself.

- John 6:14-15 (emphasis added)

This crowd has been following Jesus around all day, watching Him heal the sick. There was enough buzz going around - Jesus' reputation preceded Him - that over 5,000 people showed up. They had already seen countless miracles, heard all the rumors, seen the magnetism this carpenter from Nazareth clearly exhibited wherever He went... But it wasn't until He gave everybody dinner that they went off the handle. I can see it now:

Crowd person #1: "So, what do you think of Jesus?"

Crowd person #2: "Well, I think He's onto something. He cured my father-in-law's gangrene, so that's kinda neat, I guess..."

Crowd person #1: "Yeah... I dunno. I like Him as a PERSON and everything, but I don't know if I can really get behind His message, you know?"

Andrew, the Apostle: "Hey guys, here's your fish and bread."

Crowd person #2: "Whaaaaat? Where'd this come from?"

Andrew, the Apostle: "Oh, Jesus miraculously made it for you. Enjoy! He already said the blessing, so you can just dig in."

Crowd person #2: "I don't care what anybody says, I am personally going to march on Rome RIGHT NOW and put Jesus in charge. This is happening. I am so serious."

Crowd person #1: "I WOULD TACKLE AN ENTIRE LEGION OF ROMAN SOLDIERS WITH NOTHING BUT MY SANDALS TO MAKE JESUS KING."

Crowd person #2: "LET US DO THIS THING!"

It seems silly, doesn't it? (I've been sleeping a lot today, so I'll admit that my sense of silly might be a little off-balance.)

But when they finally catch up to Jesus, He calls them out on it, saying, "Look - you're not coming after Me because I was healing the sick, you're here because I gave you holy Filet-O-Fish sandwiches yesterday and you can't think past your stomachs. Don't focus on where your next meal will come from - focus on where the meaning of the life sustained by those meals comes from. Don't just follow Me because I can make your stomachs full, follow Me because I can make your LIFE full!"

The crowd was right to follow Jesus. And they weren't really wrong to follow Him because He provided them with food - after all, the Israelites wandering in the wilderness were miraculously fed by God, Jesus was feeding them miraculously... Maybe the guy had something to say!

But what Jesus tells them when they finally catch up to Him is that if all they're looking for is their next meal, the thing that sustains them, the thing that just lets them get by, then they are completely missing the point.

Two posts ago, I wrote about how my renewed dedication to studying the Bible and encountering God were both birthed out of a broken heart. I was turning to God, turning to the Bible, in efforts to turn away from my pain.

I'm currently looking for a church to work with. In fact, I'm driving up to Illinois on Saturday to teach class and deliver a sermon for the congregation in Marshall. For over a month now, I've been studying the story of Jephthah in Judges 10-11, carefully reading the text over and over, seeking out the opinions of people I respect and love, trying to forge something that I can relate from the pulpit, something that would be a strong presentation of my knowledge and understanding of Scripture. I was spending a lot of time with the Bible, but all that time was spent focusing on my sermon, my job, my future.

I've been spending a lot of time with God lately. I've been praying, meditating, studying, reading, sharing, thinking, and all sorts of other perfect progressive tense verbs more than at any other point in my life. It's been good.

But it's also been focused on the wrong thing.

I turned to God to get away from the pain of my broken heart, not to get away from the sin of my broken soul. I turned to God to find a secure job and a paycheck for my future, not to find the job He has already secured for me in His Kingdom.

I have been focused on God, but I've been using Him. I've been seeking God because it served my ends, because it bettered my life. But I kinda think that's missing the point.

I kinda think I'm supposed to seek God because He's God.

So here again I find myself looking into the infinite stretches of the unknown that stands before me, placing my hope, my trust, and my very life into the hands of the One who created Life, the Universe, and Everything...

...and waiting to see where He takes me next.