Grains of Sand

Google Images They didn’t get it. The Lord had just fed more than five thousand people with a handful of fish and a few hunks of bread. The crowd had already seen Him heal the sick. What do you want of someone who looks after these most basic of human needs? You make Him your king (John 6:15), or at least you try to. How could anyone resist the best social services and health care plan in town? After that attempt failed, the crowd realized that Jesus had not escaped them with His disciples and yet only one boat was missing (John 6:24). Where had He gone and how had He gotten there? No problem—they simply guessed that He would go to Capernaum so they followed him there. Jesus knew what they were looking for so He went immediately to the point: “ 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 ...

When I was setting things up for the Thanksgiving display at the church, I came across some loaves of bread that had been left over from last year’s display—perfectly preserved after a year in storage. I’m not sure what that might say about what was baked into those loaves to keep them from going moldy, but I was impressed nonetheless—even though they were as hard as rock! Jesus described Himself as the bread of life (John 6:35). “ ...the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world...I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty ” (6:33-35). No illustration can compete with the real thing, but those hard Thanksgiving loaves did remind me of the permanence of God’s gift of the bread of life. Unlike those loaves, God’s gift never gets stale or hard, but it is a “forever” gift, one that will outlast any circumstance and any attack. The implication of the text here is that this “brea...