I Am the Bread of Life
Jesus with the Eucharist at the Last Supper by Juan de Juanes from Wikipedia
The writer of John’s Gospel has created an extended metaphor in chapter 6 that describes Jesus as the bread of life. Beginning with the miracle known as “the feeding of the five thousand,” the metaphor ends with words and imagery that became the basis for what is known as the Lord’s Supper (Christian Eucharist). In between, Jesus reacts with impatience when the people seem to refuse to understand what he is talking about—including his disciples and the religious leaders. When the people demand a further sign of Jesus’ power, he says, “I swear to God, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven to eat. Rather, it is my Father who gives you real bread from heaven. What I mean is this,” he says, “God’s bread comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then he says, “I AM the bread of life!”*
What is Bread?
“Bread” is another word for money in contemporary language. That is not just a counter-cultural slang expression. Bread means economic survival. Money is needed for food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. What is Jesus really saying here? It’s not that God sends food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, but that following Jesus means ensuring access to those basic necessities of life for everyone. When Jesus says, “What God wants you to do is to trust in the one God sent to you,” he is referring to his life and teaching as examples of how to bring about not just survival, but abundant life. In other words, he is bringing God’s realm of distributive justice.
Jesus’ world and life were under the control of the Roman empire. While followers of Jesus were not politically persecuted by Rome, they were economically oppressed by Roman law. That means they depended for their survival on their own ability to grow food, or fish in the lake. If Romans took their land or taxed their fishing boats, they had no way to live. Was this teaching some kind of joke?
Those of us living today who no longer believe Christian orthodoxy may well find ourselves in the position of the Jesus followers who responded to his declaration by thinking, “This teaching is nonsense. Who can take it seriously?” Jesus throws up his hands in exasperation. In a clear reference to the apocalyptic theology made popular in the synagogues of the first century, Jesus retorts, “Does this shock you then? What if you should see the son of Adam going back up to where he was to begin with?” He goes on: “The spirit is life-giving; mortal flesh is good for nothing. The words I have used are ‘spirit’ and ‘life.’ Yet some of you still don’t get it.”
We can only “get it,” Jesus says, if “the Father has granted it.” Jesus was suggesting that the way to survive and thrive in the Roman world was to stop worrying about what to eat or what to wear, and to share what one had. The very nature of God’s world—God’s rule—is that every creature has access to whatever is needed in order to live abundantly. It’s a radical idea; and if you can’t trust what might be described as God’s rule of distributive justice, you cannot participate with Jesus in establishing it on earth. As a result of this declaration, John reports, many of Jesus’ followers abandoned him. Jesus then asks the remaining twelve if they want to leave as well. Peter responds that Jesus indeed has the words that contain real life. He speaks for them all when he says, “We are certain that you are God’s holy one.”
Eating and Drinking
The consequences for not accepting that Jesus is the Messiah, or for not trusting Jesus’ teachings, are not readily apparent. The traditional meaning is that those who do not accept these things will not be included in that promised “eternal life.” The “bread of life” is denied to those who do not accept it. But in John 6:36–40, Jesus is saying that he will never reject anyone who comes to him. In the context of a first-century community oppressed by Roman authority, God himself will move people to follow Jesus, and no one who does so will be denied. God has charged Jesus with losing no one that has been put into his care. God’s intention, Jesus says, is that all those who see the son of God and trust him will have real, genuine life in this world, here and now. On the last day, when God’s justice has been restored to the earth, Jesus will raise up those martyrs who died for justice along with him.
The language of eating and drinking Jesus’ flesh and blood is not found anywhere else in the New Testament. It is possible that what seem to be references to the bread and wine of the Christian Eucharist were added later by a translator or scribe. These additions—if that is what they are—seem to be a carefully worded argument that expands the metaphor that Jesus applies to himself. “Those who feed on my mortal flesh and drink my blood are part of me, and I am part of them. The Father of life sent me, and I have life because of the Father. Just so, anyone who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that comes down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate manna and then died, anyone who feeds on this bread will live forever.”
John’s Jesus knew that he would forfeit his own life in the service of God’s justice. That is not an unreasonable assumption for the historical Jesus to have made. He consistently taught the subversion of Roman rule and trust in God’s rule, which is distributive justice. This is the most powerful imagery humans can devise to describe how to transform human life.
*All Biblical quotes taken from The Scholars Version