Bread of life

Bread of Heaven

Posted on by Betsy

How many times during the day do you think about food? I never realized how much food occupies my mind until I had a day when I couldn’t have anything but liquids. A routine medical procedure that required a day of a liquid diet was an eye-opener. I discovered that during my morning run, all I think about in the last mile is what I will make for lunch. In the afternoon, my mind is pre-occupied with dinner plans. Even a late afternoon boat ride was consumed with what kind of drink/snack I would usually be enjoying instead of my can of diet Sprite. Food, glorious food! I even had to avoid Facebook and Twitter, as these are filled with recipe posts and pictures of things I couldn’t eat. When the procedure was finally over, my first thought wasn’t about the results….all I could think about was coffee and a breakfast biscuit. And more coffee.

Jesus probably understood our obsession with food when he proclaimed that he is the bread of life. What better way to demonstrate his supreme importance in our lives than to tap into our most basic need for sustenance:

John 6 (Common English Bible)

35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

What a beautiful image! Jesus is offering himself to us in a way that meets our needs. When he came, people struggled to understand what he was offering. For him to plainly say, “I am the bread of life” was as simple, and yet as profound, as it could be.

41 The Jewish opposition grumbled about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

42 They asked, “Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son, whose mother and father we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

I suppose there will always be naysayers to everything, even the most incredible gift the world could have ever received. Joseph’s son couldn’t really be that special, after all….

43 Jesus responded, “Don’t grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. 47 I assure you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life.

Jesus explains exactly what this gift means. It will not only sustain you, it will allow you to be raised up with him on the last day. It is not just manna for one day, it is manna for every day from now through eternity!

It isn’t just bread, it is the bread of LIFE.

49 Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that whoever eats from it will never die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

With THIS bread, you will live forever.

How many times have you thought about food today? How many times have you thought about Jesus today? Jesus provides the bread that will never end…a bread that comes down from heaven above. That is worth our consideration.

May we think about God today as many times as we think about food.

Bread of Heaven by Wende Pritchard

Leftover Fish

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever had something incredible happen and nobody believed you when you told them? Very few things are as frustrating as telling the truth and not being believed. I wonder if that is how our Lord felt after the resurrection. He had a hard time convincing people that what he had been saying all along had actually happened just as he said.

We continue our post-resurrection appearances stories today as Luke records an encounter with the risen Jesus and the Eleven. They were in Jerusalem trying to figure out what has happened, and they did not believe the women’s account of an empty tomb. Meanwhile, Jesus met two men on the road to Emmaus and revealed himself to them. These men hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples, when all of a sudden this happened:

Luke 24 (The Message)

36-41 While they were saying all this, Jesus appeared to them and said, “Peace be with you.” They thought they were seeing a ghost and were scared half to death. He continued with them, “Don’t be upset, and don’t let all these doubting questions take over. Look at my hands; look at my feet—it’s really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe. A ghost doesn’t have muscle and bone like this.” As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. They still couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was too much; it seemed too good to be true.

The disciples didn’t believe the women. They didn’t believe the two Emmaus witnesses. Now they couldn’t believe their own eyes. Then, something simple and earth-shattering happened: Jesus ate.

41-43 He asked, “Do you have any food here?” They gave him a piece of leftover fish they had cooked. He took it and ate it right before their eyes.

Somehow it was in this little act of asking for something to eat that the disciples started realizing that this indeed WAS Jesus…their Jesus. It was not a ghost or a fraud. It was truly him. It is interesting to note that just a few verses earlier, the two men on the road to Emmaus talked to him for quite a while, but only recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread when they sat around a table together.

There is something to be learned here. Perhaps it is in the sharing of life-giving essentials such as food and water that we come to know Jesus. Perhaps the simple act of sitting together and passing bread around the table is our best way to explain to doubters and non-believers who the Bread of Life really is. (Maybe we Methodists, with our love of potluck suppers, have been onto something for two hundred years!)

Who do you know that is hungry for Truth? Who in your family or neighborhood needs the sustenance of the Bread of Life and the Living Water?

It has probably been a while since most of us sat down to dinner around a table and shared our faith with someone. Maybe that should be job number one when the pandemic is over. Sharing our witness over a plate of home-cooked food might just be our greatest opportunity for evangelism to folks who don’t know Jesus.

You’re the Witnesses

44 Then he said, “Everything I told you while I was with you comes to this: All the things written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms have to be fulfilled.”

45-49 He went on to open their understanding of the Word of God, showing them how to read their Bibles this way. He said, “You can see now how it is written that the Messiah suffers, rises from the dead on the third day, and then a total life-change through the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in his name to all nations—starting from here, from Jerusalem!

You’re the first to hear and see it. You’re the witnesses.

We are the witnesses! So let’s go and tell….and eat!

Fishers of Men by MIchelle Robertson

RSVP

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever thrown a party and nobody came? Imagine the frustration of that. You send the invitations, bake the cake, buy the decorations, and put together the little party favors for every guest. The day of the party you clean the house, set the table, sweep the front steps, change your clothes, and….nada. Nobody comes. Nobody calls. Nobody even has the manners to at least try to come up with a reason not to attend.

This is the story Jesus told when asked about the Kingdom of God. His listeners were the chief priests and the leaders of the temple. They had questioned Jesus’ authority to speak as the Son of God. They had allowed money lenders to defile the steps of the temple on the holy days. They had been listening to Jesus for three years, but they weren’t picking up what he was laying down.

Now they were out to get him.

Matthew 22 (The Message)

22 1-3 Jesus responded by telling still more stories. “God’s kingdom,” he said, “is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn’t come!

4 “He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, ‘Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!’

5-7 “They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop. The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them. The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city.

Jesus throws down the authority gauntlet. He warns the Jewish leadership that their continued refusal to receive the Son of God was not going to end well. They may succeed in ensnaring Jesus for a time, but the ultimate victory was going to be his at the resurrection. God would destroy not only their hierarchy but their precious temple and the city it stood in.

He warns them that God wasn’t playing.

8-10 “Then he told his servants, ‘We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren’t up to it. Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.’ The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless. And so the banquet was on—every place filled.“

And so the doors of the kingdom were flung wide open to the gentiles, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the poor, the blind, the marginal….suddenly the invitation was sent out to everyone. The banquet was on and everybody had a seat. The Bread of Life welcomed everyone to come and feast at HIS table.

You are invited as well. Maybe this is your moment to accept Christ into your heart. Jesus invites you to come inside and put your feet under his table. The food has been laid out on beautiful platters and the glasses are filled with Living Water. The meal has been bought for you with the precious blood of the lamb. In Christ, you will never hunger or thirst again. You can come and eat and stay as long as you like…even for the rest of your life. Will you come and partake?

RSVP.

Come and You Will Never Thirst Again by Kathy Schumacher