The Bread of Life Discourse
Jn 6:35-40
35Jesus
said to [the crowd], “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will
never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. 36But I told you that although you have seen [me], you do not believe. 37Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, 38because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 39And
this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose
anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it [on] the last
day. 40For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who
sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall
raise him [on] the last day.”
I am the bread of life. This
is the first of the seven “I am” proclamations of Jesus in the gospel
of John. The people are coming to Jesus because they are hungry. The
prophet Amos speaks of this kind of hunger this way: “See, days are
coming—oracle of the Lord God—when I will send a famine upon the land:
Not a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but for hearing the word
of the Lord” (Am 8:11).
In
his first “I am” declaration, Jesus reveals to us the kind of
relationship he desires to cultivate so that we may grow in faith and
love of God. He exposes the folly of the Jews’ unbelief. But for those
who accept him in faith, he promises not just a prolonged lifetime but
eternal life itself—what every person hungers and thirsts for.
God
wants us to live, not die. For this very reason, God “gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might
have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn
3:16-17).
Do you experience strength and growth
from receiving the Eucharist, the bread of life?
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