June 26 - John 6

 

Those following Jesus said, "Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven ... which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” - John 6:31-34

 

Do you remember the story of the manna?

 

After escaping slavery in Egypt, the Israelites were led out into the wilderness. And soon, they got hungry! And soon -- in response to their cries -- God fed them. Each morning bread appeared on the ground. It seemed kind of like dew on the morning grass. They called it manna. And God fed them every day.

 

Now, if you were hungry in the desert, the temptation would be to do what the Israelites did. When they found manna in the morning, they gathered enough for two or three days. But God said, "Take only enough for today." And the result of their (natural and very human) disobedience? The extra that they took spoiled.

 

And God had a point. He was (and is) the provider. He was trying to teach them to trust in him as their provider ... daily. And he, indeed, gave them daily bread.

 

As I said, I am 99.9% sure that I would have taken two or three days worth of bread. When you're in the desert, scarcity seems very, very real. Starvation seems very, very near. But what about us today? In modern America, we live under a myth of scarcity. We all have way, way more than we need ... and yet we keep buying. We hang onto so many things -- on the off chance that once in the next 17 years we might "need" it -- that an ever growing business is massive self-storage units. (By the world's standards, we own mansion, yet they're still not big enough for all our stuff.) And what about dieting. Experts say that one of the reasons that we overeat is the myth of scarcity. "This particular pizza is so good that I better eat extra now, because I may not get enough tomorrow."

 

We're taught by God-the-Son to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." It's essentially what God-the-Father taught the Israelites to pray and trust and act upon in the Wilderness -- "Take just enough manna for one day." And now Jesus is saying essentially that God is sending manna again. The people of Jesus' day couldn't grasp what the Messiah was teaching. They were wanting him to give them physical bread. Jesus was saying, "I am the bread. The Father has sent me to satisfy your spiritual hungers. And if you trust, I am enough for every day. Don't think you can stock up on Sundays or at a big retreat and be satisfied for a while. No, you need me daily."

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy who is on and off

the Keto diet with his wife

– which means “no bread.”

Fortunately Keto doesn’t

mean “no Jesus”!