Give me the Bread of Life

John 6:25-35

Harvest Thanksgiving, October 12, 2025

Holy Trinity Cathedral

“Give Me the Bread of Life”

I admit that I, like some of you, need glasses these days to read the small print on packaging labels.  My curiosity was awakened when I read an online article about ultra-processsed foods, or UPF’s.  So many of the things we buy to eat contain many ingredients that have been added to extend their shelf-life, change their texture, or reduce the cost of the product.  Take bread for example.  A supermarket brand white loaf may contain the following:

• Enriched white flour (that is, wheat that has been milled, has the germ and bran removed, is bleached, and then has certain vitamins or minerals added to compensate for all the goodness that used to be part of the wheat kernel)
• Water, salt, and yeast. So far, so good.  But then there are some or all of:
• sugar, modified milk ingredients, amylase, lipase, xylanase, ascorbic acid, palm kernel or refined soya or canola oil, fumaric acid, calcium propionate, monoglycerides, potassium sorbate, guar gum, l-cysteine hydrochloride, modified cellulose, and sodium stearoyl-lactate.

No wonder they use small print!  Now, I am not anti-white bread, but for something that is used by so many to be cheap and filling, this doesn’t sound very nutritious.  Is this what we are asking for when we pray, “give us this day our daily bread”?  Jesus promises us something better. 

Not everyone can afford to make or purchase quality baked goods.  And for those who have, you know that food without preservatives perishes quickly.  Even commercial loaves don’t last for too long.  When I was working with a church food bank that had supplies delivered from a depot, the volunteers always had to go through the packages of bread and pull out the ones with obvious mold before distribution. When a local bakery chain offered their day-old goods, both the church and the clients were delighted with the variety and the tastiness of the items.  But they had to be used quickly or frozen for the next week’s hand-out.  Can the bread that God supplies be tasty, nutritious, and sustain us?  That’s what followers after Jesus want to know.

In today’s gospel reading from John chapter 6, Jesus has just finished feeding five thousand people with five small loaves.  The people are so excited by this miracle that they want to make Jesus their king.  He escapes their clutches by walking on water across the sea and meets his disciples on the other side of the lake.  But morning comes, the crowd wakes up hungry again, and they chase Jesus around the lake.  When they meet up with him, they act surprised and say, “Oh, Rabbi, when did you come here?”  The real question is why they are still seeking him.  Do they want the next free meal, or are they hungry for something deeper?

The people are not wealthy, for the most part.  They are the working poor- farmers, herders, fishers, small craftsmen- and those on the margins- widows, orphans, the sick, and the dispossessed.  Most of them are trying to get by, labouring to make enough dough to put bread on the table.  The next meal is not certain.  Jesus tells them it is true that they are looking for him not because they saw or understood the miracle but because they ate their fill.  Their physical need was met first.  Now Jesus pushes them to go beyond their stomachs.  “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (John 6:27).  One of the most famous passages in the Bible is John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  The same word for perish is used here.  For a population that barely knows where the next meal is coming from, there is a challenge and a promise.  Work for the food that endures and God will meet you in your request. 

“What must we do to perform the works of God?”  This can be a request for miraculous talent to produce signs like Jesus to satisfy our needs and impress others.   Or it can be a legitimate question about how to respond to the One who gives our daily bread.  Jesus quickly disabuses us about getting it right by receiving heavenly pointers.  “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29).  It’s not a matter of being righteous through what we can do.  We don’t get rewarded by performing the right actions.  We can be as generous with our wealth or time or talent as possible but still find ourselves hungry inside.  We want the food that will satisfy not just our bellies but our hearts and our souls. 

Once, when the people of Israel were wandering around in the desert, they got very hangry.  They cried out to God and God instructed Moses, their leader, to teach them about gathering what was sent down to them from heaven.  It was enough to supply their physical needs for the day, but even more: the appearance of the manna was to teach them to trust in the Lord their God.  Moses had to explain to them that we do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  When the people remember this event, they are to remember that the physical manna was given for a specific need at a specific time.  However, the Word stands for all time to nourish and sustain them.  It is the heavenly Father who provides the true bread through the Word.  Now, Jesus says, it is he who comes as Word and Bread. 

What we are called to do is to believe in Jesus as the Bread of Life for the world.  Not just someone who did something special in the healings and miracles of the past.  (Maybe He  is even someone who fed us in our need in the past too.)  But he is the One who meets our present and future needs.  When we enter into the work of believing, we too cry, “Lord, give us this bread always!” (John 6:34). 

We yearn to touch that which will sustain us in body, mind, and spirit.  And so God gives us this special meal together.  Jesus knew that the work of God in him would be completed in his death on the cross, and so he shared with his disciples a simple meal with bread and wine.  In the elements, he taught, are his body and blood.  For those who believe, the bread of communion becomes the Bread of Life, the body of Christ.  The wine is the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.  And we, who hunger for healing and love and forgiveness, reach out and receive it in our hands. 

Sustained in faith, we are sent out to meet the hungers of the world.  We do what we can to respond to human need.  Sometimes we can feed them with physical food.  But more importantly, we can do the work of God to feed them with hope.  Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in my will never be thirsty.”  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  Happy are they who trust in him.  Amen.