Jesus has another kind of nourishment in mind. He wants to draw us into a higher, deeper, more genuine form of human life and health, a life abiding in God, even as God abides in us. This is the life we are made for. This is the “true bread” for which we hunger and thirst, right down to our toes — and we sense, however dimly, our disconnection from this nourishment, this genuine form of human-life-in-God, of God-with-us, this companionship into which Jesus calls us every day.
For John, this is what “faith” is really all about: not merely intellectual assent to some particular set of claims, but rather a deeply relational, emotional, intellectual, existential trust in God, a bone-deep sense that God loves us and cares for us, and a consequent impulse to live with love, gratitude, and grace. To be companions with God (and remember, the “pan” in “companionship” means “bread”), an arrangement Jesus eventually calls “friendship” (John 15:15).
God gives us not only our “daily bread,” but also the bread of heaven, the bread of life itself. Humanity doesn’t live on physical bread alone. There’s another bread, another food that God provides, another manna in the wilderness. Hearing this, we might well say, with the crowds: Give us this bread always! And Jesus replies, I am that bread — come to me, and trust in me, and be fed, and thrive. For just as Jesus is God’s Word made flesh, he is also God’s love made tangible, the bread that “gives life to the world” (John 6:33).
--SALT Project
Image source: Sieger Köder, Jesus Eats with Tax Collectors, https://timehrhardt.com/2022/02/09/luke-527-32-included-through-hospitality/
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