Daily Bread

A Sermon on John 6:22-35 and Exodus 16:2-15 for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the fall of humanity at the  garden into sin, God proclaimed this to Adam. “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

The Lord uses a very specific word that should probably surprise us. By the the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Bread doesn’t grow on trees. Wheat grows. But wheat isn’t bread yet. First it needs planted and harvested. Then it needs milled. Then it needs baked. Farmer, miller, baker. All must work. All need to eat. So bread isn’t free. It takes the combined effort of all in order have their daily bread. And this is part of the curse.

So when Jesus feeds the five thousand and gives away bread without work, they all go back to Him, looking for more. Because this is a great deal. Jesus gives bread, and they like to eat. But Jesus calls them out on it. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” In other words, there is a better bread than the one Adam and His children had to work for. There is one that comes by the work of God that not only lasts forever, it sustains the one who eats forever as well.

So naturally, the people ask, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” If this bread is as good as You say, Jesus, then we want to eat it by the sweat of our brow, just as God told us from the beginning. And there is something right about what they said and something wrong. Jesus corrects the wrong immediately. “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 

Don’t go over that verse too fast though. Or you’ll think that believing is the work. That’s not what Jesus said. This, referring to Himself, is the work of God. That is why the Father set His seal upon Him. Jesus is the work of God apart from yours, so that, with the result that you believe in Him who the Father sent. They asked Jesus which works, plural. Jesus points to the work, singular, that is His alone. 

That is why Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the one who planted the seed, and who is the seed. Jesus is the one who reaps a harvest, and is the harvest. Jesus is the one who is run through the mill and crushed. Jesus is the one who is cooked by the fiery wrath of God over sin. Jesus is the one who feeds us His own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, which He purchased with His life at the cross. And that bread of life is here today for you. 

So then, what did the people get right when they asked Jesus about the works of God? They got right the kind of bread Jesus was offering them. And that’s not something that you pastor here has always understood. You see, I like to talk about the Lord’s Supper a lot. How it’s the great feast. How it’s a heaven and earth coming together in this place. How it’s the power of God unto salvation being delivered to you. And these things are all true. But they’re fantastic, overwhelming, intense. 

What they understood the bread Jesus was offering to be was ordinary, plain, monotonous even. And they were right. Granted it took work to eat. But everyone eats. Everyone has bread of one kind or another. It might have a different shape or flavor, depending on what part of the world you’re from. But there is no culture, no civilization without bread of some kind. And it is a staple. It is eaten every day. Whether that’s four thousand years ago, or today in your supermarket. Bread is everywhere. Because it is necessary to eat. 

That’s what they were asking Jesus for. Bread from heaven, just like the manna their forefathers ate every single day in the wilderness. A bread without work, but bread all the same. Sunday through Friday, with twice as much on Friday so that they could rest on the Sabbath. Just given to them every day for forty years. Enough to sustain them for the day. The Lord provided them with daily bread, just as we pray for today. 

Jesus is this bread for us. All the other things as well, to be sure. But Jesus tells us to take, and eat, because we need what He gives to us every day. We need to be sustained. We can’t survive by going hungry from what God gives. Because the world out there doesn’t slow down for us. It puts pressure on us every day. Pushing us to either take pride in our own strength, or to despair utterly. Driving us not only to sin, but to accept sin as a good and healthy part of our lives. To teach others about the benefits of sin. The ones our world nudges us to today on us are sexual immorality of all kinds, including premarital, divorce, homosexuality, transgender issues and much more. But that’s not all. Bearing false witness. Murder of the undesired. Theft on the individual and national levels. And we’re told that we can’t say anything about it, because it’s too political? God dying on a cross was an intensely political act. 

But this level of pressure is far more than we can take. It burns through our energy. Our resilience is running on empty. And we need to eat. So Jesus says, Take and eat. Not just for the forgiveness of sins, which is so big that we cannot even fathom it. Not just for eternal life, which is so amazing that we can’t even imagine it. But so that you would have something to sustain you day to day from the assaults of the devil, the world, and our own sinful hearts. 

That is what Jesus gives here. Bread from heaven. A manna that we don’t have to work for. A meal that keeps is going. Daily bread. With the result that you believe in the one the Father sent. And along with the food for today, every other gift that comes with it as well. 

Our Lord does indeed sustain us for each day. It isn’t always flashy. It isn’t always special. You might not notice all that much different every day you have it, but we would never survive without it. As Jesus said to them that day, He says to us as well. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” And here we are, around His table as He has called us. Receiving the food that keeps us alive, yet was not our work at all. It is all from Jesus. And it is Jesus. And He’s here for your sake.

Let us pray. Gracious Father, You sent Your Son down from heaven to be our daily bread. Sustain us in Christ Jesus our Lord, through His body and His blood. Prepare us to endure what awaits us in the world every day. And bring us at last into eternal life. Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.