Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

Some Christians speak a lot about “the Lord” as if they have him in their hip pocket and seem to feel that it’s no harder to figure out what He wants them to do in any given situation than to look up how to make a curry on RecipeTin Eats. The whole shadow side of human existence – the suffering, the doubt, the frustration, the ambiguity – appears absent from their view of things. It seems to them that God is utterly predictable and controllable.
This is not the ‘the Lord’ of today’s Gospel. Here, Jesus responds to the crowd with the first of 7 ‘I am’ ascriptions in John’s Gospel, namely, … “I am the bread of life”.
The “I am” ascriptions echo The Lord’s response to Moses’ question in Exodus Chapter 3. Moses asks, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them? … God said to Moses, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:13-14) Yahweh! Yahweh is the essence of being, yet unable to be named, controlled and domesticated.
In employing the sacred ascription, “I am,”, Jesus is making very clear to the crowd, and those who read today’s gospel …us … that he is the great “I am”; the definitive revelation of Yahweh.
Rather than reduce how we speak about God to following a recipe … we would do well to live into this mystery, this truth. Jesus is the great “I am!”

How can you embrace the mystery of Jesus, the bread of life?