(aka the life we really live vs the life we’re MEANT to live)
Jesus has told a crowd of hungry Jews, that HE is the Bread of Life. I AM, He said. I came down out of heaven, and I will raise up out of death all who come to Me. All who believe in Jesus will live forever with Him in heaven. This is the Good News. However, there’s an expiration date to this offer, only good until THE Last Day (or our own personal last day, whichever comes first).
However - Jesus’ offer of eternal life is NOT good news to everyone. Some people don’t want to follow Jesus: [we actually can see 3 groups of people in this crowd now: "the Jews" (non-followers), disciples (near-followers), and the 12 (genuine followers).]
[41 Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?”] Grumbling. Gonguzo. In the Greek it’s an onomatopoeia. Like murmur. Grumble. [try it: say, gonguzo] And isn’t this what consumers do? When we don’t get what we want, when we want it, when we don’t like what’s being offered, we grumble, don't we [as in, 1star reviews]. These folks here - like so many - don’t like what Jesus is selling. They don’t like what He’s saying. He’s from “Nazareth” - He lacks credibility to begin with, and He appears to be contradicting Himself. Plus He "appears" to lack proof [altho, He will provide all the proof anyone should require when He rises from the dead][61-62]. Is it hometown prophet syndrome? Familiarity can breed disrespect. Wait - we know his parents. He’s just a local. What does He even know? He’s certainly not from heaven. He’s from Nazareth. He’s just a carpenter. [actually He’s so much more… MTaC - great book!]
But really, they don’t like His terms. Trust in Me (NOT yourself). Surrender to Me, to what I want (NOT what you want). We want life on our terms, but Jesus doesn’t reign on our terms. Even with faith, we want to believe on our terms. We want to retain control. And real life? We think we’re in control. And Jesus now speaks to that:
[43-46 Jesus said, “Do not bicker among yourselves over Me. You are not in charge here. The Father who sent Me is in charge. He draws people to Me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do My work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘And then they will all be personally taught by God.’ • Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to Me to be taught personally—to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from Me, since I have it first hand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has His Being alongside the Father—and you can see Me” (John 6:43–46, The Message).] The Father draws people. Hearing from the Father. You are not in charge here. Eternal life does not come to you on your terms. It is a gift from the Father, and it only comes thru Me. But whoever comes to Me, I WILL RAISE HIM UP! Guaranteed.
And Jesus now drops His next double truly :[47-51 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”] [Spiritual] truth: the one believing (in Jesus) has eternal life. AND He repeats His first I AM statement: I am the Bread of life. Whoever eats this bread, ie believes in Me, will live forever. The manna bread your fathers ate in the wilderness - they died. It didn’t give them REAL life. But I do. Thus the ultimate paradox of Christianity: the bread which I give for the LIFE of the world is My flesh. In other words, My death. Life out of death. Eternal life for mortal/dying beings thru the real physical dying of the undying God. WHOEVER eats THIS bread (believes), he will live forever. [Physical] impossibility. Eternal reality. Real life.
Now they’re arguing [52]. “Eat his flesh? How?” Some of what Jesus says IS hard to understand. How CAN I be born a second time? How DO we eat something that we can’t even touch? How DO we believe/trust something/someone we can’t see? How’s this possible? It makes no sense. It doesn’t fit with how we see the physical world. They’re still totally focused on the physical. Yes, we are hungry - but how is it even possible for this man to give us his flesh to eat?
To which Jesus busts out another truly truly [53-58]. You really need to know this. I’ve been trying to explain that this “eating” is a spiritual thing, it’s a metaphor for belief. Just as we take physical food into our physical bodies, you need to take Me into your heart. So yes, you need to eat My flesh and drink My blood. But this is not about your mouth, or your empty belly. This is about your empty heart, about a spiritual relationship. This is real life. You know Me, live in/thru Me, and I live in you, as you trust in Me. And you will really live. Forever.
By now the disciples - those who are sort-of following Him (at least physically) - are grumbling [60-61]. This word is hard. In fact they’re stumbling over what He’s saying, trying to understand these truths. It’s tripping them up. They’re tripping over what He’s saying. And more than that, they’re at a tipping point, trying to decide whether or not they are gonna keep following Him. For now at least, many of them go away [66]. They go “away to the back”. Why? This doesn’t make any sense (Jesus doesn’t always make sense). They’re not getting anything out of it any longer. They never did trust, and actually, Jesus knew they wouldn’t from the beginning [64].
Attending meetings, appearing to physically follow Jesus, repeating words, doesn’t mean that someone believes. Why were they following Jesus? Cuz He filled their bellies. They got something out of it. But now they’re grumbling/stumbling over what He is saying. His words. [63] Hard to understand? I use physical terms but these represent spiritual truths, and these truths are the way to LIFE. I am the Bread of life, come down out of heaven, and you need to eat My flesh. You don’t think I’m from heaven? Wait and see… But the truth/power in what He’s saying is that real life, eternal life, is not found in a loaf of bread, it’s not found in any earthly thing, it’s not found in any earthly person. The flesh profits nothing. Not in [eternity]. Fully bellies are all well and good in this life, but this life is all about getting ready for the next one. All of this, all the good and the bad and the ugly - it’s all about getting you and me (and our neighbor) ready for eternity. Real life, eternal life is found in Jesus and HIS Word. [*Deut 8.3]
We find this contrast, this battle: the Spirit vs the flesh. Things of the Spirit, the realm of eternal life vs the physical, what we can touch, and see. The temporal. Some of us are willing to follow Jesus up to a point. We’ll give up a Sunday morning. We’ll give up a few minutes. But when His words call me to something hard for my flesh, then we go to the back. We back off. It doesn’t make sense, it’s inconvenient, it feels uncertain, unsafe, it’s not who I am. Many of these “disciples” give up when they’re asked to give something up.
[67-69] Jesus now comes to the twelve, the ones He chose, and invites them to choose. Peter seizes on the words. Cuz much of the following to this point has been because of the signs. They saw the signs He did in Jerusalem. In Judea. In Samaria. On the mountain. But Peter says, it’s Your words. You have words of eternal life. Real life. When God begins drawing you, when you sense Him nudging you towards more of this life in the Spirit, that is the time to realize, there is no one better. There is nowhere better. And He has the words of eternal life. This is eternal life. This is real life, the life you and I were designed for, the life we were always meant to live. This brief temporary life is all about getting ready for eternity. And Jesus is the Way. He is the Life. [1.4] [*Heb 3.12 - a warning...]
*Referenced verses
Deut. 8:3 “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you 1understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
Heb 3.12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Other verses
Mark 8:34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
Mark 10:28 Peter began to say to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 1but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.
James 1:12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
Heb. 13:6 we confidently say, “THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?”
Is. 40:21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. 23 He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. 24 Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.
