Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
– John 6:35-40
In this Practical Christianity series we have moved from things more traditionally thought as disciplines like prayer, worship and scripture study to things that might be more readily thought of as lifestyle patterns. In the previous week we covered forgiveness, and today we look at witness. The term “witness” may be variously defined within Christianity. For today, I would like to think of witness as connecting people to God.
In that regard, it is easy to conclude that for the three years documented in the gospel accounts Jesus led a purposeful life of witness. The Gospels do not tell us about every day of that three-year period, not even close. Still, they tell us enough to demonstrate that Jesus approached his days with his mission in mind, namely to connect people to God whenever and wherever he had the opportunity. It is something he embraced from the beginning of his earthly ministry. Luke 4 tells us of Jesus’ visit to the Nazareth synagogue, where he read from Isaiah 61 and then shocked the crowd by telling them that the prophetic, healing ministry described there was now fulfilled in himself. In verses 38-40 of our text from John 6, Jesus tells the crowd, “I have come not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me,” and “the will of the Father is for those who come to the Son to HAVE eternal life.” Witness was the purpose of his days.
The text of John 6 is itself a great analogy of what Jesus offers our world. A great crowd of people had been miraculously fed by Jesus. The next day the crowd migrates around the Sea of Galilee until they find where Jesus has went. It is then that Jesus confronts them with the reality that the only reason they pursued him was so they could get a belly-full again (see verse 26). He then exhorts the people to pursue better bread, eternal bread, lasting bread that would perpetually satisfy. Jesus knew he was talking to hungry people! It is no different in our modern day. People are hungry, but we keep pursuing things than never truly satisfy.
Consider this question: are people in our modern Western society happy? One would think we should be. After all, we have modern conveniences that 50 years ago were considered science fiction. We are prosperous and immersed in methods designed to entertain, stimulate and please us. Nevertheless, one only needs to look briefly at our social discourse to know that we are miserable people. We are angry, anxious, depressed, distracted, and utterly dissatisfied. Why? It may be that we are chasing the wrong “bread.”
In his sermon titled The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis talks about an “inconsolable secret”, i.e. our longing for God, “that we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we long to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it.” Objects and experiences like literature/poetry or music may have been conduits through which the eternal beauty comes, but these are not the source themselves. “They are only the scent of the flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard….” We know that we are hungry, and for Lewis the fact that we are hungry is good evidence that something exists that will satisfy the hunger. Until we find that satisfaction in Christ, though, we will remain hungry.
This is where Jesus comes in. As a Christian believer, it is also where we come in. Evangelism has been described as nothing more than one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. This is an apt analogy for our lesson here. Every day we encounter hungry people. We usually don’t have to watch and listen very long before that becomes evident. If we have ears to hear, we will come to know their stories and how they have tried to satisfy their deepest longings. Jesus was great at this, and we can be also since it is the Holy Spirit that communicates between someone else’s spirit and ours.
The Winding Path 