“Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat (Joh 6:5)?’”
Historians disagree on whether it was Napoleon or Fredrick the Great who said, “an army marches on its stomach.” Regardless of its origin, the statement points to the strategic and universal importance of logistics, and specifically sustenance, to the success of any army.
Gravy, Rise, and Raisins
I remember learning this lesson as a young cadet at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. We had been trying to keep up with an offensive action and every evening we had to advance in order to maintain communications with the leading elements. Unfortunately, we advanced every evening just before the LOGPAC (Logistics Package) arrived at our location. That truck had our evening meal. This occurred three nights in a row.
Now, before you ask, “didn’t you have an MRE?” Yes, we did. MRE stands for Meal Ready to Eat and consists of a prepackaged, sealed, and often just barely palatable meal. Each package contains enough calories for an entire day. However, if you have been in the military for even a small amount of time you may know that sometimes it is better to go a little hungry than eat another MRE. While they all but never perish, they do get old. Add to that a very demanding activity cycle and even with a box of MRE’s available sometimes you just don’t eat.
When the logisticians found out that we had missed three of our meals they took swift action. The scrounged the leftovers from breakfast, mostly burnt sausage gravy scraped from the side of a pan, white rice, and some raisins. The raisins seemed random to me but there they were. Anyway, they made a special trip to deliver this meal and I will never forget. It was served in paper dixie cups and to this day it is the best gravy, rice, and raisins I have ever had.
In asking the question, “where are we to buy bread” Jesus isn’t making a logistical observation regarding a large crowd rather, he is highlighting the beginning of an important, strategic, and universal message. The miracle of feeding of the five thousand, a miracle that was both messianic in its impossibility and symbolic in its connection to the Old Testament, serves to emphasize the important message. All of chapter six of the Gospel of John is dedicated to this single message. What is that message? That Jesus is the bread of life!
In the Old Testament Moses asked of God, “Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me (Num 11:13-14).” God answered Moses’ request for food by providing mana. When Jesus asks a similar question, Jesus is drawing a connection or comparison between Him and Moses for the crowd.
Part of the Messianic expectation of Jesus’ day came from a passage in Deuteronomy in which God promised a prophet like Moses (Deu 18:15-18). That crowd was looking for another Moses. Here, Jesus, by miraculously multiplying five loaves of barley and two fish, is telling His audience that He is not simply a prophet like Moses but that He is superior to Moses. When the crowd heard they understood and then attempted to force God’s move by making Him their king. Jesus withdrew (John 6:15). It was not yet His time.
The Clues
The next day Jesus brings the crowd back to the feeding of the five thousand and then gives them the first clue about the bread of life. The bread of life will not perish. It will endure to eternal life. “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 (Joh 6:27).”
The second clue is in the response of the crowd. Somehow, they connect eternal life to the works of God. Their question, “is from the legal stand-point, works being regarded as the condition of obtaining the living bread (Vincent 1887, 148).” What must we do is the equivalent of asking how do we get this bread or even more specifically how do we eat this bread? Jesus’ answer is “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent (Joh 6:29).” To receive the bread of life, to eat the bread of life is to believe in Jesus.
Jesus brings it home when he says, “it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world (Joh 6:32-33)” and the crowd responds, “Sir, give us this bread always (Joh 6:34).” Here I suspect that they, the crowd, is meaning the barley loaves from the day before. One of the challenges of interpretation is that Jesus is trading on two metaphors one of which while spiritual was very literal. The Israelites actually survived by eating the mana. It was actual sustenance in the literal meaning of the term. However, the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is the second and it too was a literal meal. Are we to then consume Jesus body in the literal sense of the word? Nope. That would be too literal.
To eat of the bread of life is to consume the doctrine of the sacrificial messiah. The manna was both intended to point us too this truth. “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Deu 8:3).”
Further, in the Gospel of Mark Jesus tells His disciples, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod (Mar 8:15).” This is taking the metaphor of the bread to another level. Here He is making a connection not to just any bread but to the bread of the Passover. The bread of the Passover was to be free of yeast or leaven (Exo 12:15, Deu 16:3). “The leaven was a piece of unbaked fermented dough from a previous batch, that was normally added to the fresh dough to make it rise (Osborn and Hatton 1999, 281).” To add leaven to the Law was to mix something with the fresh teaching.
Today
Today, it is still true that Jesus is the bread of life. The Messiah who bled and died for you that you may have eternal life simply by believing that He is who He says He is and that He has done what He says He has done is the pure doctrine of life. Today, just as in Jesus’ day, we also have to be careful that we do not add leaven to God’s doctrine. Today’s leaven is just as damaging as the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. The Israelites were warned in their day that if anyone ate what was leavened during the Passover celebration that they would be cut off from the nation (Exo 12:15). To be cut off from the bread of the Passover, the bread of life, is to be cut off from eternal life. What doctrines are you consuming?
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Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash
Osborn, Noel D., and Howard A. Hatton. A Handbook on Exodus. New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1999.
Vincent, Marvin Richardson. Word Studies in the New Testament. Vol. 2. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887.