Bread of Heaven, Bread of Life

So humble, our Savior. As down-to-earth as mere bread to which Jesus symbolically fashions himself… his very essence goes far beyond a food group and becomes the life-sustenance for all who believe.

At the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus used five loaves of bread and two fish. His miracle of the feeding seemed to go unnoticed by some of the Jews, who asked for another sign that Jesus was sent from God, as though this miracle didn’t satisfy them enough. Apparently, they were so enthralled with the free meal, the carbs must have fogged their minds so that they missed the whole message of Christ. He was their Messiah and was right in their midst, yet the concept went over their heads.

Do not labor for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life ~ John 6:27

While they may have remembered the manna from heaven that God had provided while they traveled the desert, they didn’t quite catch the metaphor that God, through Jesus, is the “Bread of Life.”

Our appetites are assuaged by the baker’s bread, but our lives can only be fully satisfied by the one true manna from heaven—the essential element for a complete, whole existence both now and through eternity.