(Audio)
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.
About what kind of life was Jesus speaking? The manna in the desert gave life, at least in a limited sense. It gave them the strength they needed to continue on their pilgrimage and not collapse from hunger along the way. It kept them alive where starvation might have claimed them. Jesus was telling the crowd that there is more to life than survival.
So they said to Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
The crowd was interested. Mere survival so dominated their thinking that there wasn't room for much else. Yet they could imagine freedom from the endless cycle of hunger, struggle, eating, and then back to hunger once more.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
Jesus promised something more than a one time intervention that would simply remove or even permanently transcend those natural desires. He promised that those who sated themselves on the bread that he would give would have those desires so relativized that as to make them insignificant. Even the desire for life itself would no longer be something to which we would need to claw and cling.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
Stephen was so satisfied by the bread from heaven that he was even able to lay down his own life as an act of peace and forgiveness. He became like the gift which he himself first received. He was now a life given away so as to be shared. Maybe this is what planted an early seed in the mind of Saul.
Now Saul was consenting to his execution.
In giving his life away Stephen revealed something about what being filled with the grace of the heavenly bread looks like. He demonstrated a stability and a peace that could not be caused by this world or the things therein. Only the bread from heaven was a sufficient explanation. So to for us. To the degree that we receive this bread we are satisfied. Yet even while we are satisfied our hope for more grows greater and greater. It isn't like the bread which leaves us hungry and disappointed. Taking more in our greed and our need only leaves us bloated and more hungry later on. Rather, the bread of heaven is a hope that does not disappoint. There is always more available to us. It takes us from one degree of glory to another (see Second Corinthians 3:18). Through it God brings the good work begun in us to completion (see Philippians 1:6).
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
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