What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
Of course there had already been signs but they most of the crowd failed to recognize them. Yet some in the crowd were starting to suggest that Jesus was "truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world" (see John 6:14), the one fulfilling the promise of Moses, that "[t]he Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—" (see Deuteronomy 18:15). Others in the crowd were not ready to believe this. This insisted that if Jesus was the one promised by Moses he should do a sign significant enough to demonstrate it. That is why they provoked him by speaking of what happened by God through Moses:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
What those who said this seemed to fail to grasp was that the bread from heaven was not a work of Moses, but rather of the Father. There were asking Jesus to compete on a merely human level as if he were matching his own superpowers against those of Moses. But Moses was not in the same league as Jesus. Moses was involved in God providing sustenance that was only a sign pointing toward something greater. The Father was the one that gave that gift. And the greater gift toward which it pointed also originated in the Father's heart.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.
The crowd was briefly captivated by the promise of bread that, unlike the manna in the desert, gave life to the world. It seems that they would have been happy with anything they could have on their own terms, whether it was a sign that they could judge, or miraculous food that they could obtain. They would have been happy to concede that Jesus was greater than Moses if he would concede to these terms. However, Jesus was not only the giver of the gift but also the gift itself.
So they said to Jesus,
"Sir, give us this bread always."
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 was wisdom setting her table (see Proverbs 9:1-6). He longed to fulfill the prophesy made through Isaiah:
Why spend your money for what is not bread;
your wages for what does not satisfy?
Only listen to me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Pay attention and come to me;
listen, that you may have life (see Isaiah 55:2-3).
He had been born in Bethlehem, the city of bread, and a trough from which animals fed, indicating from the very first that he was to be food for the world. But now, as he began to demonstrate that all of these threads pointed to him specifically the crowds took umbrage. The more concretely specific the revelation of God became, the harder it was for them to contain. The more Jesus revealed himself to be the fulfillment of every promise the more than came to understand that they could not have this fulfillment on their own terms. Yet, even so, Jesus still addressed himself to their desires. He promised an end to hunger and thirst, true spiritual fulfillment. The only question for the crowd would be whether their insistence on having it there way was so great that it would prevent them from having it at all any other way.
It is too easy to pay lip service to the great stories of salvation history and then find ourselves to stand in the shoes of the grumbling crowds or the persecutors of Stephen when such events play out in our lives. When their is no cost to our ego it is easy to affirm all that we are supposed to affirm about Jesus. But when there is the indication that it might require us to increasingly relinquish control of our lives to Jesus himself, what then? The secret that allowed Saint Stephen to stand fast, to be both bold and gentle, even during persecution was that he allowed the Holy Spirit to lead him. The one who was the bread of life had become the source of his own life to such a degree that his own death now mirrored that of Jesus himself.
"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";
May way also come to be so filled with the Spirit that we learn to live only for the bread which truly satisfies.
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