Chapter Twenty-Five
E
ager, hungry faces. More than anything, this excited Jesus. For him, teaching was not just dispensing information. For Jesus, teaching was an entree into life for the student. It was a way of growing them toward the reason they had life in the first place. A farmer cultivates the soil, fertilizes it and plants the seed. The sun shines, the rains come and the seed germinates and begins to push its tendrils toward the surface of the earth and conversely, deep into the rich soil beneath. The farmer continues to cultivate the soil around the new plant, adds more fertilizer, trims the plant so that those parts of it most suited to bearing fruit receive maximum nourishment, and then it happens. Harvest time. The plant bears fruit — each plant according to its own uniqueness, some a hundredfold, some fifty, and some ten. How much they bear is not relevant. It matters only that they are healthy. It matters only that they produce their potential. This for Jesus, was the joy of teaching. He loved to see the impact of it in the lives of his hearers. He loved to bring light and life from his students. Redemption. That is the reason Jesus taught. That is what motivated and drove him. This is true of any good teacher.
As he taught they asked him, “What must we do to do the work God requires? How may we please him?”
“The work of God is this: Believe in the one he has sent. Concern yourself with this and you will please God.”
It was the morning of the sixth day of the week. The venue was the synagogue in Capharnaum. His students that day were those there who had seen him break bread to thousands of men, women and children. Incredibly, they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
The teacher’s most maddening frustration. How is it that you can give students the plainest demonstration, the plainest and most simple instruction, and still they do not understand? They look at you as though what you had done in their presence had no relevance; what you just said may as well have been in a language unfamiliar to their ear. It is downright painful to explain something in the simplest terms, only to be asked questions which reveal that your listeners seem not to have heard a syllable. “He gave them bread from heaven to eat,” they said. In feeding this many people from a small boy’s lunch, what had Jesus just done? It seemed that some people were just willfully stupid.
Jesus responded as one would expect, “Your hearts are hard.” Shaking his head, he looked at them in consternation. “You are so dense, so slow to believe no matter the magnitude of miracle you see. Let me tell you something. Moses did not give you bread from heaven. My Father gave you that bread from heaven. But the truest bread of God is the bread that gives life to the entire world.”
His words fell on ears preoccupied with entirely another agenda. Sharing conspiratorial glances among themselves, they said with cynicism, “Then give us this bread. Let us feed on it. With bread like that, we should live forever!”
“Yes,” another cried with derision, “we could eat a mountain of bread like that.”
Jesus responded with incredulity, “How simple do I have to make this?” Then he said as plainly as he could to them, articulating each word as though speaking to a deaf person hoping he could read his lips, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.“ He paused for effect. “What do you think of that? What will you do with that?” Silence. They didn’t comprehend. “I know,” he said, “you have seen me, you have witnessed an extraordinary miracle and still you do not believe. Your brains are so thick and your hearts are so hardened that you will never open them to the Father who loves you.”
All that my Father gives me will come to me, — a private thought. He intuitively knew that the Father spoke through his Spirit to the inward parts of men and women. He knew no one would come, no one would listen unless this had happened. He continued the thought out loud declaring, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away. I came from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. Do you wonder what that will is? Well, here it is. It is his will that I shall lose none of those he has given me. At the last day, I will raise them up and give them eternal life. And they will look as new and as fresh as Adam on his first day in the Garden!” This they heard and were stunned at his words. “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and you can be sure that I will raise each one up at the last day.” There was no ambiguity. Jesus had connected. It wasn’t that they accepted the truth of his teaching, but they had at length, understood it.
The people were silenced and considered, but the religious leadership complained at his claim that he was “. . . the bread that came down from heaven.” This profoundly violated their beliefs about Moses and the manna from heaven; beliefs cherished and sanctified, beliefs that had become sacerdotal ornaments in what amounted to their corpus of faith. Faith can be a corpus you know; a collection of beliefs that are sometimes best represented by a corpse. And so it was among them. They said among themselves, “This is Jesus! This is the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know! How can this man say, ‘I came from heaven’?” How indeed!
Listening to them dismayed Jesus. No one seemed to really understand or believe. Not these men, not his many disciples, not even the twelve. There were times that he remembered who he really was. Times when he felt so distanced, so separated from other men. This was one of those times. He knew who he was and what he had come to do. If these were to benefit from him, they would have to know it, too. “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” he said. “Not a single one of you can come to me unless the Father brings you to me. When that happens, you will change in your hearts, from the inside out. When you finally believe, I will raise you up at the last day as a butterfly emerges from a cocoon. Do you remember where the prophets wrote, ‘They will all be taught by God’? Everyone who listens to the Father, everyone who is taught by him comes to me. If you do not listen, if you refuse to hear his voice, you will not come. You will remain forever alien to me.”
“Have you seen the Father? Look behind a tree or a bush. Perhaps you will find him there. Look in your homes. Look in the synagogue. You will not see the Father no matter how hard you look for him. You will not find him no matter how hard you seek him, because he comes on his own. He seeks out and comes to the hungry heart. No one has seen the Father but me. Let me repeat, only I have seen the Father. If you believe that I came from God like manna from heaven, you will have my life in you. You will have life eternal. It is mine to give to you when you respond to the Father’s invitation for you to come.”
“Look. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. Every single one of them — all dead! But I am the bread of life! If a man eats this bread I offer in myself, he will not die. Can you not understand? I am the living bread — the bread of life — that came from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world.”
Well, his listeners couldn’t deal with that. They began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this fool give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus looked at them darkly. He thought for a moment. They were so hostile. They had closed him out. The moment for reasoning had passed. These men wanted war. Well, he would give it to them, “I tell you the truth,” he said, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Nostrils flared. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. I live because of the Father; the one who feeds on me will live because of me. I am the bread from heaven. Your forefathers are dead.” As he said this the brutal finality of it began to take effect. “Feed on me and live forever.” Jesus rose from his seat in the Capharnaum synagogue, and silently made his way through the crowd. For a moment, no one spoke.
As he reached the door he heard some of them mutter, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
He stopped at the doorway and turning to them said, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? Will that convince you? The Spirit gives life. Flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Still there are some of you who will never believe.” Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and those who would betray him. “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him to do so.” With that, he left.
From this time many turned away and no longer followed him. Later, when he was alone with the twelve he said, “Do you plan to leave as well?”
“Lord, where shall we go? And to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. There is no doubt among any of us that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus would not be comforted, “I have chosen you twelve!” He shook his head and buried his face in his hands, “Yet one of you is a devil!”
