Festival of St. Patrick, Bishop and Confessor
Posted on March 17, 2021 by under
Scripture: St. John 6:41-51 (NKJV)
6:41 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” 42 And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
Devotion
Jesus’ statement, “I am the bread come down from heaven,” got the Jews grumbling again. First, they attacked the words “from heaven,” arguing they knew Jesus’ earthly parents. What they did not know is the identity of Jesus’ heavenly Father. Even though He had told them, they would not believe. They had rejected the “draw” of the Father (verse 44). Second, they objected to Jesus calling Himself “heavenly bread”—a gift far greater than the earthly sustenance given by God in the desert.
Jesus’ message to these Jews was essentially the same one He gave to Nicodemus in Chapter 3 (about spiritual birth) and to the Samaritan woman in Chapter 4 (about living water). Whether described as a birth in the Spirit, living water, or living bread, the only way to the Father and everlasting life is through the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ. And the only way to the Son is to believe in the eternal promises given in God’s Holy Word. That Word is the sole source of His heavenly “draw” (Rom. 10:17). If we ignore it, we are lost. But if we allow it to have its way, we will indeed have “the bread of life.” God grant that we hunger for such divine food, that we may hold fast to everlasting life.
Prayer: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of Thy grace may mercifully be relieved, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
