A Fresh Perspective - 09/05/08
In the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, after Jesus had fed the multitude with a few barley loaves and two pieces of fish, the crowd that had witnessed this "sign" wanted to make Jesus king (6:15). But Jesus, of course, resisted. Jesus would not be king on their terms.
The real significance of the "sign," from John's perspective, has to do with Jesus being the living bread from heaven, the one who can provide an authentic human existence. The image of "living bread" or "bread from heaven" recalls the manna that God provided for Israel in the wilderness. In our wilderness journey Jesus supplies the "bread" we need to sustain and nourish us throughout our pilgrimage.
Of course, the crowd in John 6 (as typical of most of the characters in John's Gospel) does not make the connection. They want Jesus to be what they want him to be.
This aspect of the human condition hasn't changed much over time. We still tend to fashion Jesus into the kind of Messiah we want him to be.
We ignore his radical teachings (about loving our enemies, non - violence, practicing unlimited forgiveness, etc.), his radical lifestyle (a life of simplicity and non - complicity with the prevailing social, political, and religious system), and his radical actions (welcoming tax collectors and "sinners" at an inclusive table, his cleansing of the temple, etc.) in favor of a Savior whose main concern is to rescue people from hell. Or we turn Jesus into the means of personal fulfillment and proclaim him as the key to a successful life (usually defined in American terms).
I think it was John Ortburg who shared an experience of standing in line at McDonald's when his kids were small, trying to talk them out of a "Happy Meal." He told them that if they bought from the menu he would take them afterwards to get a real toy. But they wanted none of that. They started chanting, "We want a Happy Meal! We want a Happy Meal."
We are just big kids. The only difference is that our "Happy Meals" have become more socially and theologically sophisticated and accepted by our culture. We make Jesus into the answer for all our problems, forgetting that Jesus created as many problems as he solved for his disciples.
We don't need a Christ who conforms to our expectations and caters to our desires. We need a Christ who challenges our expectations and reorders our desires.
We have a propensity to take our God - given desires for good things—food, beauty, sex, knowledge, relationships, work, leisure, security, and self - value—and turn them into addictions, wrap them in distortions, and become absorbed by them.
Later in John 6 Jesus will say to the crowd, "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (6:27). What we need most of all is for Christ to help us discern the difference between the food that spoils and the food that supplies an authentic human life—life as God designed it to be lived.