Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33).

Hope you had a good weekend!  Welcome back to this week’s Connect Devotionals!

We’re deep into John 6 this week, following our For Now/Forever theme.  We get so enmeshed in our “now” that we can lose track of God’s “forever.”  And we can miss all the ways in which God’s “forever” is constantly intersecting with all of our “nows.”  And John 6 is a great place to explore all of this!

John 6 begins with what John designates as “a miraculous sign”: Jesus feeds an enormous crowd by multiplying a boy’s small lunch.  Jesus then walks on water and he and his disciples return to “home base” in the little village of Capernaum.

The crowd regathers back in Capernaum, and a back-and-forth ensues. The crowd fires questions at Jesus, and Jesus responds with some very challenging replies.  “What must we do to do the works God requires?” they ask.  Jesus answers, “The work of God is to believe in the one he has sent.”

This week’s passage (John 6:30-40) steps off from there.  The crowd poses a new question: “What miraculous sign will you give that we may see it and believe you?  Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert …”  Many in this crowd have just experienced Jesus’ miraculous feeding of a large crowd in the middle of nowhere by simply multiplying a boy’s small lunch.  This experience reminds them of someone and something—Moses fed a multitude in a wilderness!  With manna, the “bread of heaven.”

“So Jesus,” they are saying, “how do we know you’re the one whom God sent?  You provided a meal for all of us.  Impressive!  But Moses fed the nation of Israel for forty years!  Can you top Moses?”

Jesus reminds them that it was God, not Moses, who provided the manna.  And note how Jesus puts it: “My Father is the one who gives (present tense) you (not “ancient Israel”) the true bread from heaven.  That true bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  They want to talk about the past; Jesus tells them that God’s forever is invading their now, right now!

They’re in (they think): “Sir, from now on give us this bread.”

Then Jesus makes it clear, almost too clear: “The food that endures for eternal life, the bread from heaven, the true bread that God gives – I am that bread.  I don’t give it; I am it.  The manna in the wilderness sustained Israel for forty years; I am the bread that sustains, now and forever.  Get ‘bread’ off your brains and receive me, the Bread of LIfe, into your lives.”

What are some things that are “on your brain” in ways that keep you from listening to and receiving from Jesus?