a study in sustenance

JOHN

A variation of Carbohydrates: Bread and Water. Mac’N’Cheese. Steamed Jasmine rice.
Caffeine in various forms: Coke, English breakfast tea (cream and sugar), coffee (black).
Nutrition in varying levels: A spinach salad, thick clam chowder, vanilla ice cream.

The above list was compiled to represent the numerous choices humans make concerning food. Between two and six times a day we stand with an empty plate and a ravenous appetite, knife and fork ready to slice and spear our life source. We must first decide what to eat, factoring in taste preferences, nutritional value and availability. We must consider that our choices affect our moods, our figures, and our energy.

After we have chewed, swallowed, slurped, chomped, and ______ (Insert eating verb of your choice), we sit back and pat our satisfied bellies.

Okay, ending description now. What is this all about? Case and Point: Loaves and Fishes. (Didn’t that clarify everything?)

This is all related to the Sunday School Story – you’ve heard it. The crowds are hungry, but for a thousand people there are only a few fish and loaves of bread. Jesus multiplies this food, feeds the crowd, and even gathers leftovers. Jesus provided for their practical need in abundance, and then used this to point them to a deeper, less easily understandable truth.

The day following this provision, the crowd again comes to Jesus, likely seeking more nourishment. Jesus had satisfied their physical hunger, and they became hungry soon after. Yet, rather than giving them more bread, Jesus points to a different appetite, describing himself as “The Bread of Life”. He sets his nourishment apart from physical nourishment – whoever comes to him “shall not hunger”. His sustenance gives life, not for a day, or a few hours, but eternally. By believing in who he is and what he has done, we can partake of the feast which forever satisfies us.

This story was especially poignant in Jewish Culture. Their history was filled with wandering in the desert: worn out, hungry, and surrounded by sand, they did not know when they would eat next. When Christ described himself as the “Bread of Life”, he would have been associated with a recognizable, regular need.

On the other hand, in the affluent country of America, we are rarely concerned about our next meal. Personally, all I have to do is walk five minutes to the Cafeteria, slide my student card, and choose from the spread before me.

How is Christ “The Bread of Life” for a people not struggling with poverty, but blessed with abundance?

Despite the over-abundance of food available to Americans, we are not an altogether healthy people. Actually, around 66% of adults over 20 are overweight (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm). We have not learned to make good choices, and continue to eat beyond satisfying our body’s needs. Perhaps because food is accessible to us all the time, we think that it is meant to satisfy more than our appetite.

Every time we serve ourselves unnecessary seconds, we are acting as though we expect food to meet some non-physical need. We are spiritually starving, yet try to satiate spiritual cravings with food. It is insufficient, designed only to relieve our physical appetites.

Yet in God, through Jesus Christ, we can taste life, eat of it and partake of it until our souls no longer pant after meaning. We chew and swallow the bread of his body, offered to us through his death…we partake in his suffering…and then we taste the flavor of the rich, abundant life offered to us through his resurrection.