This week’s gospel picks up where last week’s left off. Last week we heard about Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish for the large crowd that followed him. John told us they had seen, “the signs he was performing on the sick” (6:2). But did they really see the meaning of those signs? After Jesus fed them he slipped away from the crowd that wanted to make him king. As we just heard in today’s gospel, the excited crowd chased after Jesus and found him on the other side of the lake in Capernaum. Today’s gospel tells of the subsequent dialogue between Jesus and the crowd.
The people begin the dialogue with a rather bland question, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” We don’t know exactly what to say or ask of the Lord, so we say the first thing that comes to our minds. That’s okay, for Jesus responds by focusing the crowd’s attention on what’s really important. Why are they looking for him? They had seen the signs he had performed on the sick — but they missed what those signs were revealing about Jesus. Then they were fed, but didn’t “see” what that sign meant either.
John doesn’t call Jesus’ great acts “miracles,” but “signs.” There are external signs, but they can be arbitrary. A man wears a miter, a sign that he is a bishop. He could just as easily wear a blue shirt with an embroidered cross as a sign of his office. We would then say, “I know he’s a bishop because bishops wear blue shirts with a cross on them.”
But “sign” for John has more internal meaning: a sign makes present, on a particular occasion, what Jesus’ ministry represents. Did the crowds “see” the meaning of the multiplication of the loaves? — that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to God’s self. Because, when people in Jesus’ culture ate together, past enmities were put aside. Those who broke bread together were no longer enemies. When the bread was multiplied, people who were strangers and from diverse backgrounds, sat together and ate the same meal, in Jesus’ company. It is what we are doing at this celebration today. Do we see the meaning of this “sign?”
Our belief in Jesus Christ does not rest on the observable facts of his miracles. We believe that the miracles were possible because of our belief in Jesus as our Savior. The miracles are “signs” of his true nature and identity. We don’t cling to the miracles for our faith, but to Jesus Christ and our direct relationship with him. We “see signs” and believe what they reveal to us about Jesus.
The dialogue between the crowd and Jesus develops as one’s faith might. It begins when people see in him God satisfying their hungers (versus 24-34). This opening conversation and the faith development it suggests, will continue over the next several weeks.
The crowd searches for and found Jesus and they ask him a question. He ignores their question and challenges their estimation of the miracle of the loaves. He begins the dialogue with, “Amen, amen, I say to you….” It is John’s signal to the reader that something important and solemn is about to be said. It is as if John is telling us, in modern jargon, “Listen up!”
Maybe the crowd is on to something. They were fed with physical food by Jesus, but they didn’t understand what was happening. Still, after being filled, they came looking for him. Perhaps they hoped God would feed their deeper hungers for freedom from Roman rule and then establish a new reign — one with God as Ruler.
The crowd’s motives may not have been the most noble or “spiritual.” But Jesus could take them where they were and help them see that in him, God was offering them more than a full stomach. Certainly they were poor Galileans who needed bread for themselves and their families. But even these peasants needed more life than physical food could provide for them. Jesus wanted them to know that the life he had to give them was more nourishing than any food they could provide for themselves. The physical food they ate would perish with their bodies, so they, and us, need a bread that, not only nourishes us physically for a while, but gives eternal life to those who eat it. Jesus identifies himself as that food. He is also hinting at his death and resurrection through which his listeners will receive eternal life.
The audience responds favorably to Jesus when they ask, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” It’s not just their question is it? How can we earn this bread of which Jesus is speaking? Here is how we earn the life-giving bread — we don’t! We receive it. “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” They know Jesus is referring to himself and so they ask for a “sign.” They want a manifestation of supernatural power which will give them proof to believe in him.
Our faith in Jesus doesn’t mean we will be guaranteed positive signs of favor in our lives. — that our faith will spare us from catastrophes or sickness. Quite the contrary. After all, his life ended in pain and suffering. When he hung on the cross the chief priests and scribes ridiculed him and asked for a manifestation, a sign, of his powers, “Let the ‘Messiah,’ ‘the King of Israel,’ come down from that cross, here and now, so that we can see it and believe in you” (Mark 15:32)! If Jesus had come down from the cross, or if he performed a spectacular sign to the crowd’s satisfaction, that would have evoked a kind of belief — for a while at least, until life tested them again and then they would need another spectacular sign to assure them. We know faith doesn’t work like that, don’t we?
They want Jesus to be another Moses, who fed the Israelites with bread in the desert. Jesus changes their focus. It wasn’t Moses who gave them bread in the wilderness, but God. Notice that in his response Jesus changes the tense of the verb from the past “gave the bread from heaven,” to the present, “my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”
Jesus readjusts our focus as well. We are not just remembering a past event — the feeding of the crowds in the desert. What God did for the Israelites and Jesus for the crowds, is still happening for us. The question posed by the gospel then is: do we see the signs that tell us Jesus is again giving himself to us this day?
Jesus, Risen, is feeding us through Word and Sacrament in our liturgical celebration today. Do we know that he is the one we are really looking for and not some other sign of material satisfaction? Our strongest hunger is for an intimacy with God; for God’s life within us — what Jesus calls today, “eternal life.” Jesus invites us to come to him in trust, with our whole self, body parts and spirit.
The food we receive at the Eucharist invites us to trust in God for our “daily bread.” Like the Jews in the desert, we are learning to trust that we will have enough bread given us for this day and each day thereafter. Jesus says again to us today, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”