All that bread

Perhaps the confusion comes when we think that the miraculous feeding of 5000 is just about the bread - literally.  5 loaves and 2 fish become enough to feed 5000 until everyone is full - satiated - and there are 12 baskets leftover.  Got to admit, that's a lot of bread.

But since we are reading about this miracle in the gospel of John, the 12 baskets are far from the end of this story.  As one commentator put it, Jesus fed 5000 and then spent 4 weeks explaining what he just did.  That alone tells you that for the writer of John, bread is more than bread.

But we've all known that, right?  Although it might be miraculous for 5 loaves and 2 fish to effectively feed 5000; and if, in fact, it was a feeding for those peoplen with no implications for now, then it is similar to the George Washington cherry tree incident.  Clever, but not really meaningful.  I am no scholar of John, but you can trust me that everything in John is meaningful, and it is all meant to point us to who Jesus is, not just today, but for all eternity.

It starts in the very beginning.....as the gospel begins with "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  No simple annunciation or birth story for this writer.  The writer takes us back to the very beginning, echoing the opening words of the book of Genesis when the Divine Creator begins to move over the chaos.    Somehow this story of Jesus is another beginning, but in perfect harmony with the first beginning.  Somehow this Jesus is more than a prophet, here today and gone tomorrow.... 

 ....and, somehow, bread is more than bread.  In fact, the bread is Jesus' body:  broken and given to all who gather to nourish them into a new kind of life.  Although, this is not a metaphor, Jesus' really does offer his own body for the sake of the world.  Metaphor.  Not a metaphor.  That's John.

Notice - this is not just life like what we currently know but without the stuff we don't like.  It is a new kind of life - a life that is so full it is eternal (in contrast to some of our lives that are so full of struggle and pain that they only seem eternal). 

But this is just week one.  This week we are reminded that people are hungry in every sense of this word, and the work of Jesus and Jesus' followers is to feed them.  Literally.  That is the first step to our call as servants.

But wait, there is more to come.