Jn.6:35 – Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty”.
Spiritual hunger is part of being human. We were actually created as humans with a hunger or need for God. That is part of being created in His image. We have eternity in our hearts and nothing, absolutely nothing or no one can fill that need. The problem humans face is our fallen condition. The fall of man has twisted that desire for God because we are separated from Him by our sins. We all try to fill that eternal hunger with some sort of pleasure from God’s created world. These created things can never fill our hungry heart. That’s exactly what Jesus was getting at in today’s verse. Christ Himself is what we hunger for, not His gifts or blessings, we long for Him. He said that He is the bread that comes down from heaven and satisfies our spiritual hunger. Here is how the Pillar Commentary describes this verse.
“He who comes to me will never go hungry. The thought is not unlike John 13:9-10: the person who has been washed by Jesus does not need another bath, but only ‘to wash his feet’. So the hungry and thirsty person who comes to Jesus finds his hunger satisfied and his thirst quenched. This does not mean there is no need for continued dependence upon him, for continued feeding upon him; it does mean there is no longer that core emptiness that the initial encounter with Jesus has met. The consummating satiation occurs when those ‘who have washed their robes…in the blood of the Lamb’ stand ‘before the throne of God’ and experience the oracle: ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst’.”
In this life our basic spiritual need is satisfied when we are born again. At that point our emptiness is filled but at the same time we are awakened to our continual need for Him. He is truly our daily bread. Just as we look forward to our first meal of the day, each morning we wake with a hunger for Him. As the Pillar Commentary stated that will continue until we stand before Him in heaven. At that time we will never hunger or thirst because He will be our continual feast.
1 thought on “TRUE BREAD”
Thanks for the beautiful post! I am reminded, too, of the quote by St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”