Do you detect the common theme that runs through their lives? Who’s the smart one? Call it out … nobody? What do they all have in common? Okay, let me tell you … they were all alive on the 25th of February 2006. But in the past 12 months every one of their names has been added to the list of famous obituaries.

They are no longer with us. They were … just a year ago. But now we refer to them in the past tense. In fact, there is just one being in the entire universe who always appears in the present tense. He always is.

3,500 years ago, when He spoke to a trembling shepherd by the name of Moses out in the desert, He identified Himself with these words; He said my name is, “I am who I am.”

Theologians tell us that God is the one and only non-contingent being. He is the only one in the universe who does not depend on some outside force for His existence. God just is.

God is eternally present tense. God says of Himself … “I AM.”

I want you to keep that in mind as I tell you about an exchange that took place between Jesus and a large crowd of people. He was talking to them about the patriarch Abraham, who had lived 2,000 years earlier. And yet Jesus was speaking of Abraham as if He knew him personally.

Someone in the crowd objected and said wait a minute, “You are not even 50 years old – and you have seen Abraham?”

Jesus replied, “I am telling you the truth, before Abraham was born, ‘I Am’.”

Jesus was making a not too subtle claim to be the eternally existent God! And Jesus’ audience, which was a good Jewish crowd, began to pick up stones because they thought that He was spouting blasphemy.

This morning we’re beginning a 7 part series on Jesus the “I AM.” And the reason it is going to take 7 weeks is because there are 7 “I AM” statements that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John.

Today we begin with “I AM The Bread Of Life.” The key verse is John 6:35. Read it aloud with me. “‘I am the bread of life,’ Jesus told them. ‘Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty.’”

There are several aspects to this “bread of life” that I want us to consider this morning.

#1 … The bread of life is food that doesn’t spoil. Last summer in my teaching series we looked at the 7 miracles in John’s Gospel.

And the “I am the bread of life” statement comes on the heels on the 4th miracle … the feeding of the 5,000.

Jesus took a little boy’s lunch; “5 loaves of barley bread and 2 fish” … and He multiplied it to feed 5,000 hungry men. If you add to that the women and children who were there … that’s quite a meal, a lot bigger than our soup and bread dinner last Wednesday, or our Prayer Breakfast yesterday morning.

(That must have been quite an experience for all those who were present.) After the meal, Jesus and His disciples leave for Capernaum, which was on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

The next day this same crowd comes looking for Him; they wanted more bread.

When they find Him, Jesus tells them, “You are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles.”

Remember last summer we learned that the purpose of Jesus’ miracles were to point to something. The miracles were not intended to draw attention to themselves.

Jesus’ multiplication of bread was not about bread. The bread was a miracle pointing to Jesus. Now unfortunately the crowd totally missed that. All they were really interested in was going to the “all you can eat buffet.”

Now Jesus was the one who originally recognized that these people needed to eat something. He knew they were hungry. Jesus knows that we have been created with an appetite, a built-in hunger, for God. And nothing short of God is going to fill us up. Bread won’t. Sex won’t. A cruise won’t. A new car won’t. Shopping at Kohl’s won’t. Nothing.

All of that stuff that we work so hard for … is “food that spoils.” In other words … it’s temporal. Oh, it might be initially pleasing, but it’s not ultimately satisfying.

Isaiah wrote,

“Why spend money on what

does not satisfy?

Why spend your wages

and still be hungry?

Listen to me and do what

I say,

and you will enjoy the

best food of all.”

As a boy I’d come home from school and want to eat a bunch of junk. My Mom, who had prepared a wonderful dinner, said “You’ll spoil your appetite.” When we fill ourselves up with stuff it takes away our appetite for the bread that gives life.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus is the food that doesn’t spoil.

#2 … Jesus is the food that delivers sustenance. There was an expectation in Jesus’ day that when the Messiah came He would repeat the miracle that Moses did with the manna.

So, these people have just witnessed Jesus feeding the 5,000 and they do this mental comparison between Moses’ manna and Jesus’ miracle. And in their estimation … Jesus comes up short.

• Moses … daily food for 40 years, in the wilderness.

• Jesus … bread, a one-shot meal.

• Moses … fed a couple million people.

• Jesus … fed 5,000.

• Moses … manna had fallen from Heaven.

• Jesus … bread was passed around in baskets.

So the people are thinking that if Jesus wants to prove that He’s in the same league as Moses, He’s going to have to do a few more miracles.

Jesus says, “Wait a minute. I am the real bread. Moses manna was just food. It was useful for breakfast, lunch or dinner … nothing more. But the bread that I’m talking about will sustain your soul.”

Jesus says that this bread, which represents the true presence of God, “gives life to the world.”

“Gives” is in the present tense … it keeps on giving; it gives and gives and gives, day after day after day.

Moses’ manna … you need it one day, but you’re going to need more tomorrow. Not so with Jesus’ bread, it sustains life forever. And it’s for “the world” … whereas Moses’ manna was simply for the ancient Hebrews.

Now up until this point Jesus has been speaking of this new bread in the 3rd person. But then Jesus makes His amazing statement, (and you can almost hear a drum roll), “I am (1st person) the bread of life” that I have been talking to you about.

And in the remainder of this discourse … 35 times He uses “I” or “me.”

Do you want nourishment for your soul? “Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty.” In the literal Greek Jesus doubles up on the negative, “you will not go hungry never; if you believe in me you will not be thirsty never.”

I read recently about a Christian speaker who was holding a series of meetings in a community. True story.

The local atheist challenged him to a debate. The speaker said, “That sounds like a great idea. And to add a little color to it, here’s what I’d suggest we do. I’ll bring with me 100 people whose lives have been transformed by my message.

“And you bring 100 people with you who have been impacted by what you believe.” The atheist bowed out.

I suspect that I could do that this morning. I could invite a number of you to testify that though you were hungry and thirsty “spiritually” … Jesus has filled a void in your life that nothing else was able to fill.

Jesus is the bread of life who delivers true sustenance.

#3 … Jesus is the food that demands savoring. “I am telling you the truth: he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died. But the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If you eat this bread, you will live forever. The bread that I will give you is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live.”

“This started an angry argument among them. ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they asked.”

“Jesus said to them, ‘I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. … In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me.’”

It is not difficult to see the major emphasis here is the verb “eat.” It appears over and over and over again.

But what’s a little harder to understand is what Jesus means when He talks about the eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood. Some people understand this as a description of what takes place when we have communion, or the Eucharist.

Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters believe that the eating of Jesus’ flesh and the drinking of His blood is a literal thing. It’s the miracle of the Mass. The bread or the wafer actually becomes Christ’s Body which is then eaten. And the wine becomes His blood. Some of you may know it as the doctrine of transubstantiation.

But, Jesus is not talking about His actual body and blood here. His imagery of eating and drinking is not to be interpreted literally.

“Jesus said to them, ‘I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day.’”

If Jesus is talking about the Communion celebration, if He is talking about the Eucharist, then what He is saying about the Lord’s Supper is that it’s a religious activity that you have to participate in … in order to receive eternal life. That stands in contradiction to everything else that the N.T. teaches.

Scripture is very clear that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works.

Jesus Himself taught that. “So (the people) asked him, ‘What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do?’” And Jesus answers … “take communion the 1st Sunday of every month.”

No, that’s not what He says. “Jesus answered, ‘What God wants you to do is to believe in the one he sent.’” What we are to do is believe in Jesus.

“Eating” in this passage is a metaphor for “believing.” The words are almost interchangeable. Verse 40 says, “All who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day.”

Verse 54, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day.”

Eating His flesh and drinking His blood means putting your faith and trust in Him. The great catholic theologian Augustine said, “Believe and you have eaten.”

But why does John use such a graphic picture to describe believing in Jesus?

What Jesus wants to communicate is that He’s got to be ingested. He’s got to be taken in just like food. Jesus has got to be made a part of your very self.

For many people, believing has become so watered down that it means nothing more than agreeing on some basic facts.

I believe Jesus was the Son of God. I believe He was born in Bethlehem. I believe He lived a righteous life. I believe He died on the cross. I believe He rose from the dead. I believe He forgives sin.

In fact, you can go beyond those beliefs to some religious routines. You can go to church. You can pray. You can occasionally read your Bible. You can tell God you’re sorry from time to time, because you know you’ve blown it. But you never ingest Jesus into your life.

Have you ever done that? Have you made Jesus a part of your life? Is it possible that you’re like the restaurant goer who never gets beyond reading the menu? Have you placed the order? Have you eaten the food? That’s what Jesus is trying to communicate here.

Not only must He be ingested … He must be enjoyed. He must be savored. Savor is to enjoy food with appreciation.

Think for a moment how we use eating as a metaphor. We talk about devouring good books, or drinking in music, swallowing wild stories, chewing over important matters. Some doting grandparents (not me) talk about eating up their grandchildren. It’s metaphorical language. This is the sense in which Jesus wants to be eaten. He wants to be regularly enjoyed.

Actually the verb He uses is present tense. It’s a continuous action. It’s to be done again and again … day after day.

I remember my grandfather saying after he’d eaten a good meal.

“I could get into the habit of this.” That’s exactly what Jesus is suggesting here. He wants our “eating” of Him to become a habit.

Does this describe your relationship with Jesus Christ? Maybe you have ingested Him, but are you daily enjoying Him? Is Jesus a regular part of your life?

Perhaps junk food, food that spoils, has crowded Him out. During Lent, will you give up “Twinkie” activities and replace them with bread of life encounters? There is one final point here.

Jesus said, “This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate, but then later died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”

Jesus is asking, “Do you want manna, food that spoils? Or do you want me?”

“Many of his followers heard this and said, ‘This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?’”

The word hard means, this is “heavy stuff.” “We’re not sure we like what you’re saying.” And if you read on you’ll discover that many of His so-called followers left Him at this point.

Do you want the bread of life, or do you prefer food that spoils? The truth is, we don’t really want the bread of life unless we’re hungry for it. Are you hungry for it? Do you want more of Him now than you did last year? I hope so.

MARANA THA