Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

You heard the Israelites grumble about two things they so dearly missed: meat and bread. Barely a month and a half had passed, according to Moses’ record, since the Passover night when they escaped Egypt. What a miracle that was that night when over two million men, women, children and animals picked up and walked toward the desert. Then on another evening that multitude walked across the Red Sea floor as though it were dry ground, with towering walls of water standing up on either side in the moonlight. The best chariot cavalry of Egypt? God drowned them when He made the waters of the sea flow back to normal. Then the Hebrews ran out of water, and the water they found was undrinkable, only then God commanded Moses to throw a tree into the spring to make the water wholesome and even sweet tasting. But all those miracles weren’t good enough for the children of Israel.

Instead they grumble, they murmur; it’s fairly obvious that they have thrown out all faith in the one, true and living God. They groan after meat and bread, pots of flesh, all you can eat while they were living in servitude to their Egyptian overlords. Never mind that while they were in Egypt, they all complained about being in slavery, too. Evidently, freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for these tribes of Israel, because now all they can think about is to go straight back to their pagan taskmasters. Of course, they must have wanted freedom, even though they wanted it their own way. Only at this point, out there in the wilderness with their stomachs growling, freedom or no freedom, we just need our meat and bread, meat and bread. Moses and Aaron, give us our meat and bread!

That’s hardly the model prayer for us to emulate, would you think? Making demands and driving the appointed servants of the Lord to the brink of exasperation. But it sounds just as demanding when we pray the words “give us this day our daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer. Now that’s simply because Jesus gave us these words to pray so that we would sound like the desperate beggars that we really are. We already know from personal experience that not everything seems to happen on earth the way it does in heaven, at least not until Christ comes. Why is that? In reality, Evil is all around us and we urgently pray every day so that we would be delivered from it. Therefore we need this bread right away, emphasis on this day, or else we would wither away and die.

So what’s the bread that we need? What is so urgent for our sustenance that we are forced to plead for it and demand an immediate response? The Israelites thought it was meat and bread that they desperately needed. The multitude of 5000 who received meat and bread in one of Jesus’ most spectacular of miracles wanted more. What’s on your mind right now that you would need so badly that your very existence is threatened if you don’t have it? Is it that job or that raise? A little extra to pay off that debt? Is it another couple of weeks’ breathing time before you have to go back to school? Could it be that you desperately crave peace in your home and family or at the work place or at church?

Martin Luther started a list in the catechism that seems to go on and on explaining what could be meant by daily bread. But even he noticed that there is more to it than the material blessings that he could think of.

For Jesus Himself encourages you to think past all those worldly things, even if all you’re doing is giving thanks to God for His providence. But don’t excessively dwell on blessings by themselves, just as you are not to concentrate on your problems. Listen to how Jesus says it: Do not labor for the bread that perishes. It would help you understand this if you right away thought about the manna in the wilderness for those Israelites. It was considered work and labor for them to gather that gift bread each morning. But when the Sabbath came around each week, God gave double on Friday so that they could still enjoy the day of rest and observe it as the Lord commanded. And you know there’s at least one rebel in any group, and someone in that huge crowd in the desert tried to gather more to last into the next day, but it didn’t work. Do you remember what happened to the extra manna? It spoiled and stank and was creeping with bugs. That bread perished because of the faithless response of disobedience to the commandment.

Do not labor for the bread that perishes. That is a command from Jesus that puts faith in your heart and makes it strong. For when you hear these very words from Jesus, just like you are doing right now, your Savior is assuring you that He has already given the worldly blessings to you, according to what you need. You will not need to labor, that is, bear an impossible burden, for that temporary bread. Why? Because those blessings come free from the hand of your heavenly Father, even if they look to you as if they were wages due. And as you receive these gifts, remind yourself constantly that they will not last forever. Remember that above and beyond all of this, there is something more important, something that will last forever.

That something is Jesus. “The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,” writes John the Evangelist, quoting Christ. He is the full and final answer to your prayer that asks for daily bread. What do you do to receive this bread? Do you perform some feat worthy of the Peace Prize? Do you pray a “sinner’s prayer” that asks Him to come into your heart? Do you clean up your act and promise never to smack your brother ever again? No, these things don’t give you Jesus the bread of life. Not even your act of coming to church faithfully, strictly speaking that is still something you do, and it never is good enough. Rather, you get this heavenly bread because by God’s grace He enabled your stone cold and unbelieving heart to believe in Him, and so all He has to give will come to you as well. This explains the strange and seemingly contradictory words in John where Jesus says, “[Labor instead] for the food that endures to eternal life,” and then immediately adds, “[this food] the Son of Man will give to you.” This means the labor you are to do for God is, “believe in Him whom He has sent.”

More important than feeding the hungry, more important than telling the good news, way beyond any priorities that the world around you may impose, most important above all is to have faith in Christ. Now, all other good and loving works, like feeding the hungry, telling the good news and giving offerings, proceed from faith. That means, once you believe, God creates you anew in the image of His Son and He has placed the desire in your heart to serve Him by providing help to your neighbor and enabling you in your individual calling to follow faithfully what He commands. You couldn’t do this by yourself, but now you have the Holy Spirit doing such good things through you. Jesus gave Himself to you to the point of utter sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of all your sins. You see that plain as day pictured for you on the crucifix. It is that tree of sacrifice that makes sweet the water of salvation that refreshes your soul. You now get the opportunity to sacrifice yourself, whether it’s in the realm of time that you spend, or money, or anything else that would be of help and service to your neighbor.

Jesus gives Himself to you in the Word of God that you hear and read. He first joined Himself to you at your baptism, then He offered His body and blood that (often) stands here on the altar ready and waiting to strengthen you in body and in soul to life everlasting. He is the bread of life sent straight to you and for you directly from heaven. Since you have received Him in faith, all the words about daily bread come into clear focus. For once you have Jesus, then you also have all the blessings that He brings, including forgiveness and eternal life, as well as worldly and temporary blessings. And you will see all these gifts in their proper perspective, just as Matthew records Jesus saying the ever-popular proverb: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Mt. 6:33)

You may have done your share of grumbling recently, perhaps though not specifically for meat and bread. Like God’s people of old, you will still have your sinful flesh that doesn’t appreciate the blessings of God, or at times rejects them outright. Don’t kid yourself into believing that you don’t face these temptations or as if you can control them when they do come. Difficult times will certainly come every once in a while that test the firmness of our trust in Jesus. It will sometimes be hard to determine that you have all you need. But whether you think you have your daily material needs adequately supplied or not, know this for certain, that by faith you most assuredly have daily bread already, for you have Christ the bread of life. You shall not hunger, nor shall you thirst for anything else.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Ex. 16:2–15 What is it? The manna in the wilderness
Ps. 145:10–21 All your works shall praise you, O LORD
Eph. 4:1–16 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all
John 6:22–35 I am the bread of life.