Daily Devotion – August 26, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

John 6:51-58
6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
6:52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
6:53 So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
6:54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;
6:55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
6:56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.
6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

There are two major verbs in John 6: eating and believing. And Jesus may be saying to the people following him that believing is every bit as crucial to our eternal life as eating is to our mortal life.

If we don’t eat, eventually our mortal bodies die. If we don’t believe, our immortal souls die.

What if it is as simple as that?

Those who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry were awed by his power to feed a huge crowd of people. Jesus wanted them to be equally awed by the Lord and Father who had sent him and through whom he did such miracles as those abundant feedings and healings and so on. Almost everything Jesus says in the Gospel of John points people from their immediate focus (miracles and wonders) toward the God who creates those miracles and wonders. He is constantly trying to get people’s attention so that he can point to something else: God the Creator.  That is the heart of his work on earth – get people to see God and believe in God and trust in God and the promises God has made and kept throughout the history of human life the way Jesus does.

What is the most central act of the human being? Eating, to sustain life. Jesus says there is another central act of the human being that will gain him an eternal life: believing. We have one metaphor in the English language for believing that is closely related to eating: swallowing. As in “Did you swallow that one?” Jesus wants his followers, those whose attention he has grabbed, to swallow the idea that God will grant anyone who believes in Jesus eternal life. Human beings don’t want to be gullible, though, so we hold things at arm’s length and then dismiss them pretty easily. Jesus knows that, too. So he keeps after the crowd, encouraging them in this metaphor. Believe in the Lord who keeps promises. It is as important to your soul as eating is to your body, Jesus says.

So can we? Can we believe in the Creator God whom Jesus is constantly pointing toward? And if we can and we know we are blessed by such belief, how do we use our lives to point others toward the God who keeps promises?

Gracious God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us your Son and your Holy Spirit to point the way to you, our Creator who always keeps the promises you make. Help us to live gratefully for your faithfulness and bring it to others who might need such faith.   Amen.