B I B L E
S T U D Y
G U I D E
John
Session 27: John 6:35–58
Bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more!
Comment 1
As we saw last time, the Fourth Gospel offers a scene in which Jesus is talking to an unnamed group of people—a group that serves as
a convenient “stand-in” for all of us who read
this Gospel.
Again and again in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus
seeks to direct human hearts and human hopes
to “the One who has sent” him, the Holy One,
the Gathering One, the One who calls forth
light and life and love.
Scripture to Read
John 6:35
Comment 2
To this unnamed group of people and to all
who are hungry for a deeper experience of life
and love, Jesus speaks the ancient and sacred
name of God. “I Am!” he says. It’s his way of
pointing to the One who can feed our eternal
hunger and fill our otherwise scrawny lives.
“The ordinary bread of this earth,” he suggests, “is not enough. If we are to find the life
of the great ‘I Am’ welling up within us, then
we need the ‘bread of heaven’ as well.” In other
words, we need to be fed from Above.
Comment 3
As we saw last time, John 6:35 concludes
with two parallel images. “Those who come to
me,” says Jesus, “shall never hunger. And those
who believe in me, shall never thirst.”
The parallel phrases help us understand
what the Fourth Gospel means by “believe in”
Jesus. To “believe in” Jesus is to “come to” Jesus. It is to move our hearts and our hopes and
our fullest ways of living into that place where
God abides, into that place where “the Word”
is made flesh, not just “made flesh” in Jesus but
also “made flesh” in us. As some of Paul’s epistles remind us, to “be in Christ” is to be a new
creation, reshaped and remolded by God’s own
Spirit, by God’s own breath.
Scripture to Read
John 6:37
Comment 4
Those who “come” to me, says Jesus, “I will
in no wise cast out.”
The earthly “homes” that we make for ourselves are never secure. The jobs we take, the
friends we make, the marriages we establish,
even some of the churches we join—they can
all be shaken. They can fall apart. We can be put
out, shut out, or locked away. Sorrow and dis-
Copyright 2014 by Mark William Olson
appointment, grief and despair—they can leave
us feeling abandoned, forsaken, and forgotten.
But the Fourth Gospel is convinced that those
who abide at God’s “banquet table,” those who
gather at the heavenly “feast of love”—they will
never be thrown out, evicted, or displaced.
As a song by Jennie Wilson reminds us, in
every situation, there is a hand we can hold to,
there is hope that is eternal:
Time is filled with swift transition,
naught of earth unmoved can stand;
build your hopes on things eternal—
hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand!
Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand!
Build your hopes on things eternal—
hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Trust in him who will not leave you,
whatsoever years may bring;
if by earthly friends forsaken,
still more closely to him cling.
Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand!
Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand!
Build your hopes on things eternal—
hold to God’s unchanging hand.
For Discussion
What are the implications of this teaching
for how we today relate to others?
What are some of the more overt ways that
people today are “cast out” or “forsaken”? What
are some of the more subtle ways that it happens?
Scripture to Read
John 6:38–39
Comment 5
“I’ve been sent by Heaven,” says Jesus to the
crowd. “It’s the ‘I Am’ who has sent me. It’s the
‘I Am’ who has commissioned me. Like Moses
so long ago, I have been sent not to do my own
will but rather the will of the One who sent me.”
And what is God’s will? “It’s that I ‘lose’
nothing,” says Jesus. “It’s that I forsake no one.
It’s that every forgotten, left-behind ‘fragment’
be gathered. Even if the road is long, even if the
road is hard, even if it takes until ‘the last day,’
there is no one that I shall not ‘raise up.’ There
is no one whom God doesn’t love. There is no
one that God shall cast out.”
Scripture to Read
John 6:40
Comment 6
Life eternal—life overflowing with God’s
eternal love, God’s eternal light, God’s eternal
grace, the life that the Fourth Gospel describes
with the Greek word zōē—it’s what God wills
for all the world.
Some may “come” to that life soon, drinking from streams of mercy, never ceasing. Others may hold back for a time. Still others, like
some of Jesus’ own disciples, might try to set
off in a boat by themselves, thinking they can
quietly fade away in the night. But there will
be a “last day,” says the Fourth Gospel, a happy
day on which even the deepest straggler shall
be raised up, a happy day in which we shall all
have learned, at last, to “watch and pray and live
rejoicing every day.”
Scripture to Read
John 6:41
Comment 7
In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus has pointed to
a God who casts no one out, a God to whom
we all can come. But in Jesus’ day, as in our
day, that provokes a reaction. We are told that a
group of people began “murmuring” and complaining about Jesus.
The Fourth Gospel refers to them as “Jews.”
Scholars debate who this really means. It surely
doesn’t refer to all Jews, for Jesus himself was a
Jew. So were his closest disciples.
Comment 8
Some scholars think the Fourth Gospel
might use “Jews” to refer to ethnic residents of
Judea, but in this context, it doesn’t make any
sense that the common people of Judea would
suddenly complain about Jesus. After all, earlier
in this Gospel, near the beginning of chapter 4,
we were told that many in Judea were following
Jesus and deeply moved by his message.
For these reasons, some scholars think that
“the Jews” is a short-hand way of referring to the
religious authorities in Jesus’ day. These were the
people who were sure that they fully understood
the scriptures. These were the people who had
been entrusted with spiritual leadership. These
were the high-status people who had been endowed with important religious responsibilities.
These were the people who thought that, when
it came to the things of God, they knew it all.
For Discussion
Judging by the larger teachings that we have
seen in this chapter and in light of what this
verse seems to be saying, why do you think Jesus’ words had been so upsetting to the biblically trained religious leaders of that day?
In what ways, if any, might we today sometimes be guilty of a similar kind of murmuring
and complaining?
Why is it sometimes so hard to let God be
God?
Scripture to Read
John 6:42
Comment 9
“Wait a minute,” say the pious, well-trained
people who think that they are in charge of all
things religious.
“This guy Jesus is no ‘bread come down
from heaven.’ Joseph is his dad. So why are all
these people flocking to him? We know his parents—his mother, his father. This guy is a child
of the earth, like all of us. How dare he claim
to be connected in some way with the great
‘I Am’? How dare he claim to be ‘bread come
down from heaven’?”
Scripture to Read
John 6:43
Comment 10
In this scene from the Fourth Gospel, Jesus
asks “the Jews” to stop murmuring about him
and to stop complaining about him.
The faith community that gave us this Gospel had most likely experienced this kind of murmuring and complaining first-hand. Religious
leaders had most likely murmured about them
and about the Christ in whom they had found
such a strong dwelling place. Like so many down
through history, they had felt the pain of rejection from spiritual authorities in high places.
Comment 11
In the dramatic scene that we are offered
here, Jesus is speaking to the religious authorities
of his day.
But in effect, he is speaking to all who are
closed to the “wind that blows where it wills.”
He is speaking to all who squirm because of a
Spirit that never stops moving. He is speaking
to all who are firm in rejecting a grace that never
stops growing.
Comment 12
And maybe, in this sense, he is speaking—at
least a little—to us all, for at times, we are all
among those who murmur. We are all among
those who find God stretching us faster and farther than we want to go.
To each of us, then, Jesus whispers, “Stop
murmuring. Quit complaining. The God who
is stretching you is the God who has embraced
you. The God whose breath never stops creating
and transforming is the same God who brought
you into being, the Loving One who will never
cast you out.”
Scripture to Read
John 6:44
Comment 13
Again and again, the Fourth Gospel suggests
that what we are called to is a kind of divineand-human intimacy, a “knowing” in the deepest sense.
Christ, the Light from Above—Christ, the
“bread” come down from Heaven—stands at
the center of that place where the divine-andhuman connection happens. But according to
the Fourth Gospel, it is the Father—the divine
Creator—who draws us to that intimate abiding
place. It’s as if there is “something within” that
keeps drawing us, keeps calling us.
Comment 14
Back in the first chapter, two disciples of
John the Baptist found themselves drawn ever
closer to Jesus. But we are told that it wasn’t Jesus himself that they were seeking. It was something else. “Rabbi,” they said, “where do you
dwell? Where is that place of intimate union
with all that is holy? How do we find it? How
do we get there?” They had been drawn. They
had been drawn by a Love from Above.
And so it’s not surprising that according
to John 1:39, Jesus responded, “Come and see.
Come and see!”
For Discussion
What are some of the ways that “something
within” draws us today?
Scripture to Read
Hosea 11:1, 3–4
Comment 15
Images of a God who “draws” us are not new
to the Fourth Gospel. They also appear in the
writings of some of the great Jewish prophets.
Here in the book of Hosea, we are shown
a God who calls us, even when we have gotten ourselves in the tightest of places and the
most hopeless of messes. It’s a God who draws
us with “bands of love,” a God who lifts off the
yoke, takes us by the arm, and heals our deepest
wounds.
Scripture to Read
Jeremiah 31:1–6
Comment 16
Similar imagery appears in the book of Jeremiah. We are told that even when swords are
flashing and our steps are weary, even when we
seem lost forever in a wilderness of our own
making, there is a God who loves us with an everlasting love, a God who “draws” us with a loving kindness that puts a deep joy in our hearts
and high dance in our steps.
Because this God draws us with an everlasting love—because this God keeps putting
“something within”—a day is coming that none
will be able to resist. “Arise!” we shall cry, says
the prophet. “Let us go up to Zion! Let us dwell
even now in the sacred place of the Lord our
God!”
Scripture to Read
Jeremiah 31:31–34
Comment 17
We can interpret literally the words, “Let us
go up to Zion! Let us dwell even now in the
sacred place of the Lord our God!” But when
interpreted literally, they are very limited in
meaning. “Marching to Zion” then becomes
little more than a temporary event.
But the prophet Jeremiah had a deeper understanding. He envisioned a day in which the
Lord our God would make “a new covenant,” a
covenant in which “the house of God” would be
built not on a lofty mountain but in the midst
of human hearts.
Scripture to Read
Isaiah 54:4–5, 7–8, 13
Comment 18
In this vision of an ancient Jewish prophet,
the Lord says, “Fear not, for I am the God of the
whole earth. For a time, it might have seemed
like I had forsaken you, but I shall gather you.
With an everlasting kindness, I shall have mer-
cy on you and on your descendants. Indeed, all
your children shall be taught of the Lord.”
Scripture to Read
John 6:45–46
Comment 19
Echoing the visions of Isaiah and Jeremiah,
the Fourth Gospel reminds us that there is a
God who is forever speaking, speaking to us all.
This is a God who has no need of great temples, fine preachers, or even humble structures
on the banks of the Rappahannock. This is a
God whose voice can be heard by what the King
James Version calls “every man.”
These same verses remind us that none of
us have “seen God.” For this Gospel, this is not
a new idea. Back in chapter 4, we were shown
Jesus telling the Samaritan woman at the well
that God is no physical being. We can’t expect
to go to some physical or geographic place and
discover where God dwells.
Comment 20
Rather, said Jesus back in chapter 4, our
non-physical, non-geographic God must be
worshipped “in spirit and in truth.”
It’s true that in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus
repeatedly invites us to “come,” but he invites
us to “come” not to a geographic place but to a
spiritual place. It’s a heart-centered place where
God’s Spirit blows full and free.
For Discussion
What are some of the ways that we can practice this kind of “coming”?
How can we know if we’ve come to the
“right” place? Or is it impossible to know?
Do you think that God draws us all to the
same place? Or might God sometimes meet different people in different places?
Scripture to Read
John 6:47
Comment 21
The importance of these words is signaled
by how the verse opens. “Verily, verily,” says
the King James Version. Literally, however, it’s
“Amen, amen!”
Whosoever “believes on me,” says Jesus, “already has eternal life.”
Comment 22
In this Gospel, “believing on” Jesus means
coming to dwell in the non-physical, non-geographic, Spirit-filled “place” where the Holy
One dwells. To “come” to Jesus is to “come” to
the One who has sent him. It is to “come” to
the One who is forever seeking to write a “new
covenant” on each of our hearts.
We are to abide in that “place” so deeply
that our whole being is transformed, our whole
way of living is made new. In effect, we “become” what we “believe in.” Our attitudes and
behaviors are so thoroughly remolded that we
are no longer a short-lived reflection of earthly
death but rather an ever-growing reflection of
“eternal life.”
Is it any wonder, then, that the verse begins
with “Amen, amen”?
Scripture to Read
John 6:48
Comment 23
As we have seen so often, the Fourth Gospel
is filled with figurative images, many of which
can be understood on multiple levels. Here is
another. Jesus is portrayed as saying with utter
simplicity, “ ‘I Am,’ the bread of life.”
He could be talking about the God of the
burning bush, as portrayed in the book of Exodus, where the name “I Am” first appears. Or he
could be talking about himself, as one who has
been “sent” by God. Or the text could deliberately be implying both meanings.
Comment 24
Whatever the case, we are reminded that
what sustains “eternal life” is the God who is
present in Jesus, the divinely Anointed Christ.
Just as literal bread sustains our physical lives,
so too the Holy One sustains within each of us
those abundant and enduring qualities that flow
from the Eternal.
“ ‘I Am,’ ” says Jesus, “the bread of life.”
In other words, as we struggle like pilgrims
through barren lands, there is One on whom we
can “feed.” In seeking what we need for those
aspects of our lives that spring from the Eternal, we can turn to a Mighty One. This is the
“bread” on which we “feed.” And as John 6 has
shown us, we can “feed” till we want no more.
A hymn written in 1745 by William Williams expresses a similar idea:
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim though this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
hold me with thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more;
bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more!
Scripture to Read
John 6:49
Comment 25
We are here reminded that physical “bread”
is a blessing. It can sustain our physical being,
but it sustains it only temporarily. There comes
a time when each of us will stop eating. There
comes a time when each of us will physically
die—just our ancestors have done.
Scripture to Read
John 6:50–51a (stopping after the word “forever”)
For Discussion
Do you think that these words are meant
literally? If not, what might they be suggesting?
Comment 26
Even when our physical lives are fed with
physical bread, we physically die. But there is
a “living bread,” says the Fourth Gospel. It’s a
non-physical “food,” a food that we can eat—
and “not die.” The non-physical “eternal life”—
or zōē­—that this food sustains is a divine quality of life in which we shall all share “forever.”
For Discussion
Why does the Fourth Gospel say that this is
a bread that we must “eat”? What might it mean
by that? And how can we “eat” that which is not
physical?
Comment 27
Scholars tend to reflect their own religious
heritage when they interpret passages such as
the last half of John 6. As a result, some scholars—particularly those from a Roman Catholic
tradition—see Jesus’ words about “eating” the
bread as a reference to “the Eucharist,” a taking
of bread and wine into one’s own self, which
they believe literally become the body and blood
of Jesus.
Other scholars, particularly those from a
less sacramental tradition, see no connection
whatsoever here with the Christian practice of
sharing bread and wine together as a drama
of celebration and remembrance. These other
scholars tend to see these verses as a continuation of the same figurative language that has
been used throughout this chapter.
Comment 28
For those who take things figuratively, eating and drinking are images. As images, they
suggest the conscious act of welcoming and receiving into our inmost selves that divine Spirit
that can sustain us.
For those who take things figuratively, the
holy act of communion can likewise be a deeply
meaningful drama, an outward reminder of our
constant need for “living bread,” the kind of gift
from Above that will bring forth in us all an
“eternal life” whose enduring flame can never
be extinguished. By welcoming and receiving
that Spirit, we enter “forever” into a divine-andhuman communion, a fellowship that shall “not
die,” for we shall eternally be upheld by such
strong and loving arms that we can’t help but
join in singing the words of a beloved hymn
that Elisha A. Hoffman wrote in 1877:
What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
leaning on the everlasting arms;
what a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning,
safe and secure from all alarms;
leaning, leaning,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
Scripture to Read
John 6:51
Comment 29
Paradox and irony abound in this Gospel,
and this verse is a perfect example. We are first
offered “living bread.” To “eat” of it is to “live
forever.”
But then we are told that the “living bread”
that Jesus gives is his actual, physical, human
“flesh.” We are told that he willingly “gives” it
for the “life of the world.” In other words, it is in
losing his physical life that the world—indeed,
the whole of the cosmos—will gain the eternal
“life” that flows from Above. In other words, to
be grounded in “eternal life” is to be willing to
give up one’s physical life so that others might
experience those “everlasting arms” on which
we all can forever lean, “safe and secure from all
alarms.”
Scripture to Read
John 6:52
Comment 30
Here is another of this Gospel’s many reminders that we will miss what God has for us if
we try to take everything in this Gospel literally.
The “Jews,” the religious leaders and spiritual authorities of that day, like so many of us
today, were a little dense. They failed to see the
meaning that soared deeper and wider and high-
er than the words themselves. It’s a reminder
that if we are to be worshippers of the God who
is Spirit, then we must open our hearts and our
minds and our lives to that which goes beyond
words on a page. It is only when we connect
with “Spirit and truth” that we truly encounter
the life eternal.
Scripture to Read
John 6:53
Comment 31
There’s no getting around it. The words
here, if taken literally, can seem both scary and
gross. For this reason, they are almost dangerous words to read aloud to a crowd, especially if
some in the crowd aren’t yet prepared to understand the meaning of the images.
What these dramatic images seem to be saying is that is in welcoming and receiving the
fullness of Jesus’ life­—including his willingness
to give his flesh and blood for the benefit of
others—that we truly connect with the richly
rewarding zōē of God. It is in letting God’s ways
become our ways that we set loose the “eternal
life” to which a loving and gathering God has
long been calling us.
Scripture to Read
John 6:54–56
Comment 32
Verse 56 makes the meaning even clearer.
We are told that to “eat” Christ’s flesh and
to “drink” Christ’s blood is not the physical act
of partaking of the “Eucharist” or communion.
Rather, to “eat” Christ’s flesh and to “drink”
Christ’s blood is to “dwell” where Christ dwells.
It is to make our “home” in that holy place—in
that intimate place—where God and humanity are one. It is to abide in that holy place—
in that intimate place—to which we have long
been called.
Scripture to Read
Isaiah 55:1–2
Comment 33
Similar images occur in the book that is called
Isaiah. The waters of this earth are good, says the
prophet, but they won’t satisfy your spiritual thirst.
The bread of this world might be costly, but in the
deepest sense, it can’t satisfy.
Yet there is a God who calls us, who offers us
that which is good. Come, says the Holy One.
Come, and let your soul delight in me.
Scripture to Read
John 6:57
Comment 34
In this brief verse, images of life—or zōē­­—
abound. Jesus says that he has been sent or commissioned by “the living Father.” And it is in God’s
life—or zōē­­—that Jesus himself finds life.
So, likewise, all who “eat” Jesus, all who take
him unto themselves, all who “dwell” in that holy
place where he dwells—they too shall live. They
too shall experience the richness of God’s own self,
God’s own life, God’s own peace.
Scripture to Read
Isaiah 54:10
Comment 35
This world’s “mountains” can tremble. This
world’s “hills” can be knocked low. But when we
dwell in that holy and intimate “place” where God
dwells, says the prophet, then we can be sure that
God’s merciful “covenant of peace” will be ours. It
will be ours forever.
Scripture to Read
John 6:58
Comment 36
There is a “feast” that has been sent down
from heaven, says the Fourth Gospel. And by its
“bread,” we shall taste that love by which we “shall
live forever.”
In the early 1800s, Reginald Heber, the clergyman whose most famous hymn is “Holy, Holy,
Holy,” wrote a short hymn inspired by the images
that we have examined today. Using some of those
same images, he sought to lift up not just the images but their meaning. Its words were these:
Bread of the world, in mercy broken,
wine of the soul, in mercy shed,
by whom the words of life were spoken,
and in whose death our sins are dead:
look on the heart by sorrow broken;
look on the tears by sinners shed;
so may your feast become the token
that by your grace our souls are fed.