Take yourself back, back across the years, the centuries, the millennia. Go far back in time, back to the time of creation. Back, to the beginning.

There aren’t too many people around right now, but you notice a subtle difference amongst those that are. Certain people focus on the here and now, on getting the job done, on hunting, gathering, and fishing. Others do the same, yet, they seem to be the ones who always cry out for more.

No, not more food, but more. They know there is something more.

Now walk forward with me. There’s Abram. He received a message; he packed up and left, with his old barren wife. He’s crossing the desert. I hear later that he’s now called Abraham. He heard from that mysterious something more. Whatever that more is has made a blood covenant with Abraham. They have a contract, to become a great nation.

Still further along we find Moses, leading that people out of Egypt. The contact has matured, the nation is large, and they are going to claim their inheritance. They were slaves and cried out, we need more, save us, we are hungry for more! And remarkably, they now meet with that something more, first on a mountain, then in a tent, in the desert. They know its laws, and well, they know His name —“ Yahweh. I am.

The years fly by faster now. Judges, kings, prophets, each in their own way, faced with struggles, confronting sin and mistakes. David is told that an eternal king shall be his descendant.

More kings, some, many, self interested louts. Then the exile. The great and minor prophets, Hosea speaking God’s love poetry to the people: Come back to me with all your heart.

When Israel was a child, I loved her,
and called her out of Egypt as my own.
But the more I called to her,
the more she turned away from me.
Yet I was the one who taught them to walk.
I took my people up in my arms,
but they did not acknowledge that I took care of them.
I drew them to me with affection and love.
I picked them up and held them to my cheek.
I bent down to them and fed them.
How can I give you up, my people?
How can I abandon you?
Could I ever destroy you
or treat you harmfully?
My heart will not let me do it!
My love for you is too strong.

And so we arrive in the poor, overcrowded, dirty streets of Bethlehem. In a barn out back of the city. We are no more than objects, not even called human beings by the government in Rome. We are slaves once again. And we are hungry, thirsty, alone, and broken hearted.

Some years later we stand in the presence of a remarkable man from Nazareth. We find him on the other side of the lake and we ask him:

Teacher, why did you come here?

Jesus answered them and said:

I am going to tell you an important truth that you need to understand.

You are looking for me not because you saw a miracle, but because you ate loaves of bread and your hunger was satisfied.

Don’t work for the food that spoils but for the food that gives life for eternity, which only the Son of man can give you.

For I am the only one the Father has commissioned to give eternal life.

They asked:

What must we do in order to earn this food that gives life for eternity?

Jesus said to them:

The work you can do to please God is to believe on the one whom God has sent.

I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes on me will never thirst.

The Jews began to start grumbling about Jesus because he said he was the bread of life that came down from heaven. They said:

Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph? Don’t we know his father and mother? How can he say he came down from heaven?

Jesus answered them:

I am the living bread that comes down from heaven and once a man eats it he will never die, but live forever. The bread that I give is my flesh, given for the life of the world.

The Jews began to discuss what these mysterious words meant.

We know what these words meant. We know because we are here. We kneel here and acknowledge our knowing every week. We kneel here still hungry, but with the blessed assurance that he came to feed us and to save us.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, we are hungry and we are here now. You came this day to reconcile us because the Father’s love is so strong. You came to feed us with your body and blood, to save us. May our hunger for you, for your word, for your body and blood be our only desire. Welcome Lord Jesus, welcome into my life.

Amen.