All this is not to make your mouth water or your stomach to growl. But the purpose here to show you how important bread is to our everyday life. And this staple also has a very long history. As the common food of the average Israelite, bread was featured often in the spiritual and the ceremonial and sacrificial worship of ancient Israel. From the Book of Genesis (14:18) we know that sharing bread (and wine) was a customary expression of peace and fellowship. Melchizedek, the king of Salem “brought out bread and wine to Abraham.” Even today to break bread with a companion, that is to share a meal with a friend, is an act of communion. And look at the word “companion.” The middle of the word companion is pan. In Spanish pan is bread.

In this passage Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life - “the true Bread from Heaven.” Jesus says that just as we need the daily staple of bread for our physical bodies, we also need the daily staple of living bread. That is, we need Jesus, the One sent from God, the living “bread from Heaven” for our spiritual lives.

In this passage, the people who approach Jesus str many of the same folks who were with Him on the grassy hillside when He multiplied the five loaves and two fishes. The crowd follows Him. But it seems their motive is not to find Jesus - but rather to be fed. They want the physical bread again. They also want another sign. They even throw out a sort of test to Jesus. Jesus knows this and listens. He tells them they seek food that will perish. But they should seek the food that He provides eternity.

The people still don’t get it. They think know their history about Moses and their ancestors wondering in the wilderness. So these people say, “If You, Jesus, can provide us with food for six days a week and for 40 years; If You can prove that you are greater than Moses who gave our ancestors manna! If You can prove that you can feed us again and again -- Then and only then will we believe in you as the promised Messiah.”

There was a hunger. There is a hunger in all of us, just like the crowd back then. The hunger is real. The hunger is in our spirits that cannot be satisfied with anything that is of the world. It can only be satisfied through a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus reminds the crowd, and us, that God continues to think very highly of His people, you and me. Therefore, He does continue to provide, in one way or another, manna or bread for our physical needs. More importantly God continues to provide for our spiritual needs.

That is what Jesus means when He tells the people that “it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven.” It was God the Father who supplied the manna for the Israelites those 40 years in the wilderness.

And what about that manna? As I said, it was God, not Moses, who provided it to the Israelites. It was a gift from God. God provided it at night. It met only the physical need. The Israelites had to gather it up and eat it daily. They could not save it. It would spoil if kept longer than a day.

Jesus is different. He does not go bad. And Jesus came when people were in darkness. He comes to us in our dark times. Jesus is God’s gift to the world. Jesus meets our spiritual needs. Jesus must be received. You and I must receive Jesus. And we must “use,” that is, “take Him in” on a daily basis for our personal spiritual growth. Jesus, this “living bread, equips and sustains us for the day and for God’s purpose. Indeed, we are to hunger after Him as a starving person hungers for bread. We are to thirst after him as a dying person thirsts after water.

Do we do that? If we really would, it is hard to estimate how rich in the knowledge and fruitfulness of God we would be. Remember the Anniversary Commitment Prayer that Pastor Dave asked us to pray three times a week since June 29. That commitment is praying for: “The increased penetration/influence and progress of the gospel of Jesus into the larger community through our church.” The prayer does not stop there. We are also to pray for: “The increased discipleship maturity of the people of our church, including ourselves - a maturity that will show itself in Biblical action and in love for each other.”

You and I must take in, dwell with Jesus daily, so that we can have that increased discipleship maturity - for ourselves first. That is where it must begin. We are to come to Him to cease to be hungry. We are to believe on Him to quench our thirst. This is His purpose. This is His glory.

For Abraham, breaking bread with Melchizedek had been an act of communion on the human level. When we Christians partake of the this meal, the sacrament of communion, the bread of God, we have communion not just with one another, but with Jesus and with the Father. Every time we partake in this sacrament and share in this meal we share with all the Jews and Gentiles on that green hill with Jesus, we share with the disciples during the last supper, we share with the Apostle Paul and the others in the Early Church and those throughout history. Every time you and I come to His table, we experience the foretaste of the marriage supper with the Lamb of God when Jesus comes again.

Yes, the physical bread, like the manna, will spoil. But Jesus Christ lives on. Through Jesus Christ, you and I shall live in eternity with Him. This is such a blessed assurance to us. In that assurance believe in Jesus, take of Him, your living bread, on a daily basis. Be filled with Him for your day’s need and for God’s purpose.