Friends: When Christians partake of the communion bread and cup, what are we nourishing? Have a great week! Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #948

January 14, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Food for Thought

By Bob Walters

“Where else would we go?” Peter, to Jesus, John 6:68

John 6 is a busy chapter in the Bible, full of stories we know well. 

Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6:1-13). then left, alone, for the mountains (v15). That night Jesus walked on the stormy water (v16) of the northern Sea of Galilee, out to the boat where his fearful and astounded disciples were saved from the weather, their fears, and as Jesus accused them, their lack of faith.

Jesus said to them, “It is I, do not fear” (John 6:20).

The next day many from the crowd of 5,000 went looking for Jesus. They caught up with Him near Capernaum on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee and asked when he had arrived. Jesus, ever alert to the self-indulging queries of humanity, provided a lesson rather than an answer: “You seek me not because of the miracle I performed, but because you ate and had your fill” (John 6:26). 

Jesus reproached them of following Him only for a free lunch – another feast of loaves and fishes – not because of their faith in Him. Faith is God’s coin of the realm.

Jesus goes on (John 6:27-59), telling them to seek bread that does not spoil, i.e. the bread of God – Him, Jesus – and that the work of God, their work, is “to believe in the one he has sent,” … meaning himself. Our “work” is to believe in Jesus.

Unlike the manna God sent to Moses and the Jews in the desert – bread that spoiled in a day – God sent Jesus to all mankind as the bread of eternal life that does not spoil. Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.” Adding, “He who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35, 54)

Jesus declares that his flesh is everlasting life, and that the Spirit will live only in believers who eat His body and drink His blood, and then they will live forever.

Eat Jesus? Drink His blood?  It was a “hard teaching” (6:60) and many “disciples” left.  The Twelve however, stayed. Peter expressed their faith perfectly: “Where else would we go?”

As we encounter the bread and cup of Christ today, we can express our love for God and each other, and ask the same question as Peter: “Where else would we go?”

I believe the Spirit of God, of Jesus, lives in believers.  And that by following the last supper commands of Jesus – to remember Him when we eat the bread and drink the cup as an act of devotion and faith in Jesus – we are participating in the life of God, and feeding the Spirit of God and Christ who lives within us.

Unlike the physically filling feast of loaves and fishes, communion is a very small meal. But just as Jesus says that faith only the size of a tiny mustard seed can grow large, this small meal of wafer and cup nourishes our faith and blossoms into our magnificent and eternal life with God, through our salvation in Christ.

The bread and the cup of communion feed our faith as we share the love of the Spirit who lives in us, and of the believers around us.  Where else would we go?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) presented this as a communion meditation Sunday.