If you come over to my house after supper time, well really, anytime, but especially after supper time, all the talk is about animals and nature.
My little girls want to know what God has created. And HOW fun it is to see the world through their eyes – people experiencing a giraffe, or a tree, or puffy clouds for the first time.
In the 27th Psalm, the psalmist proclaims, “I am confident, I believe, I trust that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Fifty-seven psalms later, this good living is manifested in the house of the Lord. God dwells in Jerusalem’s temple, and God makes room for God’s people, and indeed every created being.
If you have been paying close attention these last five weeks, yes, we have been talking about bread the whole time. But we haven’t been talking about the same kind of bread the whole time. Jesus has been explaining a process. We’ve moved from Jesus talking about the bread of heaven to living bread to flesh and blood.
God gives daily bread, manna, to the Israelites as they wander in the wilderness. Don’t me wrong, this is a remarkable gift. We need our daily bread and our daily watering to exist. And each week, this is a specific petition we offer collectively to our Creator. Give us something, God, that keeps us alive, allows us to move forward.
Last week, we read of that famous miracle – feeding the multitudes. In the wilderness, short on resources, surrounded by thousands of people, Jesus provides bread in abundance.
Jesus is SO efficient, and SO effective in this endeavor, that the crowds want to make him king. Who wouldn’t want a ruler that puts a loaf on every plate and a chicken in every pot?
We’re reading John’s gospel this morning, but somehow, someway, today’s text helps me understand Matthew’s gospel with a new sense of clarity. Matthew’s author reminds us that Jesus hasn’t come to abolish the law or the prophets – that is to abandon the covenant story of the First Testament – but instead, Jesus has come to fulfil the law and prophets (Matthew 5:17).
