The Bread Of Life
Ereeny Mikhail
“And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.’” – John 6:35, NKJV
Every time I read this verse as a child or teenager, I interpreted as God will always provide. Little did I know that the magnitude of this verse was much larger than my limited interpretation. Yes, Christ tells me I will never hunger or thirst. But I don’t think He is just referring to everyday food, water, and needs. He specifically says He is the Bread of Life. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty hungry most of the time. I’m always walking to the fridge to see if there’s a little snack in there, and the human body cannot survive without water. We definitely hunger and thirst. So, what did Christ mean by this verse?
St John Chrysostom explains this beautifully and says “He does not say this of His body, for He speaks of that at the end; The bread that I will give you is My flesh. Here He is speaking of His Divinity. The flesh is bread, by virtue of the Word; this bread is heavenly bread, on account of the Spirit which dwells in it.”
This is the core of Orthodoxy, as we say in the liturgy “His Divinity never departed from His Humanity.” Thus, the statement of ‘Bread of Life’ was saying a lot more than God provides, as I previously thought. It was said to reveal that He is the True God. St John Chrysostom continues, “For That, through God the Word, is Bread, as this bread also, through the Spirit descending on it, is made Heavenly Bread.” Now let’s take a moment to break this down. Ask yourself again, is there a bread you eat that keeps you full forever? None that I have had. Several hours later, my stomach is rumbling again, and I need more food. I’m not just writing this blog to tell you I eat a lot. I am trying to say that no food is filling to give us life. However, Christ tells us that He is the Bread of Life. Again, this seems virtually impossible to the lay human mind. But this reveals something more Divine to us - that through Christ, we have life.
As we reach the second week of the Holy 50’s, it makes us reflect back on the Lent, when we read the story of the Samaritan woman and He says to that He will give her ‘living water.’ And now he tells us, that we shall never hunger or thirst. St Cyril of Alexandria interprets this; “I am the Bread of Life, not bodily bread, which cutteth off the suffering from hunger only, and freeth the flesh from the destruction therefrom, but remoulding wholly the living being to eternal life, and rendering man who was formed to be for ever, superior to death.” This is why this is read during the Holy 50’s. As a reminder, that through his resurrection, we were given eternal life. We require nothing else. We have life through His sacrifice.
Now if you made it this far, you’re doing pretty well. No one wants to read a theological analysis of the meaning of the verse without understanding the human applications. I reflect on something that happened to me recently And God sent me this as a reminder. Now sympathise with me for a second - I am currently studying, working full time, am newly married for 1 year, my husband is studying, working full time, sitting pretty critical training exams and also attending to his marital duties. Yes. Life gets overwhelming. I got so consumed in how busy it was, that when things go wrong, it honestly feels like the end of the world. You stress, you lose sleep, you gain weight, you cry…and so on. I am sure every university student is reading this thinking, isn’t that normal? So, at one of those times where things got too much, I opened the Book of Life hoping for a "He will be with me" verse. Rather, I was faced with a sobering reminder – the verse that came up in front of me was “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:33-34) We need to remember that all these things on earth are merely ways to get into Heaven, but nothing on earth is worth Heaven. Christ is the Bread, Bread gives us Life and thus, Christ is Life. He is life. So, what more do we need? He is our only focus.
Every time I read this verse as a child or teenager, I interpreted as God will always provide. Little did I know that the magnitude of this verse was much larger than my limited interpretation. Yes, Christ tells me I will never hunger or thirst. But I don’t think He is just referring to everyday food, water, and needs. He specifically says He is the Bread of Life. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty hungry most of the time. I’m always walking to the fridge to see if there’s a little snack in there, and the human body cannot survive without water. We definitely hunger and thirst. So, what did Christ mean by this verse?
St John Chrysostom explains this beautifully and says “He does not say this of His body, for He speaks of that at the end; The bread that I will give you is My flesh. Here He is speaking of His Divinity. The flesh is bread, by virtue of the Word; this bread is heavenly bread, on account of the Spirit which dwells in it.”
This is the core of Orthodoxy, as we say in the liturgy “His Divinity never departed from His Humanity.” Thus, the statement of ‘Bread of Life’ was saying a lot more than God provides, as I previously thought. It was said to reveal that He is the True God. St John Chrysostom continues, “For That, through God the Word, is Bread, as this bread also, through the Spirit descending on it, is made Heavenly Bread.” Now let’s take a moment to break this down. Ask yourself again, is there a bread you eat that keeps you full forever? None that I have had. Several hours later, my stomach is rumbling again, and I need more food. I’m not just writing this blog to tell you I eat a lot. I am trying to say that no food is filling to give us life. However, Christ tells us that He is the Bread of Life. Again, this seems virtually impossible to the lay human mind. But this reveals something more Divine to us - that through Christ, we have life.
As we reach the second week of the Holy 50’s, it makes us reflect back on the Lent, when we read the story of the Samaritan woman and He says to that He will give her ‘living water.’ And now he tells us, that we shall never hunger or thirst. St Cyril of Alexandria interprets this; “I am the Bread of Life, not bodily bread, which cutteth off the suffering from hunger only, and freeth the flesh from the destruction therefrom, but remoulding wholly the living being to eternal life, and rendering man who was formed to be for ever, superior to death.” This is why this is read during the Holy 50’s. As a reminder, that through his resurrection, we were given eternal life. We require nothing else. We have life through His sacrifice.
Now if you made it this far, you’re doing pretty well. No one wants to read a theological analysis of the meaning of the verse without understanding the human applications. I reflect on something that happened to me recently And God sent me this as a reminder. Now sympathise with me for a second - I am currently studying, working full time, am newly married for 1 year, my husband is studying, working full time, sitting pretty critical training exams and also attending to his marital duties. Yes. Life gets overwhelming. I got so consumed in how busy it was, that when things go wrong, it honestly feels like the end of the world. You stress, you lose sleep, you gain weight, you cry…and so on. I am sure every university student is reading this thinking, isn’t that normal? So, at one of those times where things got too much, I opened the Book of Life hoping for a "He will be with me" verse. Rather, I was faced with a sobering reminder – the verse that came up in front of me was “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:33-34) We need to remember that all these things on earth are merely ways to get into Heaven, but nothing on earth is worth Heaven. Christ is the Bread, Bread gives us Life and thus, Christ is Life. He is life. So, what more do we need? He is our only focus.