This week's Jesus conversation is an interesting one, because it's not with a person but with a crowd.

At the beginning of John 6, Jesus' ministry is going superbly by our standards. He's got a crowd who are willing to lay down their lives for him. He's performed a spectacular miracle, walked across water, and (in John's rendering) seems to be the new Moses. Yet by the start of John 7, the crowds have deserted and only a handful are left.

What on earth happend in John 6? How could Jesus be so careless as to lose his popular appeal? And what do we, as a church, learn from his claim that he's the 'bread of life'?