Br. Luke Ditewig

John 6:41-51

We usually serve homemade bread at both altar and supper table. One guest told me: “Your bread is substantial and satisfying. Here at the monastery, I’ve experienced Jesus as substantial and satisfying.”

Bread is ordinary, daily, necessary nourishment, and a key symbol in our salvation story. God provided ancient Israel with bread from heaven in the wilderness for forty years. Wandering in the desert, our parents asked: “What is it?” God said: Take a measure of this every morning. More will come tomorrow. Don’t hoard it. I will give you enough.[i]

Jesus asked his disciples how to feed the crowd that followed them. They replied: “Six months wages would not buy enough bread.” Another said: Here are five loaves and two fish. Jesus gave thanks and distributed the loaves and fish feeding thousands “… as much as they wanted.”[ii] We similarly question how we will live and focus on seeming scarcity. God invites us to trust provision beyond what we imagine.

Jesus said: “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven. … I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” The Jews dispute it. How can he give us his flesh? Jesus says: I am the true bread of heaven. You need me to live.

Jesus is more than manna in the wilderness, and more than a meal for 5,000 from a few loaves and fish. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Jesus offers himself as sustaining nourishment to be received and savored daily.

What questions concern your heart? What weight or burden do you bear? What is your need? “Come to me,” Jesus says. “I am your provision. Trust me.” Substantial and satisfying, enough for today, and promised for tomorrow: Jesus, the true bread of heaven.

[i] Exodus 16

[ii] John 6:1-14