What did Jesus mean when he identified a piece of bread with his flesh?

What does it mean to feed on Jesus?

What is happening in communion?

And is it any surprise that people were confused by Jesus at times?

What is your deepest hunger?

What are the things that feel insatiable?

For some it’s intimacy, for others security, for others it might be approval.

John points us to Jesus who feeds our deepest hungers.

Anxiety preys on all of us.

It makes us fear we won’t have enough, or that we will be overwhelmed.

Jesus knows this and is able to transform these fears of not having enough to living abundantly.

In a world where it feels everyone is ready to argue, it’s easy to be defensive about our own assumptions.

But if we are going to see the world differently, we need to allow our assumptions about life to be challenged.

It’s what Jesus did to people in his time. It’s what he still does.

When John wrote the gospel, he includes just 7 miracles – even though he knew a lot more happened.

What his account highlights is how Jesus engages our vulnerabilities and brings us back to health.

Back to life.

You can see that some people have been broken by life.

Others just hide it well.

How honest can we be?

Jesus steps into our brokenness and stops us being defined by it.

One of the questions that crops up at regular intervals throughout life is one of the most basic ones: ‘Can we change? Can the direction of my life change?’

Jesus offers hope that things are not fixed, that change is possible to all who are open.

It begins with the heart.

Too many of us wonder whether we are good enough, or fear what others might think about us.

The power of shame can be crippling.

Jesus rescues us from that power so that we can live joy-filled lives.

Life is complicated.

We can either try to work out our own pathway, or we can accept the invitation of the One who knows where he is going and wants us to walk alongside him.

Every generation of Christians needs to be taken back to their origins.

Faith can become fluffy, sentimental, or detached from the reality of Jesus.

John’s gospel, written for people who may never have met Jesus, or perhaps even been born when Jesus was on earth, needed to be rooted in understanding who Jesus was and what his actions meant for them in their time.

We are in the same place as them.

Reading John’s gospel together will take us ‘Further up and further in’ with Jesus.