Church of the Holy City

The True Bread from Heaven

The True Bread from Heaven
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
August 5, 2012

Exodus 16:2-18 John 6:22-35 Psalm 78

Our readings this morning concern spiritual food and drink. In the reading from Exodus, the Israelites were fed bread that came down from heaven called “manna.” This was no mere bread. Psalm 78 calls it, “the grain of heaven” and “the bread of angels.” It is miraculous, something never seen by anyone before, so the Israelites call it, “manna.” Manna means, “What?” or “What is it?” We don’t need to seek too far into the spiritual meaning of manna to see that it is God who is feeding us with the bread of angels, or heavenly love. This meaning is reinforced in our New testament reading from John. There, Jesus states that He Himself is the true bread from heaven. He makes this claim almost with a logical sequence. It goes like this: 1) it was not Moses who gave the Israelites manna, but God, 2) God gives the true bread from heaven, 3) the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, 4) Jesus is the bread of life. So in both Exodus and John, we are dealing with spiritual food that God gives to us.
We can begin to look at this by considering earthly food. In Exodus, the children of Israel are hungry because they are in the desert. They are free from slavery in Egypt, but they are hungry with the spare food they are able to eat in the desert wilderness. They think they will starve to death, and wished they would have died by God’s hand in Egyptian slavery, where food was plentiful. They complain to Moses, who brings their complaint to God. God hears, and responds, sending manna in the morning and quails at night.
All these story elements have a spiritual significance. It is not too hard to see how this story is actually about spiritual growth and development. First, there is release from slavery, which is deliverance from sin. Then there is the famine of being deprived of our former worldly delights and pleasures. We hunger for the only life we knew and want to return to sin’s slavery and the food of our former worldly delights. But in the wilderness famine, when we are deprived of the pleasures of this world, heavenly enjoyment comes into our hearts to fill us with a new kind of delight. This is the manna, the bread of angels, with which God feeds us when we have abandoned the cravings that come from ego and worldly interests. Before our path of spiritual growth, we don’t even know that another life is possible. To us, ego gratification, status symbols, and money seem like the good things of life. We are not aware that there is another life possible. We are not aware that showing love to all those around us and doing good actions are more rewarding than anything that self-interest or worldly satisfaction can give us. To us, spirituality is manna, it is unknown, we say, “What is it?” Swedenborg contrasts these two modes of living,
That hence the bread which was given to the sons of Israel in the wilderness was called manna, is because that bread signifies the good of caring which is unknown to a person before regeneration, and it is not even known that such a good exists. For a person before regeneration believes that beyond the enjoyments of the love of self and the world, which he or she calls goods, there cannot be any good given which is not from that source or of such a quality. If any one should then say that there is an interior good which cannot come to the apprehension, consequently not to the knowledge, so long as the enjoyments of the love of self and the world have dominion, and that this good is what good spirits and angels are in, amazement follows, as at what is altogether unknown and as at what cannot be given; when yet this good immensely transcends the enjoyments of the love of self and the world (AC 8462).
We find a similar contrast between earthly food and spiritual food in our New Testament reading. The crowd has followed Jesus across a lake. Jesus says something to them that I find rather funny. We wonder sometimes what we need to do to bring people into the church. Jesus was no stranger to these questions. He knows that the crowd has followed Him across the lake because they just got fed, and I don’t mean spiritually fed. Jesus says,
I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you (John 6:26-27).
Jesus then says the words that we recite at every communion service. Jesus says, “He that comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35). Here, Jesus is contrasting the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread with feeding the world with spiritual food that gives eternal life. Jesus makes the claim that He is the bread of life that gives spiritual life.
This passage makes me think of a couple other passages from the Gospel of John. In this morning’s reading, Jesus responds to a direct request from the crowd. Jesus says that the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. In response, the crowd asks, “Give us this bread.” This story is quite similar to the story about the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus tells her that whoever drinks the water He gives will never thirst, and that the water will become a spring welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14). Like the crowd in this morning’s reading, the woman says, “Sir, give me this water.”
So in both stories we have Jesus talking about eternal food and drink. And we have two different people asking for this eternal food and drink. And in both stories, we have Jesus saying that He is the source of eternal life, which will be given to all who come to Him.
So the question arises, “How does Jesus give us this eternal food and drink?” In Catholic theology, the bread and wine of the Holy Supper is miraculously changed into Jesus’ body and blood. So when a person partakes of the Holy Supper, one is actually imbibing the body and blood of Jesus. We see things differently. We do value the physical act of eating bread and drinking wine or grape juice. But we see these acts as rich in symbolism. We see the bread as symbolic of receiving God’s Divine Love. And we see the wine as receiving God’s Divine Wisdom. We understand God to me infinite Love and Wisdom, so partaking of the bread and wine is symbolic of receiving God into our hearts and minds.
And this symbolism brings to mind a third New Testament passage. When Jesus says that He is spiritual food and drink, He means that He gives spiritual life. We become spiritual beings when we let Jesus into our hearts. Then we are in Him and He is in us. This Jesus says in John 15:
I am the vine and my Father is the gardener. . . . No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:1,4, 5).
When Jesus is in us, and we are in Jesus, then we are living out the symbolism of the Holy Supper. We are filled with God’s divine Love and Wisdom, as we live a wise and loving life. Then we will hunger and thirst no longer for the good things of eternal life for we will be receiving day by day what is good for us–just as the Israelites gathered manna just enough for the day. We will feel heavenly joy and delight in Godly and loving deeds. We will have abandoned selfish goals and pleasures and opened our hearts to receive God and the eternal enjoyments that He gives.