PODCAST
Manna from Heaven
April 29th, 2020
John 6:25-40
As the people and Jesus talk about “true bread,” they equate Jesus’ feeding them with five loaves to the manna the people of Israel ate in the wilderness. Quoting the scripture “He gave them bread from heaven to eat,” they acknowledge that Jesus has provided them with bread from heaven (v. 31b).
But the crowd doesn’t know the true bread to which Jesus refers. He tells them they must do the work of believing, and they ask for a sign, thinking that surely the bread He gave them was the same as the manna in the wilderness—a sign of God’s care—and, by believing in the sign of the bread, they will have the “true bread.”
He has already said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry” (v. 35b), but they do not realize that He is, indeed, the sign come down from heaven—the sign of God’s care for them.
How often do we mistake our true needs? We ask for manna, when we should ask for the true bread which will nourish us forever—Jesus, the bread of life.
Author: Rebecca Belcher-Rankin
