Spiritual Junk Food and the Bread of Life

I have a confession to make.  I love junk food.  I sometimes shudder when I have to gas up my truck (not only because of the price of gas, but) because of all the delicious treats inside the gas station!  I have found very few fatty, over preserved, sugary, or sodium laden snack foods that I don’t like.  The problem is that those foods just aren’t good for me.  (Nor are they good for you, in case you were wondering.)  They range from nutritionally vapid to downright bad for you! 

In our Gospel lesson on Sunday we started reading from John 6.  We’ll be reading from John 6 for the next two weeks, too.  This is the section where Jesus refers to Himself as the bread of life.  He also confronted His hearers’ motivation for coming to Him.  You see, many of the people there had been part of the crowd when Jesus miraculously fed five-thousand men, plus women and children, with five loaves of bread and two fish.  They were looking for another meal, so Jesus said to them, “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.”  (See John 6:22-35 for the whole reading.) 

Jesus’ message is this:  God is offering you salvation through faith in Him.  “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent.”  That’s what he desires for you.  Jesus is the bread of life, and He satisfies our hunger, and even slakes our thirst. 

So God is offering us the bread of life, Jesus’ presence and salvation in our lives.  But often, instead of the bread of life, we desire spiritual junk food. 

What do I mean by spiritual junk food?  Anything that offers you happiness apart from Jesus is spiritual junk food.  Messages that offer you self-help instead of God’s intervention in your life are nutritional nothingness.  Worldviews that ignore sin, forgiveness, atonement, and God’s salvation are bankrupt bread.  And anyone who offers you these things or the hope of somehow building a life that revolves around yourself, your desires, and your ideas, is flat out trying to poison you. 

1 John 4:1 urges us to test the spirits.  As we talk about the bread of life we can translate that as, “Look at the nutritional content of what you’re feeding your soul.”  Paul warned in Ephesians 4:14 that there are teachings and beliefs that are rooted in the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.  The only way to avoid such false teaching, such spiritual junk food, is through faith in and knowledge of Christ.  The nutritional standard is God’s Word, and we must constantly ask, “What does the Word say?” 

God gives us spiritual food that lasts in His Word and the Sacraments.  It’s not always as appealing to us as junk food.  Sometimes the food He gives us is hard to eat – especially if He is confronting us with our sin.  Other times the food is very pleasant – like when He tells us of His love and forgiveness.  Either way, we are invited to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  (Psalm 34:8) 

Blessings on your week!

Questions to Ponder:

Over the last few weeks we’ve read a series of Gospel lessons that take place one after the other.  Starting in Mark 6 we read about the beheading of John the Baptist, the feeding of the 5,000, and Jesus walking on the water.  Now in John 6 we are reading the conversation that took place after these events.  As you read over these lessons is there anything that strikes you?  Does knowing that these events follow in sequence help in understanding the text?  Why or why not?

Look back at John 6:15 and then re-read John 6:26-27.  What did the people who followed Jesus desire from Him?  What did He want to give them? 

In verse 28 the people ask, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”  What was Jesus’ answer?  How is that significant for us as we think about our relationship with God?  What is the main thing God wants for us? 

“When they found [Jesus] on the other side of the lake, they asked him, ‘Rabbi, when did you get here?’”  Have you ever been surprised to find that Jesus was present with you?  Have you ever been in a situation where you asked, “Jesus, when did you get here?”  Where has Jesus gotten into your life?  What difference has it made?

Jesus said, “Do not work for food that spoils ….”  What are the spiritual foods that spoil in your life?  What kinds of spiritual junk food tempt you? 

Jesus used an image – the bread of life – to communicate the truth that He is the one who gives life to the world.  How does bread help us understand what Jesus does for us?  What mental images come to you when you hear the word, “bread” and the phrase, “bread of life”?  Do these help us draw closer to Jesus?  If so, how?