THE BREAD OF GOD
Gospel of John
6:32 Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
6:33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
6:34 They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Apostle Paul wrote: Sometimes I do what I hate and sometimes I don't do what I really want to do which is or should be the right thing to do. The right thing to do is not necessarily the expedient one, but the highest moral decision. It means that there are these two wills that keep fighting in all of us like my heart, my soul is a battlefield if the universal two superpowers good and bad. There is a denial in the human heart, a confusion and the division, all centered around the word of God.
This is not a small thing because it is written by a single word of God was the universe created all around us but is visible and invisible. Without the word of God, there is no soul and there is no matter. Without nourishment the body dies, that is clear to us, but the human souls also need nourishment.
The word of God nurtures the soul. Without nourishment the human soul dies, as well. That is why Jesus stated in the desert that man lives not by bread only, but by the word of God.
In the desert Royal Prince Jesus from the House of King David, (according to the Gospels), was tempted by the offer of invulnerability and the offer of becoming the Emperor of the World. He rejected the offers.
In another part of the World, in the middle of the sixth century BCE another Royal Prince was born. The astrologers predicted it to his father, the king, this boy will become the teacher of the world as an ascetic or will become a chakravarti, which means an invincible military conqueror of the world.
The parents of the prince did not like idea that their son will become an ascetic teacher.
His father, called Suddhodana, decided that it can not ever happen.
The king made prince isolated within the palace and surrounded him with luxury and all the pleasures powerful and wealthy men can have on Earth and beyond. All the peasants were ordered to hide real life from the prince in order to discourage him to renounce the pleasant world and become an ascetic.
However, everything changed, when the prince at the age of 29 left the for the first time at for the nearby city in a chariot driven by his charioteer Chandaka. On this journey the Prince noticed an old people in the city. When the prince inquired about aging of the people, Chandaka replied that aging is a general phenomenon, happening to all beings alike, humans, animals, even to plants.
The Prince wanted more to know about the people in the city, so he had a second journey in his chariot, as he left the palace again. He saw sick people all around the city. The Prince was surprised at the sight. In the palace they hid sickness or sick people from him. His charioteer, Chandaka exhorted that all beings are subject to disease and pain. The Prince became very startled and he had a very heavy heart over the issue.
Nonetheless, the Prince wanted to further explore life in the city, and he left the palace again in his chariot. At this time he saw dead people. His charioteer, Chandaka explained to the Prince that death is as natural to people as birth is natural. Who was born, must face death sooner or later, as it is an inevitable fate that befalls everyone.
The Prince became troubled in his mind and was sorrowful about the sufferings that one has to endured through life and death.
The Prince wanted more to know about how the people in the city can cope with human fate that involves, beside the available pleasure, so much sufferings, like aging and losing capacities, sicknesses and diseases, and at the end the cruel death is lurking behind everybody.
Thus they left the palace again, and saw an ascetic who had devoted himself to finding the cause of human suffering. Although the ascetic did not find the cause of all sufferings, neither the enlightenment, still the Prince, when he saw somebody who dedicated his life to the search, this sight gave him hope, that it is possible to find solution.
He decided that he, himself, will put his heart, his soul and all of his strength in the search for salvation of humanity from suffering and death. The solution he found was that one has to give up all his or her desires, and that will end the sufferings.
At that time, in that culture, they believed that everything, all the vivid life waves in the surrounding world, was an illusion, thus everything, including aging, sickness, death and suffering in itself is an imagined pseudo reality.
If someone could be free from all of someone’s desires, it would mean, that someone would be free from his or her own imagination, ergo one would be free from the illusions of this world, including aging, sickness and death. It sounds very much different from the Gospel message. It is indeed different, at least on the surface, however the ultimate Christian goal is to become such a Christian believer, who agrees with God in everything.
Nothing else should be on the mind of the truly and fully believer but the unchanging will and the decrees of the Creator of the Universe. Any deviation from the will of God is considered sin and a violation of the divine order, which always have the consequences like aging, sickness and ultimately death.
We can learn the will of God mostly from the Word of God, in order to make ourselves to agree with the will of God. That is why the Gospel of John declares at the very beginning, talking about Jesus, that the Word made flesh, and that is why this declaration corresponds with the very words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter six:
"Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
The word of God is not like the bread taken from the Earth to nurture the body taken also from the Earth, but the Word of God, comes from the heavenly Father to nurture the human soul to reach Heaven and receive life immortal. May we have communion and unity with Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, AMEN
