Alison now dips into John's gospel to say more about this scandalous life of Jesus.
The process of Jesus attempting to lead his hearers beyond scandal is shown in John 6. There Jesus attempts to bring his hearers on fro their understanding of his miraculous feeding of the five thousand, and understanding rooted in food and a kingly messiah, toward his own subversion of the Passover and the manna in the desert as pointing to himself as the authentic bread from heaven. During the discourse, the eager listening of his audience is gradually turned into furious questioning, linked by allusion with the murmuring of Israel against Moses on the way to the Promised Land. Finally even many of his disciples find it hard to take, and Jesus asks them is this scandalizes them (John 6:61)
The "authentic bread of heaven" is a wonderful description of Jesus as the concrete and available life of Jesus. In that life - we see and hear what is the life sustaining power of God's Reign. It is this life - this life that is available for the whole world - this life that brings to those in need whatever it takes to sustain them for the new life that is this "bread of heaven" - this life of Jesus - this life that is our life too. It involves some scandal. For now, we do not wait for something to happen - we do not simply retell a story - we feed the people for life. We take the words of the stories and show -through our lives - that they are not merely words we are waiting to be fulfilled. Rather, they are becoming - by the power of the Holy Spirit - our life together. Authentic is real - alive - mark from the beginning - identified as true to the original. We are this authentic bread for this generation. When that bread is available - like bread to 5000 out in the middle of nowhere - people get fed - people get a glimpse of the power of God to bring life into a new reality.
Connection: But as we know, each of us gets a bit rattled by this real presence of our Lord, Jesus. In fact, that 'authentic bread of heaven' has the ability to press all of our buttons so that we often step back rather than forward into the life of God's Reign. It is there that Jesus - facing death, walking through death, and being raise by God - becomes for us the way to inspire all of us to face the scandal and really Live.
O God of life, we all long for the bread that will sustain us in the middle of the days of our lives in which we seem unable to follow along the way of our Lord, Jesus. Be our strength again as we our pulled into the way. Amen.
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