Reflection
I am the bread of life.
John 6:48
The image of eating and drinking connects to a central religious metaphor for our deepest human yearning, hunger, and the closely related metaphor thirst. There are those who hunger and thirst for God, for justice, for meaning, for life. For John, Jesus is the answer to that hunger. Jesus himself is the bread of life who satisfies this hunger. Eat this bread and you will never be hungry. The metaphors remind us of the Christian eucharist, but one should not reduce their meaning to the bread and wine of the central Christian sacrament…Jesus is the incarnation not only of the Word of God but of the Wisdom of God. We live in Jesus and become one with Jesus. This fills our spiritual hunger.
Adapted from Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time
Prayer
Give us this bread.
Action
Read the various references to hunger or thirst in scripture. What do they signify? Reflect on what is metaphor and what is literal. Which apply to your own spiritual search?
Suggested Reading
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Psalm 42:1
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.
Matthew 5:6
Human beings all over the world today need nourishment. And this nourishment is not just to satisfy physical hunger. There are other hungers – for love, for immortality of life, for affection, for being cared for, for forgiveness, for mercy. This hunger can be satiated only by the bread that comes from above.
Pope Francis
The poverty of the West is a different kind of poverty. It is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There is a hunger for love as there is a hunger for God.
Mother Teresa
Most Christians are satisfied living as common Christians, without an insatiable hunger for the deeper things of God.
Aiden Wilson Tozer
The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for
heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not
the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we
drink in every night.
John Piper
God is the one who satisfies the passion for justice, the longing for spirituality, the hunger for relationship, the yearning for beauty. And God, the true God, is the God we see in Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah, the world’s true Lord.
N. T. Wright
When you are hunger for God, God will fill you.
Jentezen Franklin
There is a spiritual hunger in the human heart and an eternal hunger in the human soul that can never be satisfied with anything other than Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life.
James Merritt