John 6: 27
” Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Why is the crowd following Jesus? Chapter 6 begins with John telling us that the crowd was following Jesus because he had been healing the sick. Stop and think for a moment about the people in your life. Who doesn’t know someone that is sick, or has been, or will be? Many of us know friends and family who are struggling with terrible diseases or struggle with our own. Who wouldn’t want to be close to a man who can heal every illness? Who wouldn’t want to have him close by all of the time?
On top of this, when they find Jesus on the hillsides east of the Sea of Galilee, miles from any place where one could buy food, Jesus feeds them all. “As much as they wanted…” John tells us. Think about that for a moment. You live in a culture where being hungry is normal. You have been walking for days with very little to eat. You come to a man on a hillside, miles from anywhere, and everyone gets fed until they cannot eat anymore, and twelve baskets of leftovers are collected, to boot.
Wouldn’t you want to have Jesus for your king?
Instead of commending the crowd for their good sense in wanting what Jesus can provide in the physical world, he chides them for wanting “food that spoils.” Instead, he urges them to set their minds on “food that endures to eternal life.”
Q: What kind of food are you hungry for?
Coffee at the moment… but seriously I appreciate how Jesus constantly turns people’s attention from the temporary to the eternal. He doesn’t discount the physical or temporary needs – he understood that many people were struggling to survive or at least struggling to care for their families. The problem is not that they/we have physical needs, but that our spiritual need vastly outweighs our temporary needs. This was true in the 1st century and it is even more true today, we don’t live in at subsistence level – but our spiritual need is just as great as it was to the crowds Jesus to whom Jesus preached. It holds true with sickness as well, we have amazing medical opportunities, but they can’t heal the sickness of sin.
It is a great reminder for me to orient my prayers toward spiritual needs, even amidst great physical need.
Nathan,
Isn’t it interesting how our physical needs are so effective at grabbing out attention, and our spiritual needs get pushed to the side? Yet in those moments between physical needs, the spiritual surfaces and can be most powerful and persuasive.