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Today's Lenten Devotion
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Wonder Bread
From "The Message": Jesus responded, The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread.
-- John 6:32
What is going on here? We understand because we read the passages before and after v.32. Yet, the crowds didn’t have this luxury because John hadn’t been written. So what is happening? Remember that earlier in this chapter, Jesus fed this crowd that’s around him with the five loaves and two fishes. He not only fed them there were significant leftovers, twelve baskets full.
We’re told that He fed five thousand, yet that count was comprised of the men only, if you consider the women and children there were many more than five thousand. Miraculously, there were leftovers; well some may not have been keen with leftovers. We do need to remember that Jesus was a Jew, a devout and learned Jew. In v.12 and 27, Jesus implicitly ties in the manna story from Exodus 16, but, in v.32 it is explicit.
Jesus tells the crowd that the feeding in Exodus is in the past. God is now, in the present, giving them, not their ancestors, God’s gift of the “real bread” from heaven. Back in v.30 the crowd was asking for a sign so that they might believe. Jesus contrasted the gifts of manna and the current gift of the “real bread from heaven”. Jesus points to an earlier comment recorded in John 1:17 that “The law was given through Moses and the truth came through Jesus Christ.” It’s from God the Father.
What does this mean to us? It’s simple, Martin Luther said it so many years ago; “...we go to the sacrament because there we receive a great treasure, we obtain the forgiveness of sin”. We have been born again through our Baptism, but we have not lost our old skin, we are not left alone, the world and Satan are fierce foes, when they have difficulty in routing us they get sneaky, sometimes in ways we don’t recognize; and we stumble. When we feel downtrodden, we have the comfort of the Meal to strengthen and refresh us again. God be with you all.
We pray: Holy One, Holy Three, we are thankful for the life giving food, given us freely and without question. We pray that you will sustain us this day and all others as we work and travel in the vineyard. Amen
Arnie Hansen
ahansen@ltsp.edu
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