Before this, Jesus had fed the five thousand using five loaves of bread and two fishes. The crowd was amazed by the miracle, and started following Him. In the end, Jesus walked on water to Capernaum, and the crowd followed Him there, and He rebuked the crowd in these few verses.

1. See beyond the Blessings that do not Last

After witnessing Jesus miraculously feed over five thousand, many followed Him across the sea to Capernaum. But when they came to Jesus, He accused them of coming simply to fill their stomachs in verse 26. The people had seen the miracle but had completely missed the meaning. The sign pointed to Jesus but all they could see was a free lunch. Jesus then continued to lead them in truth.

In verse 27 Jesus told the people not to work for food that do not last, but for food that endures to eternal life. He needed to point out to the people that they should not just be obsessed with physical sustenance, not seek Him for the blessings that He can provide by means of His miracles. Those who approached Jesus that day had an initial focus of physical satisfaction. They had a need and Jesus had proved He could deliver. But Jesus saw their motivation and revealed the folly of their priorities by contrasting food which perishes with food which endures. This is the same message delivered by Isaiah 700 years earlier.

The food which endures is that which leads to everlasting life. Jesus said that He is the bread of life. Essentially what Jesus was telling the people was that they should stop seeking the blessings, which is the physical bread that He miraculously made, but that they should seek the one behind the blessings – Himself – who gives the spiritual bread of everlasting life.

We see this happen in real life as well. Sometimes we see people with real needs, coming to the church or Christians for help. When God answers the need, they sometimes completely miss the fact that God has shown His reality, and they are just consumed with the blessing that came, and they miss the real point of it all.

2. Start to Believe in the Lord

Jesus applied the word "work" to both types of food. He told them not to work for the physical food, but to work for the spiritual food. Jesus understood that they had a misconception that had to be addressed, and that the message of a gift was lost on those who were gathered. Though they appeared to understand something about everlasting life, their questions were immediately directed toward self-effort; "What must we do?" They were looking for a list or some magic formula that would result in God's approval. They wanted to know what they can do to earn God’s approval, but Jesus knocked that all down by saying that what they must do is to believe, which is something that does not take effort at all.

Everlasting life is a true gift from God, "not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:9). And yet Jesus spoke here of ‘work’. Elsewhere He said; "Strive to enter through the narrow gate" (Luke 13:24), and also; "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33). Although salvation is a free gift that comes from God, we have our own role to play by being proactive. We have to seek God just as He is seeking us. There is nothing we can do that can earn salvation, because in ourselves, our righteousness is like rags to God, and we are so far from His standard of holiness. What we can do is to believe. Believe wholeheartedly that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He came to earth to sacrifice Himself for our sins such that when we do believe in Him, we can appropriate the blessings of the work that He did upon the cross.

This is also true of many people who do not know the Lord, and even for those who are Christians. Intuitively, we find it difficult to accept that everlasting life comes free. Everything ingrained in us tells us we need to work for something that is good. Especially in Asian culture where the concept of karma is very strong. God does expect us to work, but it’s in working out our salvation, not working for our salvation. After we are saved by merely believing, that is the point when God desires us to do something, and that is to share the good news with others, and bless others, and etc.

3. Seek the Bread of Life

The people following His statement about believing still had difficulty accepting it. The first thing they thought of was to ask for a sign. Sometimes that reflects our hardened hearts. We see something that seems to be from God, and we keep asking God for signs and wonders to confirm it. Sometimes God is gracious and will answer, but other times He probably won’t. God is not a circus clown wanting to show us some tricks to make us happy. When we see a miracle or a sign, and ask for a second one, what it proves is that we don’t have enough faith to believe in the first sign or miracle to begin with.

The crowd behaved that way too. They saw Jesus perform the miracle, yet they asked for another sign. Since the whole thing was about bread, they asked Jesus for the miracle of manna, which God fed the Israelites when they were in the desert. Jesus then rebuked them and pointed out the difference. Back in Moses’ time, the bread that sustained them and gave them life came down from heaven because God the Father allowed it, and Jesus continued to point out that the bread that will give them spiritual sustenance is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, and he was talking about Himself.

By then, at least, the people started to understand, and they desired everlasting life. The most important thing out of the whole conversation was that in the end, in verse 34, they asked of Jesus to give them this bread from now on. They finally are able to look beyond the physical blessing, believe in Jesus, and seek the gift of everlasting life. And this is the end goal of any miracle or sign that God performs.

Further Reflections