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John 6:22-34John 6:22 The next day, the crowd which had stayed on the other side of the lake noticed that there had been only one boat there, and that Yeshua had not entered the boat with his talmidim, but that the talmidim had been alone when they sailed off. 23 Then other boats, from Tiberias, came ashore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had made the b’rakhah. 24 Accordingly, when the crowd saw that neither Yeshua nor his talmidim were there, they themselves boarded the boats and made for K’far-Nachum in search of Yeshua.
John 6:22-34John 6:22 The next day, the crowd which had stayed on the other side of the lake noticed that there had been only one boat there, and that Yeshua had not entered the boat with his talmidim, but that the talmidim had been alone when they sailed off. 23 Then other boats, from Tiberias, came ashore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had made the b’rakhah. 24 Accordingly, when the crowd saw that neither Yeshua nor his talmidim were there, they themselves boarded the boats and made for K’far-Nachum in search of Yeshua.
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 26 Yeshua answered, “Yes, indeed! I tell you, you’re not looking for me because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the bread and had all you wanted! 27 Don’t work for the food which passes away but for the food that stays on into eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For this is the one on whom God the Father has put his seal.”
28 So they said to him, “What should we do in order to perform the works of God?” 29 Yeshua answered, “Here’s what the work of God is: to trust in the one he sent!”
30 They said to him, “Nu, what miracle will you do for us, so that we may see it and trust you? What work can you perform? 31 Our fathers ate man in the desert — as it says in the Tanakh, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[John 6:31 Psalm 78:24; Nehemiah 9:15] 32 Yeshua said to them, “Yes, indeed! I tell you it wasn’t Moshe who gave you the bread from heaven. But my Father is giving you the genuine bread from heaven; 33 for God’s bread is the one who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread from now on.”
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Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you(John 6:27).
The contrast between two kinds of food [in chapter 6] is a contrast between food that is eaten to sustain life in this world and food that provides life for the world to come.[Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 147.]
Lent calls us away from easy religion.[Jeren Rowell, These Forty Days (Beacon Hill Press, 2015), 6.]
Introduction
A number of items are on the agenda this morning. The most obvious is that we continue to be in the Fourth Gospel. In addition last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday so this morning is the First Sunday in Lent. Mentioning Lent brings to mind the self-discipline of Jesus. Lent is also the season when the traditional call for a period of sacrifice and reflection takes place.
Life is short and we are dependent on God. There typically follows a resolve to make the next (now) thirty-six days in Lent a deepening of our spiritual lives. It takes the ‘true bread from heaven’ to see that fulfilled.
This last week marked another successful faculty art exhibit from the PLNU Art and Design department. News of the event brought to mind an exhibit a number of years ago by Professor Paul Kinsman. He placed on exhibit a wonderful serigraph (silk-screen color print) and titled it “Urban Letter Forms.” On the wall were carefully hung two rows of letters. The top row featured letters A to M, while the row underneath had N to Z. Each letter was individually “framed” on brown poster board measuring 6 inches square. Every letter was styled in the form (font) and color as the letter appeared on a structure somewhere in San Diego, making each different. If one moved up close to a letter, one could read the location from which the
letter was taken. The site was neatly but very faintly printed in pencil so as not to distract from the letter itself. To cite three examples, the letter “S” represented the “s” in a “Macy’s” sign, the letter “A” from an “a” in “Plaza Hotel,” while “Q” was taken from the signage for the “Gas Lamp Quarter.”
“Urban Letter Forms” is a graphic illustration that just because all the letters in the alphabet are present does not mean that they necessarily spell a word or make sense. However once certain letters are placed in relation to each other, the potential represented by an alphabet is unleashed through the variety of purposeful words that emerge. Masterpieces become possible.
Words enable poets to ‘paint’ new vistas, lyricists to plumb new depths, researchers to share their findings, and artists to stretch the imagination.
The Gospel’s Grammar
Alfred North Whitehead, a British philosopher, once observed that the most important factors in life are often overlooked since they are taken for granted. At the time he did not have an alphabet in mind but an alphabet would seem to fit. According to a dictionary an alphabet is “a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written.” Letters are also visible signs of the sounds of oral discourse. As such an alphabet is a place of beginnings, easily passed over because it is elementary and appears early in our cultural upbringing. [The books on the alphabet in the PLNU library are classified under “juvenile literature.”] An alphabet is learned before reading can take place. [The idea and formation of an alphabet did not just appear anywhere and just by anyone. It took time. In the beginning writing was pictorial with the first attempts made by the Sumerians some 5000 years ago. Within a millennium wedge-shaped symbols known as cuneiform were present in Egypt. Thereafter hieroglyphics inscribed on clay, papyrus and limestone appeared. Adapted by the Phoenicians, they brought these forms to Greece. This was an important step, as the Greeks reduced what was received to a more manageable set of characters. Further advancements occurred under the Romans when they reduced the alphabet to 21 Latin letters. In time they added “Y” and “Z” in order to accommodate Greek word sounds. It would be left to the Middle Ages to complete the present (English) alphabet with the addition of “J”, “U” and “W.”] Thereafter, a “row” of various letters and spaces can describe just about everything that exists and most products of the mind’s imagination. However the row of letters must be in some acceptable order to make sense.
The Gospel has its own alphabet, its own terms, its own grammar. Grammar “is merely the record of how words behave when they are put together to make sentences.”[R. W. Pence, A Grammar of Present-Day English (The Macmillan Company,1961), vi.] A sentence is a group of words that make a complete statement of some kind. Syntax has to do with the relationship of words in a sentence. All this and more enters when reading and oral communication take place. All this, too, had to be developed and made meaningful.
The Gospel “alphabet” is more than the 24 letters in the (Koine) Greek language. Alpha begins and omega ends the Greek alphabet but as symbolic letters they function more than what they may represent if merely placed on a wall in two rows of 12 letters each! Jesus embodies the alphabet: he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Creator and the Consummator, and everything in between (Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13).
On this the First Sunday in Lent we see the Gospel’s alphabet, grammar and syntax in action. On one level the alphabet (i.e., the letters when expressed orally) does not guarantee success in terms of understanding. In this morning’s text Jesus and a crowd are using the same alphabet, the same words, but the scene is clearly a case of miscommunication. Jesus is being called upon to make sense of the meaning in his use of the terms and syntax, in John 6:22-34:
22 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
This portion of Scripture is a vital part of chapter 6. In the chapter there are two miracle narratives (6:1-15, 16-21), followed by a brief account introducing dialogue at 6:22-25 that then runs to the end of the chapter.
Apparent is an ever decreasing group of dialogue partners as the chapter proceeds. Initially, Jesus’ dialogue is with a crowd (vv.25-40), then with “the Jews” (41-59), concluding with the disciples, some of whom “turn back” from Jesus. At the end those left constitute the Twelve, which for the first time in the Fourth Gospel come to the fore. Overall the point is clear:
Nothing but the feeding of five thousand with only five barley loaves and two fish! At the end of the meal with everyone eating “as much as they wanted,” the people began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world” (6:14). Sensing that he was about to be forced to become a king, Jesus withdraws to a mountain by himself. By the next day, then, the crowd discovers that Jesus and his disciples have left the area. The search is on, with boats peopled by members of the crowd headed to Capernaum.
The direction was correct; Jesus is found in Capernaum. The first question put to him is at best perfunctory: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Not to be put off by a side issue, Jesus responds (6:26-27):
26 “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
As commentator Thompson puts it, “The people now want more: more bread, more miracles, more of what Jesus can offer.” Desire here is a want that is insatiable. Like the Samaritan woman who asked for living water from Jesus earlier (4:10-15), so now those who have found Jesus in Capernaum ask him for more of the bread that fed them for a day. Ben Witherington frames it this way: “Jesus is pursued as the ultimate provider of a free lunch!”[Ben Witherington, John’s Wisdom (Westminster John Knox, 1995), 155.] In the words of Thompson, “They are right to ask for it; but they do not yet understand what Jesus wants to give them” (143).
The food that endures for eternal life is not a physical object that can be seen, weighted, and consumed. No doubt this might be difficult to understand for people who may lack the basic essentials of life to live by,
much less to think and consider. The two kinds of food is a contrast between food that is eaten to sustain life in this world and food that provides life for the world to come. Jesus can meet the needs on both counts: he is the agent of God’s creation for all of life (1:1-4, 11:25, 14:6). Therefore God has set God’s seal on him, the Son of Man-- “as the Mediator of the kingdom of redemption.”[George R. Beasley-Murray, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 36: John (Word Books, 1987), 91.] A seal serves as certification, as a means of identification.
Jesus can be counted on to fulfill what is needed.
28 Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Jesus has told the people to work for, to devote their energies to, the food that brings eternal life. But what constitutes the works of God? What deeds or works does God desire or command to be done? Jesus responds: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The plural ‘works’ has been reduced to ‘work.’ The ‘work’ of faith is called for on their part.[See Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, i-xii, The Anchor Bible, (Doubleday & Company, 1966), 365. According to Brown, “having faith is a work; indeed it is the all-important work of God. Yet, as [Rudolf] Bultmann has remarked, this believing is not so much a work done by man as it is submission to God’s work in Jesus.”] God desires faith in the one God has sent (cf. 4:23), rather than just food and drink even though the people have need of both.
30 So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
The members of the crowd that have followed Jesus can understand what Jesus has said on one level, but they do not understand what it all means.
That is, the alphabet that Jesus follows and the words he uses mean something but the syntax (i.e., the relationship of words) leaves much to be desired! So a ‘sign’ is requested; a sign that can be seen and is believable.
The two-fold criteria are meant to bring discourse back to a common ground so comprehension will reign. To facilitate the move, an appeal to historical experience is made (“our ancestors”) coupled with the authority of a scriptural text: “‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” The source of the scriptural text is not entirely clear. Affinities are found in Exodus 16:4, 15; Psalm 78:24; Nehemiah 9:15. The response on the part of Jesus is anything but reassuring:
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
The reply of Jesus suggests that the people took Moses (“our ancestors”) to be the subject of the statement. Thus Jesus corrects their reading. In effect, Thompson writes (148), Jesus is saying:
“Do not read ‘Moses’ but read ‘my Father,’ do not read the ‘bread from heaven’ as manna but ‘the true bread from heaven,’ and do not read ‘gave’ but read ‘gives.’”
The response on the part of the hearers is acceptance: “Sir, give us this bread always.” As yet Jesus’ hearers do not see that the bread is not something Jesus gives but rather is Jesus himself! But that is for another Sunday. . .
-------
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you(John 6:27).
The contrast between two kinds of food [in chapter 6] is a contrast between food that is eaten to sustain life in this world and food that provides life for the world to come.[Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 147.]
Lent calls us away from easy religion.[Jeren Rowell, These Forty Days (Beacon Hill Press, 2015), 6.]
Introduction
A number of items are on the agenda this morning. The most obvious is that we continue to be in the Fourth Gospel. In addition last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday so this morning is the First Sunday in Lent. Mentioning Lent brings to mind the self-discipline of Jesus. Lent is also the season when the traditional call for a period of sacrifice and reflection takes place.
Life is short and we are dependent on God. There typically follows a resolve to make the next (now) thirty-six days in Lent a deepening of our spiritual lives. It takes the ‘true bread from heaven’ to see that fulfilled.
This last week marked another successful faculty art exhibit from the PLNU Art and Design department. News of the event brought to mind an exhibit a number of years ago by Professor Paul Kinsman. He placed on exhibit a wonderful serigraph (silk-screen color print) and titled it “Urban Letter Forms.” On the wall were carefully hung two rows of letters. The top row featured letters A to M, while the row underneath had N to Z. Each letter was individually “framed” on brown poster board measuring 6 inches square. Every letter was styled in the form (font) and color as the letter appeared on a structure somewhere in San Diego, making each different. If one moved up close to a letter, one could read the location from which the
letter was taken. The site was neatly but very faintly printed in pencil so as not to distract from the letter itself. To cite three examples, the letter “S” represented the “s” in a “Macy’s” sign, the letter “A” from an “a” in “Plaza Hotel,” while “Q” was taken from the signage for the “Gas Lamp Quarter.”
“Urban Letter Forms” is a graphic illustration that just because all the letters in the alphabet are present does not mean that they necessarily spell a word or make sense. However once certain letters are placed in relation to each other, the potential represented by an alphabet is unleashed through the variety of purposeful words that emerge. Masterpieces become possible.
Words enable poets to ‘paint’ new vistas, lyricists to plumb new depths, researchers to share their findings, and artists to stretch the imagination.
The Gospel’s Grammar
Alfred North Whitehead, a British philosopher, once observed that the most important factors in life are often overlooked since they are taken for granted. At the time he did not have an alphabet in mind but an alphabet would seem to fit. According to a dictionary an alphabet is “a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written.” Letters are also visible signs of the sounds of oral discourse. As such an alphabet is a place of beginnings, easily passed over because it is elementary and appears early in our cultural upbringing. [The books on the alphabet in the PLNU library are classified under “juvenile literature.”] An alphabet is learned before reading can take place. [The idea and formation of an alphabet did not just appear anywhere and just by anyone. It took time. In the beginning writing was pictorial with the first attempts made by the Sumerians some 5000 years ago. Within a millennium wedge-shaped symbols known as cuneiform were present in Egypt. Thereafter hieroglyphics inscribed on clay, papyrus and limestone appeared. Adapted by the Phoenicians, they brought these forms to Greece. This was an important step, as the Greeks reduced what was received to a more manageable set of characters. Further advancements occurred under the Romans when they reduced the alphabet to 21 Latin letters. In time they added “Y” and “Z” in order to accommodate Greek word sounds. It would be left to the Middle Ages to complete the present (English) alphabet with the addition of “J”, “U” and “W.”] Thereafter, a “row” of various letters and spaces can describe just about everything that exists and most products of the mind’s imagination. However the row of letters must be in some acceptable order to make sense.
The Gospel has its own alphabet, its own terms, its own grammar. Grammar “is merely the record of how words behave when they are put together to make sentences.”[R. W. Pence, A Grammar of Present-Day English (The Macmillan Company,1961), vi.] A sentence is a group of words that make a complete statement of some kind. Syntax has to do with the relationship of words in a sentence. All this and more enters when reading and oral communication take place. All this, too, had to be developed and made meaningful.
The Gospel “alphabet” is more than the 24 letters in the (Koine) Greek language. Alpha begins and omega ends the Greek alphabet but as symbolic letters they function more than what they may represent if merely placed on a wall in two rows of 12 letters each! Jesus embodies the alphabet: he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Creator and the Consummator, and everything in between (Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13).
On this the First Sunday in Lent we see the Gospel’s alphabet, grammar and syntax in action. On one level the alphabet (i.e., the letters when expressed orally) does not guarantee success in terms of understanding. In this morning’s text Jesus and a crowd are using the same alphabet, the same words, but the scene is clearly a case of miscommunication. Jesus is being called upon to make sense of the meaning in his use of the terms and syntax, in John 6:22-34:
22 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
This portion of Scripture is a vital part of chapter 6. In the chapter there are two miracle narratives (6:1-15, 16-21), followed by a brief account introducing dialogue at 6:22-25 that then runs to the end of the chapter.
Apparent is an ever decreasing group of dialogue partners as the chapter proceeds. Initially, Jesus’ dialogue is with a crowd (vv.25-40), then with “the Jews” (41-59), concluding with the disciples, some of whom “turn back” from Jesus. At the end those left constitute the Twelve, which for the first time in the Fourth Gospel come to the fore. Overall the point is clear:
the popularity of Jesus initially is not based on commitment to him but on what he might do for them on a superficial level, like what they might eat!
The chapter begins with an indirect reference to what transpired previously, referencing “the next day.” Well, what occurred on the previous day?Nothing but the feeding of five thousand with only five barley loaves and two fish! At the end of the meal with everyone eating “as much as they wanted,” the people began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world” (6:14). Sensing that he was about to be forced to become a king, Jesus withdraws to a mountain by himself. By the next day, then, the crowd discovers that Jesus and his disciples have left the area. The search is on, with boats peopled by members of the crowd headed to Capernaum.
The direction was correct; Jesus is found in Capernaum. The first question put to him is at best perfunctory: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Not to be put off by a side issue, Jesus responds (6:26-27):
26 “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
As commentator Thompson puts it, “The people now want more: more bread, more miracles, more of what Jesus can offer.” Desire here is a want that is insatiable. Like the Samaritan woman who asked for living water from Jesus earlier (4:10-15), so now those who have found Jesus in Capernaum ask him for more of the bread that fed them for a day. Ben Witherington frames it this way: “Jesus is pursued as the ultimate provider of a free lunch!”[Ben Witherington, John’s Wisdom (Westminster John Knox, 1995), 155.] In the words of Thompson, “They are right to ask for it; but they do not yet understand what Jesus wants to give them” (143).
The food that endures for eternal life is not a physical object that can be seen, weighted, and consumed. No doubt this might be difficult to understand for people who may lack the basic essentials of life to live by,
much less to think and consider. The two kinds of food is a contrast between food that is eaten to sustain life in this world and food that provides life for the world to come. Jesus can meet the needs on both counts: he is the agent of God’s creation for all of life (1:1-4, 11:25, 14:6). Therefore God has set God’s seal on him, the Son of Man-- “as the Mediator of the kingdom of redemption.”[George R. Beasley-Murray, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 36: John (Word Books, 1987), 91.] A seal serves as certification, as a means of identification.
Jesus can be counted on to fulfill what is needed.
28 Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Jesus has told the people to work for, to devote their energies to, the food that brings eternal life. But what constitutes the works of God? What deeds or works does God desire or command to be done? Jesus responds: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The plural ‘works’ has been reduced to ‘work.’ The ‘work’ of faith is called for on their part.[See Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, i-xii, The Anchor Bible, (Doubleday & Company, 1966), 365. According to Brown, “having faith is a work; indeed it is the all-important work of God. Yet, as [Rudolf] Bultmann has remarked, this believing is not so much a work done by man as it is submission to God’s work in Jesus.”] God desires faith in the one God has sent (cf. 4:23), rather than just food and drink even though the people have need of both.
30 So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
The members of the crowd that have followed Jesus can understand what Jesus has said on one level, but they do not understand what it all means.
That is, the alphabet that Jesus follows and the words he uses mean something but the syntax (i.e., the relationship of words) leaves much to be desired! So a ‘sign’ is requested; a sign that can be seen and is believable.
The two-fold criteria are meant to bring discourse back to a common ground so comprehension will reign. To facilitate the move, an appeal to historical experience is made (“our ancestors”) coupled with the authority of a scriptural text: “‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” The source of the scriptural text is not entirely clear. Affinities are found in Exodus 16:4, 15; Psalm 78:24; Nehemiah 9:15. The response on the part of Jesus is anything but reassuring:
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
The reply of Jesus suggests that the people took Moses (“our ancestors”) to be the subject of the statement. Thus Jesus corrects their reading. In effect, Thompson writes (148), Jesus is saying:
“Do not read ‘Moses’ but read ‘my Father,’ do not read the ‘bread from heaven’ as manna but ‘the true bread from heaven,’ and do not read ‘gave’ but read ‘gives.’”
The response on the part of the hearers is acceptance: “Sir, give us this bread always.” As yet Jesus’ hearers do not see that the bread is not something Jesus gives but rather is Jesus himself! But that is for another Sunday. . .
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