1I will always give thanks unto the Lord:
his praise shall be in my mouth continually.
2My soul shall glory in the Lord:
the humble shall hear it and be glad.
3Praise ye the Lord with me,
and let us magnify his Name together.
4I sought the Lord, and he heard me:
yea, he delivered me out of all my fear.
5They shall look unto him, and run to him:
and their faces shall not be ashamed, saying,
6This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,
and saved him out of all his troubles.
7The Angel of the Lord pitched round about them,
that fear him, and delivereth them.
8Taste ye and see, how gracious the Lord is:
blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
1599 Geneva Bible. This is the translation colonial New Englanders – both Puritans and Pilgrims – would have read.
John 6:35, 41-51
35Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
41Then the religious authorities began to complain about Jesus because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."
42They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.
48"I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
John 6, week 3 of 5
In this lectionary year B that mostly features Mark's short gospel, we get five weeks of readings from John's gospel. Every so often I participate in Five Minute Friday, a weekly free write to a one-word prompt someone once called a writing flash mob! For this week's reflection I'm linking to my FMF post on my other main blog because with this week's from prompt, I couldn't resist writing about Jesus' origins:
• Five Minute Friday • From
Additional Comments
All four gospels were written long after Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension; by then, quite a few scrolls with details of Jesus' ministry had been making rounds and getting edited along the way. In addition to events in Jesus' life, the individuals and communities that produced the gospels intentionally wrote quite formal theology to convey their own testimony of Jesus and to address concerns people they wrote to might have had.
Although Matthew includes a Sermon on the Mount and Luke's somewhat similar version has Jesus speaking on a plain or level place, those almost definitely were from itinerant rabbi Jesus' stock sermons he used dozens of times with different variations for different audiences. It's similar with Jesus' words in our current chapter 6 of John's gospel. They got written down because (often the same) people heard them often and the content was so incisive it stuck with them.
Two weeks ago when we began considering Jesus' bread of life talk that includes the first of his "I Am" sayings, I cautioned don't assume too quickly that every instance of bread in this scripture passage refers to the bread of Holy Communion. Most scholars today believe verse 51 in today's reading, "…the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh" is not about the Lord's Supper, but about Jesus' body broken open for the life of the world at his crucifixion.
Our opening prayer, Psalm 34:1-8, tells us to taste the graciousness of the Lord. Ever notice how much God loves to come into our lives in ways our senses can taste, hear, see, touch, and smell?
Next Sunday
John 6, part 4: John 6: 51-58
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