I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. -John 6:35
Dear members and friends,
When Jesus taught “I am the bread of life,” the people of Israel believed that he had actual bread that would satisfy their physical hunger. In a way, that is understandable because at that time most common people were hungry and thirsty all of the time. For them, the existence of the spiritual food might have been something like a fairytale story about a unicorn living in the magical forest, the location of which is unknown to most people. However, in the 21st century, especially where food and water are plentiful, we still find some Christians who believe that taking the bread from Jesus would make their physical bodies live forever. In a way, this is a shadow of the ancient belief and desire among mortals for obtaining immortality. The very story for this desire is written in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the very first epic story written by humans.
When Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” he does not mean this for the physical body, but for the spiritual body. Therefore, the hunger and thirst that Jesus pointed out are all spiritual in origin. The Bible teaches in Genesis that humans are created in the image and likeness of God, meaning we are born with an innate desire to seek and unite with the Divine. This inner desire stimulates us from within to seek something that is truly fulfilling and satisfying. Often, this takes a long and usually painful journey wandering all over the map of sensual pleasures until we finally realize that physical pleasures are not what we are truly seeking. “Coming to Jesus” means returning to the origin from where we started our journey: the undeniable desire to be loved and to love unconditionally. Essentially, we can only be comforted by God, because God is the only Being who is capable of loving us unconditionally.
Blessings, Rev. Junchol Lee