Words for Food

"Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day." (Psalm 25:4-5)

It would seem that King David, the writer of the passage above, and Mary of Bethany had this in common: the desire to wait on the Lord and to receive from Him all that He would impart to them. Even when Mary's sister, Martha, berated Mary (Luke 10:4) in front of Jesus and the disciples for her lack of "table waiting" in a sense (for Martha wanted Mary's help in preparing and serving the food), still Mary "waited" instead on the words of Jesus: real food for her hungry heart.

Waiting on the Lord is indeed an indication of a hungry heart; something that is to be found in all of those who value "the pearl of great price" (Matthew 13:46) and recognize Him to be Jesus Christ, the Son of God, risen from the dead and currently seated at the right hand of the Father until all His enemies are put under His footstool (John 2:22; Matthew 22:44).

It is the hungry heart that draws us to sit at the feet of Jesus, waiting expectantly for the next word, and the word after that, and the word after that; each word only whetting the appetite of the hungry heart for more of Jesus. Each word restoring our souls, imparting spiritual nourishment to hearts that often don't even know what it is they are hungry for.

Just as the physical body can only go so long without food or it will die, so will our spiritual man also weaken and eventually die, if it is not fed; but the food it requires is "bread from heaven". So, what exactly is this food that our spiritual man, the new creation in Christ, needs to survive? The 6^th chapter of the gospel of John tells us.

One day, the "great multitude" followed Jesus and his disciples across the Sea of Galilee questioning how Jesus had come across from Tiberias to Capernaum (on the other side of the sea) without a boat; at least, they hadn't seen him get in the boat with his disciples, so how did He get there exactly?

Jesus responded with this:

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. "

Then the crowd said: "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat."

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven: but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world…
I AM THAT BREAD OF LIFE. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."

The 12 disciples who were there in the crowd gathered in the synagogue at Capernaum were puzzled by these words. The Jews even more so, for they asked among themselves "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Even for us today, it is only because the Holy Spirit resides within us who call Jesus Christ Lord, that we are able to understand these words. (Remember, the disciples did not yet have the gift of the Holy Spirit, for He did not arrive until Jesus had bodily ascended into heaven.)

Jesus continued with this:

"He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth
in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he
that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."

Is it clear enough yet?

Mary knew.

"…the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63b)

"And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every [word] that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live." (Deut. 8:3)

The "bread from heaven" – that which will give us everlasting life if we will eat it - must be "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord."

But there is more, much more….

….as we will see in the next posting.