Satisfied People Series

There is something about bread and its ability to satisfy you.

It’s not just a full belly!

It’s that sense of security and comfort that comes from the smell of warm bread and the fullness of the soul. There is something about a piece of warm bread that satisfies the heart of a person.

Maybe that’s why Jesus said what he did to the crowd who had gathered around that day some 2000 years ago. Jesus had come to them with compassion and healed their sick. After a day filled with people he took a little boys lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish, blessed it and broke it and then fed the crowd of 5000.

Then he said, “I am the bread that gives life.”

Jesus transforms existence into life

Today we have gathered to celebrate the life of the one who gives life – Jesus

Just who is this man?

This the man who would not be their King after he fed the 5000 and claimed to be the bread that gives life – yet he walked on the water and commanded the wind and waves to be still.

We celebrate him today as the man who was came into Jerusalem in Triumph with the crowds shouting “hosanna to the highest”. The honored him as if he were on a white stallion rather than a gray donkey. Today, Palm Sunday, he was the king of the Jewish nation and in five days he would be set upon as a murdering and seditious criminal to be crucified with the same people shouting against him.

He would not answer a Governor’s questions but he will forgive a thief his sins and invite him to join him that same day in Paradise. He accepted the soldiers scourging and endured their mocking and then offered his forgiveness to the same men who nailed him to the cross.

This is the same man who said, “It is finished” and then “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” as he died.

Who is this man, Jesus?

Recently there has been a movie in the theaters called “The Passion of the Christ”

I suppose that if you’ve been on the new planet called Sedna you might be excused for not knowing about this movie.

The power of this movie has been evident all around us.

I believe it’s power lies in the implicit question it raises, “Who is this man – to me?”

American Daily

Another testimony from the American Daily.com website revealed a man who had been mightily touched by this film. His take on how the film touched him was that,

"Too often, He (Jesus) can become an abstraction in our lives. We sing, worship, and pray about what we don’t understand. It leads us to a part-time Faith, only shown on Sunday morning and always absent when we make the great decisions of life. If you’ve not already, I would urge you to do something difficult. I ask you to see the Passion of the Christ so that in your heart you can know what Jesus Christ did for you."

Let’s talk about Jesus today… Let’s see him today the way he described himself

Jesus said, “I am the bread that gives life.”

John 6:35-40 (NCV)

35 Then Jesus said, “I am the bread that gives life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Jesus said, “I am the bread that gives life”

In Jesus own words he said that he is the one who satisfies. He said the he was the bread that gives life.

He said those who are sustained by it will never go hungry and never be thirsty (v. 35).

There is a difference between being alive and existing from day to day.

Being alive is to be joy filled in all circumstances. It is to love with passion and to taste with vibrancy the sweet and sour flavors of living.

Existence places one foot ahead of the next and plods from one day to the next – without end, without hope, and without meaning.

Being alive plays in the water on the beach, explores the possibilities of new ideas, stands up for right against wrong, demands action because there is purpose, and marches ever forward to the goal of God’s good.

Existence fills in the potholes with whatever is nearby and available. It wallpapers over the broken heart and despairs that there is no way to stop the pain.

The pain is intense and very real

Let me read a story written by a despairing father about his lost daughter.

“Four years ago my daughter died. She was 26 years old. She died from suicide, having stood bravely in front of a speeding Amtrack train in a suburb of Fresno, CA. She was identified by a single rose tattoo on her hip ... which she acquired in Georgia only a few months before. This event was preceded by a year or so of increasing depression and two unsuccessful overdoses. She was a beautiful young lady ... and before this year so filled with talent, ambition ... and an outward zest for life. Deep down inside, all of us knew it was coming ... all of us: her mother (my ex wife), her brothers, sisters, other relatives and some few friends. But in the end, we were all helpless to stop this train.”