aks of seems uninviting and dreary, then this is symptomatic
of a fatal loss of appetite on our part. But as Jesus would have felt a
deeper compassion for any in that crowd who were too faint to eat, or as
He would quickly have laid His healing hand on any diseased person who
could not eat, so does He still more deeply compassionate all of us who
would fain eat and drink with His people, and yet nauseate and turn from
their delights as the sickly from the strong food of the healthy.

3. But what Jesus especially emphasises in the conversation arising out
of the miracle is that the food He gives is Himself. He is the Bread of
Life, the Living Bread. What is there in Christ which constitutes Him
the Bread of Life? There is, first of all, that which He Himself
constantly presses, that He is sent by the Father, that He comes out of
heaven, bringing from the Father a new source of life into the world.

When our Lord pointed out to the Galileans that the work of God was to
believe in Him, they demanded a further sign as evidence that He was
God's Messenger: "What sign doest Thou that we may see and believe Thee?
What dost Thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; they had
bread from heaven, not common barley loaves such as we got from You
yesterday. Have You any such sign as this to give? If You are sent from
God, we may surely expect you to rival Moses."[23] To which Jesus
replies: "The bread which your fathers received did not prevent them
dying; it was meant to sustain physical life, and yet even in that
respect it was not perfect. God has a better bread to give, a bread
which will sustain you in spiritual life, not for a few years but for
ever" (vv. 49, 50). "I am the living bread which came down out of
heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever."

This they could not understand. They believed that the manna came from
heaven. Not the richest field of Egypt had produced it. It seemed to
come direct from God's hand. The Israelites could neither raise it nor
improve upon it. But how Jesus, "whose father and mother we know," whom
they could trace to a definite human origin, could say that He came from
heaven they could not understand. And yet, even while they stumbled at
His claim to a superhuman origin, they felt there might be something in
it. Everyone with whom He came in contact felt there was in Him
something unaccountable. The Pharisees feared while they hated Him.
Pilate could not classify