Sunday, February 21, 2010
Where is our bread shop? John 6:25-35
John 6:25-35 Gospel reading for Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday 28/02/2010
I have taken the liberty this week of departing from the standard lectionary reading. The main reason for this is that the music group that I am involved in at our church, is playing next Sunday and we have been examining the readings in preparation for that. It just happens to be a special service that we traditionally have labeled Harvest Thanksgiving. I thought therefore that it would be good to explore this harvest festival Gospel reading in a schools context.
I actually find this reading to be quite humorous, especially if we just step back a little from it and take a look at the events leading up to verses 25-35. The opening verse I think is quite hilarious. First of all it seems that Jesus has “missed the boat” - so He pulls out a neat little divine trick and strolls out to the boat some 5 kms out on the lake, giving his disciples one hell of a scare in the process. I can just picture Jesus saying “boo!” and having a bit of a chuckle to himself. Interestingly, as soon as they took Him into the boat, they reached the shore … this time a great little divine time-machine trick, given that the lake is about 20 kms long and 12 kms wide!
If we are thinking about a thanksgiving festival, there would be many things that we could be thankful for. Perhaps it would be a valuable exercise for us all to do a 30 second brain-storm of that as a staff group with a follow-up of praise and thanksgiving to God for our many blessings. The incredible wind-fall that many of our schools have enjoyed through the stimulus package would have to be a noteworthy point. However, I want to steer away from the obvious - Jesus saying those well-known words: “I am the bread of life”. I'll just leave a question to ponder on that … “Where is the bread shop for our school”?
So I want to come back to that verse 25 and make one simple point. We can well ask “Hey Jesus, when did you get here?” The comforting reality if we have a correct view of the incarnation, is that Jesus has already arrived and is already present in any situation that we find ourselves in. No matter the complexity or delicate nature of the most all-consuming pressure points of our work, Jesus is already there with us. He has arrived before us and we can be very reassured of His presence in navigating our way through even the most tense and tricky of issues.
Nev
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Good point, Nev. We often take time for the penny to drop and to realise that God is right there with us. A little bit like when we look back over certain chapters of our lives and recognise that God is present, despite us being entirely oblivious. Also reminds me of the 'Footprints' poem. It's often all too easy to ask questions of Jesus, perhaps expecting big signs like the manna from Heaven that is mentioned in this passage, rather than just accepting that everything is under control. God's 'ordinary' blessings each and every day are just as valid as the 'show stoppers' that we sometimes wait for.
ReplyDeleteI think the analogy of God being a chef making a cake. He has gathered all the ingredients to make his planned meal and then cuts and chops and cooks and mixes things together. We experience this as one of the ingredients and it seems to mess up our life from our perspective. yet when the God/chef has done his work there is the result of a lovely meal as planned.
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