Thanksgiving - 2004

John 6:25-35

[25] When they found him back across the sea, they said, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"

[26] Jesus answered, "You've come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs -- and for free.

[27] "Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last."

[28] To that they said, "Well, what do we do then to get in on God's works?"

[29] Jesus said, "Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God's works."

[30] They waffled: "Why don't you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what's going on? When we see what's up, we'll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. [31] Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert. It says so in the Scriptures: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

[32] Jesus responded, "The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread. [33] The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world."

[34] They jumped at that: "Master, give us this bread, now and forever!"

[35] Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.

 [The Message]

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 1. Have  you ever been so engaged in something that time sped by, as well as hunger. It is that kind of participation in life that we look for on a more constant basis. When we are aligned with life we live – no matter what – we live.

 2. This is more than getting our hungers met, this is going beyond hunger to meaning. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but the work of Viktor Frankl keeps coming back to mind as a source of thanksgiving. It is this gift of meaning that we yearn for, search for, jump at.

 3. We look for a clue to the meaning of life, like love, in all the wrong places. We keep putting the question of life in terms of "when" rather than "how". We are always at the point of catching on but we stumble over the steps we need to take. We keep trying to universalize and idealize the past or the the future and keep avoiding the present decision to be bread for others in our current situation (good or bad, our only context for experiencing meaning).