Wednesday, August 5, 2015

John 6:50-51

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

Bread of life

There is a longing that does not let go.

I feel it in my office. It gnaws at my heart when I sit alone or talk with someone about the bruises of life. I listen and hear their hopes for a life that is more than going through the motions of what needs to be done.

I know their yearning for something deeper, something that satisfies the heart. Most often they do not know what that is. They do not notice moments of completion that come, moments of depth satisfaction when the heart is warm and full and knows what it needs.

To be human is to yearn for fullness of heart, to long for the heart’s true joy. In moments it comes … and then goes. We lose it. We are fed only to hunger again.

The food we need is the Love that is in Jesus, the grace that is in his flesh. He embodies it. There is no split between his body and soul. His soul is known in all he physically does, and his physical life in the world, every act, is filled with soul, The Soul of the Universe who is Love beyond our capacity to understand.

When we feel this Love we know … we are home, no matter where we are or what we are doing, no matter the outward circumstances of life, good or bad, healthy or well. We taste and know eternal life, a life that does not die but goes with us from this life to the mystery of what is next.

It is then that our hearts are fed with the bread of life, receiving richly from the Soul of the Universe, the Soul who speaks in Jesus … and, frankly, everywhere if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The Love who becomes flesh in Jesus speaks in flowing waters and crashing waterfalls, in the brilliant blue of summer skies, in the playfulness of squirrels—and mystery of mysteries, in every soul where Love breathes and takes flesh in our oh-so-common lives.

As much as we hunger for the bread of life, God hungers more to feed us and fill our longing with the fullness of the Love who is … everywhere.

Pr. David L. Miller