I Am The Bread Of Life

Most of us are familiar with the miraculous feeding of 5,000 men, not includingwomen and children (so there could be upwards of 20,000). This is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels.
You know the story now, Jesus is preaching and lunchtime rolls around. The people are hungry, Jesus tells them all to sit down in the grass, and a multitude is fed with a young man’s sack lunch. After the miraculous feeding, we witness the sad interaction between Jesus, his followers, and the Jewish leaders. Ultimately, many will stop following Jesus, they actually turn away after the conversation and
debate ends. Why did John include this sad story in the narrative of his Gospel?

John tells us later “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30–31 ESV) John wrote this Gospel so that you might believe and have life!
You know the expression, hindsight 20/20. After the smoke cleared, it was easy tosee who Jesus was and what He was up to. Just like the author of the book of Judges looked back on that dark period to learn a lesson from Israel’s folly, so
John now looks back on the folly of those who dismissed Jesus in John 6 to learn about the Bread of Life that we might believe and live. Within this passage, I see three ways the crowds missed the Messiah, the Bread of Life.