“Are you hungry?”
St. Paul famously wrote, “…if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat,” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). This week Jesus has exhorted us to do the works of God—to believe in Jesus—and He will feed us. Today, Jesus begins to reveal to us what, exactly, those who do the works of God will be fed, that they may be nourished and strengthened for that work.
Himself.
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus says, “whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Imagine that! Why, if we never hungered and never thirsted, we would never die! Which is precisely why in order to accomplish the works of God we are to believe in the one He sent, that by doing God’s work, His will might be accomplished. What is His will? “…this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”
When we come to believe in Jesus, when we love Him and make Him the very center of our lives, He is more than merely a concept in our minds: He comes to dwell in us and becomes the very source of life within us. Hence He says to His apostles, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work,” (John 4:34): likewise, our food is to do the will of God and to finish His work, to believe in the one He sent, to live not on bread alone but by every Word that comes from Him. Jesus is that Word: Jesus is our life.