Satisfied

John 6:22-35

Can you think of a time when you were completely and totally satisfied? A time when everything felt good and there was not a care in your heart or your mind? A time when everything was about as perfect as it could possibly be? How did it feel to be satisfied like that? How long did that feeling last?

I am going to bet that the feeling of complete and perfect satisfaction probably didn’t last too long. Satisfaction is like that in life, it’s fleeting. We find it, and then it slips away.

Our text in John proves that point. A crowd comes looking for Jesus. This crowd was part of the 5000 Jesus had fed the day before with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. In the gospel of Mark when the story of the 5000 is told, he tells us “all ate and were satisfied.”

Yet here is the crowd seeking out Jesus. They made their way across the lake. Why had they come? Jesus knows exactly why the crowd has come to find him and why they have traveled so far. “Truly, truly, I say to you,” Jesus said, “you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

The previous day when their bellies were full of the miraculous food Jesus had provided, they were satisfied. Now, less than twenty-four hours later they are back because their bellies are no longer full,and they are no longer satisfied. They desire more of the miraculous food they know Jesus can provide. Jesus confronts this reality when he says, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give to you.”

I think each of us who journey here on earth does spend a lot of time striving and laboring after food that perishes. This is a necessary reality of our earthly existence. We need to work, to labor, to toil, to survive. We work to earn paychecks, to produce food, to make a living. God provides each of us with our daily bread through the labors he provides for us.

The truth, however, is that our laboring for the food that perishes often goes beyond what we need to live. Instead, we often end up seeking our happiness and our joy—our satisfaction—in whatever we can accumulate and collect through our own labors. Time and time again we fail to realize that these things perish and the satisfaction they provide is only temporary pleasure.

There is an excellent example of this in the Old Testament in the book of Ecclesiastes. King Solomon talks about his search for joy, happiness, and satisfaction. He was the king of Israel in the height of the Nation’s glory. There was no other king who had as much wealth, prestige, honor, and power as Solomon. He said, “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all my hands had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Solomon labored after it all. He tried to find satisfaction and meaning by laboring after whatever his heart desired. He built great buildings. He built up his household to be filled with people, with servants. He built a name for himself that was greater than any name that lived before him in Jerusalem. In the end, however, he is forced to admit that it was all vanity, emptiness, a striving after wind. There was no lasting satisfaction to be found.

Jesus says to us, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give to you.” Jesus offers us himself. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

Imagine that. Imagine what it would be like to eat and never grow hungry, to drink and never grow thirsty again, to be completely and totally satisfied now and into eternal life. That is exactly what Jesus offers to all who come to him in faith. To be sure, as long as we walk here on earth we will still need to labor and work for our daily bread, but the bread that Jesus gives satisfies our souls perfectly and completely because it is the same body that bled and died on the cross to take away our sins. It is the body through which we have peace with God. The bread that he gives endures to life everlasting because it is his glorious, divine, risen from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father, body. Risen from the dead, it never perishes, never dies, and those who eat it in faith likewise never perish or die.

This is food worth laboring after. This food is so precious that we ought to strain every muscle to strive for it and devote every hour of our days laboring for it. But the beauty of this food is that laboring and striving are not necessary. It is the food that the Son of Man gives. He gives it freely to all who come to him in faith. When the crowd that day asked Jesus what they must do to be doing the works of God, Jesus responded simply,” Believe in the one whom he has sent.” Eat. Receive. Be filled. Be satisfied. These are the gifts that Jesus gives. The Bread of Life. He satisfies the hungry heart today and into eternity. Thanks be to God.