Signs

When I was sixteen years old 
I took my first paid art job.
I painted signs.
(in the UK they would say I "wrote signs").
Lettering and letterforms have always been 
my go-to art form.
And the most wonderful thing about good signs
is that they show you the way.

The word sign appears many times in the sixth chapter of John.
The chapter begins with the multitudes 
following him to a deserted place
because of the "signs."

And as I said last week,
Jesus fed the 5000 and that action
was a sign,
full of symbolic meaning 
about the fulfillment of the Messianic Promise.
And I shared how 
the people in the crowd
would have understand the meaning,
and known exactly what Jesus was doing.

That night Jesus needed to get away from the crowd again,
and so he walked across the sea, and met the disciples
mid-voyage.
We have it recorded that Jesus walked on the sea two different times.
We will have to save that for another day.

The next day,
the people notice that Jesus is missing,
but his boat is still there.
And so they get into boats,
and go looking for him.
And after a search, they find him.
And then the crowd asks him
"How did you get here?"

I am going to insert a detail
that John adds at the end of the chapter,
because it will give you a better context.
The next day
must have been a Shabbat,
because has this exchange in the synagogue
in Capernaum.

And this context helps a lot,
because what follows is a very Jewish exchange.
We get to see Jesus the Rabbi,
operate as rabbinical teacher.

To a gentile who has been trained to
read this chapter with a spiritualized 
Greco-Roman grid,
some of it will be lost.
Jesus is making a connection
between feeding the five-thousand,
the manna of Moses in the past,
and the bread of the New Covenant.
And he is going to connect this New Covenant to Bread.
I am going to say this several times,
because I have to jam your circuits.
The New Covenant
is the breaking of the Bread.

If you try to lay evangelical protestant thinking
about “accepting Jesus”
onto this conversation,
it will seem like Jesus and the men in the synagogue
are talking past each other.
They are not.

Jesus and the ones talking with him
are both on the same page,
talking about the same thing.
To an outside this looks like arguing,
but is the Jewish wrestling to find the truth.
They are talking about the nature of New Covenant.
And it is part of this normal engagement
to be slightly challenging and argumentative.
Although it looks like Jesus is deflecting and redirecting the conversation,
he is actually taking the conversation deeper with each question.

And it is all about signs.

Like I said last week,
the feeding of the five thousand wasn't about the food.
It was about the New Covenant being established 
as a fulfillment of Torah
and the calling of Israel.
And Jesus was giving them a sign:
broken bread.

And so Jesus confronts them
in a very rabbinical fashion.
"You aren't looking for me,
you are looking for the free food.
I gave you food for which you didn't work.
And now you want more.
Do not work for perishable food,
but rather,
for eternal food.
And the Son of Man is going to give you this food,
because the Father has chosen him."

He redirects the conversation.
And if you are a gentile,
the next question seems out of place.
"What must we do to be doing the works of God?"

They know this is not about the food.
They know this is all about a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 18,
where Moses tells the people that God would one day
send a prophet to displace him.
The people know
that God is doing a new thing.
In the Old Covenant,
as a Jew you were born into it.
There were two signs you were in the Covenant.
You were circumcised if you were a male,
and you kept the Passover.
These are the works you have to do
in order to be in the Covenant.  
You are a Bar Mitzvah, 
son of the Commandment.

So they want to know 
what they will have to do 
in this new covenant be in it.
They want what Jesus is offering.
They get it.

It's not about works,
it's about wanting to be in the covenant.
These folks aren't following Jesus because of the food.
They are following Jesus because of the signs,
and the signs all point to Jesus being the Messiah.
It's all about the signs.
And what are the signs?
The sick are healed,
the blind see,
the lame walk,
and the deaf here.
They are watching the prophets be fulfilled.
And now they are seeing bread multiply.

And Jesus turns the question in a different direction.
Your work before was to do the commandments.
Now,
your work for God
is to believe on the one God sent.
And they get it,
because an honest question follows:
"And what sign will you do if we believe in you?”
Because after the last covenant was made,
the people were given Manna,
and they didn't have to work.
They honestly ask,
“Are you going to give us food like that?”

This is not disbelief.
The Jewish mind is not abstract and spiritual.
They are asking a real question,
because the witness of scripture is
"If you believe this,
something will happen."

There are always signs that God does after He makes a covenant.
They want the same assurance.

There is a tangible real element to Biblical faith.
They are not interested in "accepting Jesus,"
or agreeing with a set of precepts and principles.
They are interested in the guy who is going to deliver 
them from the Romans,
just like Moses delivered Israel from Pharaoh.
They are asking a practical question,
in good faith,
and not testing him.
They believe that the Messiah is going to be a King.

And Jesus intensifies things,
because he wants to challenge their assumptions.
"You think Moses gave the Manna.
No, God gave you the Manna.
The manna was a shadow 
of the new Bread that God is about to give,
and that bread will be a bread of the New Covenant.
And when this bread comes down from heaven
it is going to give life to the world."

These are not the Pharisees challenging Jesus.
These are folks who get it.
They are tracking with him.
They are waiting for the New Covenant promised
by Ezekiel.
The signs are powerful
and they see the direction they are pointing.
And they reply,
"Lord, give us this bread always."

And then Jesus says,
"I am the bread of Life,
he who comes to me shall not hunger,
and he who believes in me shall not thirst."

First, he stuns them.
I am.
This is the unspeakable name of God.
YHWH.
Hashem.  
Jesus is the Name.
I am.
Jesus says he is God.

And then he says he is also the Bread.

I am the manna.
I am more than the manna.
I am the one who will feed that part of you that is always hungry.
I am the fulfillment of the prophecy.
I am better than the twelve baskets full.
These are all signs
pointing to a new thing.
And all these signs point to me.
And they understood where he was going,
and what he was saying
and that all this pointed to something a lot bigger
than feeding people on the side of a mountain.

God is the Bread.
Jesus is God,
and if you eat of this bread you will live forever.
Think about that for a while.

We are a community of artists and creative people.
In a very real way,
literally with our work,
we are all called to create signs.
Charismatic folks emphasize the miraculous.
And yes,
they play an important role.
I can't tell you how often me just talking about my 
daily life
intrigues people
and they want to know more.
I’m so accustomed to God doing things,
that I do forget it is unusual for most people.
People are hungry,
and they are always looking for bread.

When I was dabbling in my fantasy of becoming a monk,
the monks at Gethsemani talked about true contemplation.
Contemplation is deeper than meditation.
Contemplation is finding that place in prayer 
and with God
where you tap into eternal reality,
and spend time there.
Another description for this might be 
soaking in God's presence.
This is a deep thing.
And when you do it,
you are changed.
It is interesting when you discover artwork 
that comes from this place of contemplation.
And there is a lot of it.
I saw this in Assisi with some of the frescoes of Giotto.
You could tell he was praying and meditating on the subject
while he painted.
I've discovered that there are a few things 
you can go back to in meditation and contemplation
that seem to be an endless source of nourishment.
 
I was stunned that Bezalel
is one of these sources.
I have gone back to Bezalel again and again
and find a new level of revelation everytime.

The encounter between Mary and Gabriel is one.

And this sign,
the Bread,
and the relationship it has to so many things,
is also a source of endless contemplation.
This is written into universal reality.

Jesus is the bread.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem
“the house of bread”
and laid in a manger.
He was food and bread for the world.
That was the plan.

Lord,
give us this bread always so we may never be hungry again.