Monday in the Third week of Easter, May 2, 2022

John 6, 22-29

[After Jesus had fed the five thousand men, his disciples saw him walking on the sea.] The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples had left. Other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread when the Lord gave thanks. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

The Lord prepared his disciples for his teaching on the Bread of Life through his miraculous feeding of the five thousand and his afterwards walking on the sea.  He performs the first miracle in plain sight for all to see, but walks on the water at night so that only his Apostles saw, so that their faith in him was strengthened for the coming revelation.  Besides, if the people wanted to make Jesus king after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, how much more so if they had seen him walk on the water.  Furthermore, the Apostles knew enough of their purpose that they would not seek to make him king.

The crowd “saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat.”  They had spent the night below the mountain, sleeping in the grassy field, expecting Jesus to reappear the next day.  They had seen the Apostles leave in their boat, but the Lord had not accompanied them.  He must, they reasoned, have remained in the area.  They looked for him but did not find him.  Yet, they would not give up their search: “When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.”  The people knew well enough that Jesus used Capernaum as his base and that he stayed at Peter’s home when he was there.  Much of the crowd followed him in boats, but many of the people must not have followed, as an armada of boats would have been necessary to haul all of them across the sea.

“Rabbi, when did you get here?”  The Greek text is better translated as, “Rabbi, how long have you been here?” The people wonder how he could have walked — since he did not sail — to Capernaum in such a short time.  They do not receive an answer from the Lord to their question, but they surely understood that another miracle had taken place.  Instead, the Lord says to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”  This sounds like a rebuke, but it is more like a challenge.  The Lord is telling them that they did not understand the sign of the miraculous feeding.  They saw the miracle, but they did not seek its meaning.  He begins to explain to them what it meant: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  Since the fall of Adam and Eve, the human race had struggled for food: “By the sweat of your face shall you eat bread till you return to the earth out of which you were taken” (Genesis 3, 19).  The Lord Jesus now announces a new order in which a higher bread was to be sought, bread for eternal life.  This bread would be given freely by the Son of Man himself, just as he had given the bread of the evening before.  “For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.”  He reminds them of the signs of God’s favor shown in the recent miracles: the Father has granted him the authority to do this.

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” The Lord had told them not to work for the bread that perishes so they ask how they ought to work for the bread that leads to everlasting life.  Since they gained their ordinary bread by following the Law and doing their work, something additional must be necessary for this greater bread.  “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  That is, in the one whom the Father has signified as sent by him through the great miracles he has performed.  They are told that they must “believe” in him.  The Greek word can also be translated as “to have faith in”.  That is, to believe what he says about the Father and about himself, and to follow his commandments, which fulfilled the Law.  Thus, showing that belief in his words would lead to eternal life, the Lord prepares the crowd for his great teaching on his Flesh and Blood.