Bible
Study: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15. /Ephesians 4:17, 20-24. / John 6:24-35.
Have you
ever been really hungry before? I mean, so hungry that you felt as though you
might not survive for the next hour? You know that it is one thing to be hungry
knowing that food is just around the corner but a different thing altogether to
be hungry and not know where your next meal would come from. That is why
fasting only makes sense when you have food. As far as there is food within
your reach, you cannot really say you are hungry. Perhaps, you are just being
lazy or trying to watch your weight. True hunger is not having food and not
knowing where to get food.
HUNGER CAN
BE REALLY TERRIBLE.
I once
read the account of a man who survived the Nazi concentration camp. He spoke of
how the prisoners were so hungry that they were ready to feed on virtually
anything they could find, they so deteriorated to the point that they started eating
the corpses of their fellow prisoners when any of them died. This is the extent
to which hunger can lead a person to. Not only does it make you angry, it also
brings out the animal in you.
Considering
how the Israelite community in today’s first reading pounced on Moses demanding
for food, one can agree that there is a lot of truth in the saying that: “An
hungry man is an angry man.” They even had the guts to say to Moses: “Would
that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our
fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to
make the whole community die of famine!” Hunger is such a bad thing. To be
hungry is to loose total control of one’s self. Even behavioural scientists
have confirmed that one is more likely to engage in a fight in public when
hungry than when full.
Each time
you are hungry, you are actually suffering. Apart from becoming angry, hungry
also leads to memory loss. (I discovered
this fact myself those days in school that while preparing for exams). Out
of hunger, the Israelite community quickly forgot how God mightily led them out
of Egypt, they forgot their years of hardship under their slave masters, and
they soon began to wish they could go back. They forgot that their present
situation was better than their former condition. Hunger (not knowing where to
get food) is not a good thing at all. We pray that may never experience it in
Jesus Name. Amen.
THERE IS
SOMETHING WORSE THAN HUNGER.
Lack of
food can be very devastating but it is not the worst thing that can happen to a
person. Within each and every one of us, there is a hunger that can never be
satisfied by food and just as the lack of food can bring about anger,
uneasiness and memory loss, this type of hunger often has greater consequences.
It is the hunger of the soul for God, the hunger for communion with one’s
creator. It is this hunger St. Augustine was referring to when he said, “Our
hearts are restless until they rest in God.” No amount of food or the material
things of this world can satisfy this hunger.
And the
sad part is that most of us are suffering of this hunger without even knowing
it. We assume that as long as we can get food to eat or as long as we can get
enough money or the good things of life, we would be satisfied but it never
happens. Last Sunday, we read of how Jesus Christ felt sorry for the crowd
because they had been with him for a long time and they were hungry. So he
decided to feed by performing a miracle but in as much as Jesus wanted to feed
their physical stomachs, he knew that they would be hungry again and come back
for more. His plan was never to become a food distributor but his true aim was
to feed their real hunger with food that never perishes. That was why when the
crowd came back to him again, instead of performing another miracle, he said: “Do
not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal
life…”
STOP
SEEKING FOR PERISHABLE FOOD.
The
greatest problem faced by Christians today is not hunger for food but hunger
for God. Christianity as practiced in our own day and time has deteriorated
sadly from the pursuit of God to the pursuit of material things. People go to
church to seek fruit of the womb, promotion at job or employment, increase of
money, protection from robbers, abundant health etc. and crusades are being
organised around these prayer points. These days, no one ever prays for
holiness or the ability to be in close communion with God. As much as these
material things we seek are not bad, they are nothing more than perishable
food, they are never enough and they do not last forever. Each time we come to
church simply to seek for these material things, we are just like the crowd
that were looking for Jesus everywhere because they wanted food and Jesus keeps
saying those words to us: “Do not work for food that perishes but for food that
endures for eternal life.”
We must
repent from the compulsion to seek material things in place of holiness. We
must seek and strive after God rather than the things we stand to benefit from
him. The difference between a Christian and an unbeliever is that for the
Christian, he knows that the essence of life is not simply to acquire material
things or to be rich and powerful. If our primary goal in life is to have
abundance of food or be rich in material possessions, then we are no better
than the Gentiles whose minds according to St. Paul are corrupted by “deceitful
lusts (desires).” He says, we must not be like them, we must not think like
them who seek salvation in material things but we must constantly renew our
minds and seek only for God in righteousness and holiness.
THE SECRET
FORMULA TO ABUNDANCE.
Jesus
himself told us in Matthew 6:31-33 “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, `What
shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek all these things; and
your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom
and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” Seek ye
first God’s kingdom, strive for holiness and perfection rather than for your
physical needs. A lot of people today attend all-night prayers, they spend long
hours in church, they go to one prayer house or another seeking for “favour”
but sin still rules their life. As much as they engage in many prayers, their
minds are focused on what God should do for them while their life is far from
righteousness. Some people even promise God, “if only you can do this for me, I
will stop committing this sin.” But God is saying to us, “SEEK RIGHTEOUSNESS
AND I WILL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED.”
We are
always demanding that God should prove himself to us. We ask God to grant us
miracles and breakthroughs so that we would believe in him. We pray, “God give
me this job or give me success in this my project so that I would know that you
are God.” But you know what, God is not interested in proving himself to us. We
only get disappointed each time we pray like that. God wants us to believe in
him not to prove his existence. The people demanded for a sign from Jesus, they
wanted him to work a miracle (like Moses did) to believe his is really from God
but Jesus disappointed them. Instead of multiplying loaves again, he made them
understand that it was not Moses that fed their ancestors but God himself that
very bread is now in their midst (referring to himself.) “I am the bread of
life; he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never
thirst.”
CONCLUSION
– THE HUNGER JESUS FEEDS.
Jesus is
not so much interested in feeding us with fish and Gala as much as he wants to
feed our souls with his very flesh and blood. He is not so interested in giving
us bread as much as he wants us to feed on him by reading the Bible and
meditating on his words daily. In his temptations, Jesus said to Satan, “Man
shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God.” Matthew 4:4. Let us not be Gentiles who seek only after bread, let us be
true Christians who seek for God, Christians who strive for holiness,
Christians whose minds are not corrupted by material desires, greed, lusts etc.
Let us renew our minds daily with God’s word and live in righteousness.
Let us
pray:
Lord
Jesus, you are the bread of life. May I seek after this bread alone that I may
truly be alive. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy
Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment