The Bread of Life
I have had the deep privilege this summer of spending twelve weeks in the Old Testament as part of my seminary studies. As I’ve engaged with the major and minor prophets and the historical and wisdom literature, I’ve often returned to this quote from St. Augustine on the Old and New Testaments: “The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.” The ACNA’s Catechism puts it like this:
The Old Testament is to be read in the light of Christ, and the New Testament is to be read in light of God’s revelation to Israel. Thus the two form one Holy Scripture, which reveals the Person of Jesus Christ and his mighty works (To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, p. 33).
Indeed, God’s promises, his character, and his plan for uniting all of mankind through his Son, Jesus, are hidden in the pages of the Old Testament and revealed in the pages of the New Testament. The Old Testament and Gospel readings appointed for this Sunday, August 1, gesture toward the same incident in Israel’s history. Immediately after being delivered from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites begin grumbling to Moses and Aaron: “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex. 16:3). In his faithfulness and compassion, the Lord hears their cry and rains bread from heaven. The Lord feeds his hungry people.
In John’s Gospel, following the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus’s disciples look back on God’s provision to the wandering Israelites. Jesus admonishes them, “Truly, truly I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33). Like the grumbling Israelites, the disciples beg Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus responds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). The Lord feeds his hungry people.
That God is the bread-giver is hidden in the Old Testament. What is revealed in the New is that God is not only the bread-giver, but he himself is the bread. It is by his hand that we are fed, it is by his grace that we are able to “feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving,” and it is by his spiritual nourishment that we can say with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my Shepherd. I lack nothing.”
The Lord feeds his hungry people—and they never hunger again.
Grace and peace,
Bree Snow
Minister of Formation and Catechesis