The New Manna

After Jesus fed the 4,000, some Pharisees came asking him for “a sign from heaven” (Matthew 16:1 = Mark 8:11-12; cp. Matthew 12:18; Luke 11:16; John 2:18). Jewish patriots did the same thing previously the day after he had fed the 5,000 (John 6:30). They illustrated their standard of evidence by citing the manna God gave “from heaven” when the Israelites needed food in the desert (Exodus 16:4, 13-22; Numbers 11:6-9).

Why in the world would they ask for a sign from heaven right after watching him feed 5,000 people out in the countryside? Did they think feeding that many people was less telling than the ancient episode? Did they suspect some illusionist’s trick? Did they wonder whether something had gone on behind the scenes? “A sign from heaven” evidently meant a miracle no one could fake.

Jesus picked up on their “sign from heaven” and compared it to God’s sending him as the New Manna. Coming in flesh and blood made the intangible tangible, used physical life to picture spiritual life, offered the visible to prove the invisible.

Jesus moved the manna comparison forward by saying that life comes, so to speak, from “eating” him: internalizing who he was, what he stood for, what he calls us to become. What the Lord did culminated in giving his flesh and blood for our spiritual life. His righteousness to the point of death by crucifixion laid the groundwork for forgiveness; sin saps the life out of life. Jesus explained his “eating” comment by saying, ^“The spirit of what I’ve said is the point, not the literal words. What I’ve said I meant figuratively” (John 6:68; Conversational Version).

That brings in the communion connection. By eating these emblems of his flesh broken and his blood shed, we re-enact taking into ourselves what gives abundant, spiritual “life.” Internalizing the “Bread from heaven,” we never die.