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"I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill" (John 6:26), Jesus exhorted those from the multitudes whom He had fed by miraculously multiplying the loaves and fishes and who followed Him not because they wanted a mere miracle worker but because, having found one, they intended to make Him their bread king, a Messiah after their own heart.
But Jesus, though He was a miracle worker, wouldn't be their bread king for the simple reason that, as the Man after God's own heart, He Himself is the King of breads, the heavenly Manna who came down to earth to give His life for the life of the world.
As such, He bears His Father's seal of approval, with which He was marked when He was anointed by the Holy Spirit and initialed by His Father at His baptism. "This is my Son, whom I love and with whom I am well pleased."
That seal confirmed here and tried and proven throughout Jesus' ministry is simply embellished at His transfiguration when, as a foretaste of His majesty to come, He is glorified before Peter, James and John and in the midst of a glorified Moses and Elijah and, indeed, before everyone to whom they have borne witness ever since.
And that seal is the Father's stamp of genuineness marking Jesus as His Son and the Savior of the world, distinguishing Him as the food of eternal life, even as His body and blood are the medicine of immortality, the universal antidote for all sin-sick patients poisoned to death by the ancient serpent, the devil.
What is as much, this seal is a signet which marks everyone who comes to Jesus by faith, signifying their genuineness, marking them as His bona fide brothers and sisters, distinguishing them from counterfeits and confirming them as God's dear children through the same God-given faith.
Bearing this signature, the blessed seal of the Holy Spirit and God the Father's stamp of approval, we sport the mark of authenticity. We ourselves belong to Christ our Signatory. Hence, He says of us, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me" bearing these initials "I will in no wise cast out" (v 37).
Bearing this identification, having been found by Him who seeks and saves the lost, we will never be relegated to some cosmic lost-and- found. We will never be lost again. Having been found and saved by Him, tucked safely in the vault of our graves until the last day, until the wrath is safely past, we will be raised at the resurrection of all flesh.
For He came not to forestall His Father's will and do His own thing, as if His and His Father's will were at odds and not the same; as if His Father's will was not His last will and testament. No, He came to do His Father's will, namely, to feed a dying world with His death-defying, ever-living flesh and not to prolong the world's flesh-pots.
And this, in His own words, is His Father's will, and His last will and testament, "that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (vv 39-40).
For what is it to look to Him and believe on Him but to be stamped with His signature, signed, sealed and delivered, identifying us as belonging to Him, bearing the mark of authenticity, distinguished from counterfeits and confirmed as the real thing, the genuine article.
As many grains of sand go into a seashore and many grains of wheat are kneaded into a single batch of dough, we shall be as the grains of sand in that seashore--innumerable! We who are many shall be one loaf in Christ--and not a loafer among us when it comes to eating our fill!
We shall take Jesus up on His advice. "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (v 27a).
We shall be about our Savior's business--busy not busy bodies. We shall taste and see that the Lord is good. "On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval" (v 27b). We bear His stamp and we're most approving--and most improved! Marked with His freshness label we have no expiration date and no product warning tag, safe and sound in Him, the Bread of Life. Amen.
- Pastor Erickson