Seeking After Jesus, the Bread of Life

I'm reading from John 6 this morning. Here's the plot summary: Jesus had just fed 5,000 from five loaves and two fish. He ran away from the crowd, hid on a mountain for a while, then walked across the lake to Capernaum in the night. The same crowd from the day before was very eager to find Jesus. They were hungry for more gracious words, and perhaps some free breakfast. When they found Him in Capernaum (how did he get over there without a boat?, they wondered.) Jesus takes the next 20 verses and shatters their theology in pieces.

"I am the bread of life." 

"For I have come down from heaven..." 

"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." 

"My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink." 

"[I am] the bread that came down from heaven."

Because the crowd was looking for another sign, and not accepting the man Jesus as the Messiah who was written about, these words offended beyond reconciliation and many quit following him that day. But before condemning this crowd for the shallowness of their hearts, shall we check for the plank in our own eye? If Jesus simply requests that we, like this crowd, come to Him for the bread of life, where are the places where we're settling for the manna of men?

If men have no more to show for their love to Christ than their running after sermons and prayers, and their pangs of affection to good preaching, they have reason to suspect themselves no better than this eager crowd. But though these people were no better principled, and Christ knew it, yet he was willing to be found of them, and admitted them into fellowship with him.  

 Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, John 6:22-27

Praise God that He is merciful and gracious. He is so gentle and patient in drawing us near. That's a good shepherd!