John 6

Chapter 6

John tells us something that none of the other gospels mention. Verse 15 tells us that when Jesus saw that the people would try to take him by force and make him king, he leaves and goes by himself up into a mountain.

And only John gives us the bread of life sermon, which is really more of a conversation than a sermon. The Bread of Life is used as a powerful metaphor and it's is much easier for us to understand what he is saying than it was for them because we understand the symbolism and know how his flesh and blood are symbolized in the sacrament when we eat the bread (his flesh that was sacrificed for us) and drink the water (his blood which was shed for us). For them, there was no such thing as a sacrament yet. This symbolism was so hard for many of them to grasp that they stopped following him. The 12 didn't.

When Jesus asks the 12 if they are going to leave too, Peter says "to whom shall we go?" I have often told myself that if this church isn't true, no church is true. There would be no where else to go. I looked at so many other churches and none can claim priesthood authority, revelation, additional scripture, or temples. In other words, this church has the complete gospel. President Hinckley said, either this church is true or it's the biggest fraud ever presented to mankind. Sometimes we get tired of church; sometimes we get tired of the shortcomings of the people, and sometimes the leaders fall short because of their own human weaknesses, but the gospel and everything about it never fails.

So for me, that's the important lesson of this chapter and what we should do is summed up in verse 27. The world seeks after physical nourishment, but we should be seeking spiritual food, the food that lasts beyond this life, and that spiritual food is the Savior.