What sustains human life?  God the Father reveals in Deuteronomy 8:3 “that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”  All that man is and has came to be through the spoken word of God, and God said let there be light, a firmament, waters, and ultimately “let us make a man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, and 26).

Through the fall, man was condemned to return to the dust from which he was created (Genesis 1:19).  But God so loves humanity that his “Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1: 14) offering man remission from the effects of the fall and a return to eternal life.   The Word, Jesus Christ, came to offer bread that “if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever” (John 6:51).

This bread that sustains human life forever is Christ Jesus, “the living bread which came down from heaven” (John 6:51).  The bread that Christ gave “for the life of the world” was his flesh, and Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  (John 6:53-54)