“Just dream it and you can be it!”
“If you try hard enough you can be anything you want to be!”
These are the types of quotes I see and hear constantly, not only in my university classes, but also while teaching in Chicago. “You should encourage your students to be anything they want to be! If you can just motivate them enough, they can achieve any dream they set their minds to!”
A few days ago my university class was asked to evaluate the truthfulness behind some of these quotes. Can our students really be anything they set their minds to? The professor then asked the group the following question, “Is there anyone here who doesn’t agree with that statement? Anyone here who doesn’t think these quotes are true?”
Very awkwardly, 2 out of 30 students raised their hands.
The room grew silent as the teacher directed the attention of the conversation to these two students.
“Can you explain to us your position?”
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Recently I have been making my way through the book of John, and have spent the past week or so meditating on chapter 6 where Jesus feeds the 5,000 and then makes the staggering claim that He is the bread of life- without which no man can live. Over and over Jesus states, “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
I have never met anyone who makes more radical and insane statements than Jesus Christ. Whoever comes to Him will NEVER thirst? Won’t ever be hungry? Will be satisfied? Will be healed and whole? Can this Jesus really uphold the ridiculous immensity of the promises that hang on these statements?
For all people who choose to trust in Him and follow Him?
If you walk down the main street in my neighborhood of Chicago you’ll find a lot of things. But one of the main things you’ll soon discover is the prominence of witchcraft. On any given day, at any hour- if you really want it, I can find you someone who will go to another spiritual realm for you, (for a small fee of course.) They’re very easy to find, very much on display for all to find. And they exist everywhere, because where I live there is a great need. And for this great need, many people are providing very different answers.
They are promising the people “You can be anything you want to be if you just _______.”
They are promising people “This ___ will satisfy you.”
And over and over again, people are coming up empty handed. Still searching. And maybe finally coming to an understanding that perhaps something spiritual will satisfy them, they walk down main street and find their choice of “solutions.”
I drove back on the main street of a white, middle class community today and didn’t see any shops promoting witchcraft. But I drove past home after home of people just as desperately in need of Jesus as those in Chicago- people who will go to extreme lengths to find solutions to their emptiness. Who have not come to understand, or perhaps not even heard about this “Bread of Life” who promises complete satisfaction.
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“Can you explain to us your position?”
The teacher was now standing by my desk. An awkward silence filled the room. I felt like I had just broken every teacher rule in the book by disagreeing with that statement.
“There are cycles, there are situations, there are things in this world- that no matter how hard you might try, you cannot break them. You cannot get out of them. It is impossible unless someone else steps into your world and helps you. Unless someone else intervenes. No matter how hard you might try or even want to get out, you can’t. It’s like a sex slave- no matter how much they want to leave, or wish this wasn’t their life, or hate their world- they cannot leave. They cannot just decide to “stop being a sex slave.” If they try to run away they will be beaten or killed.
They are trapped there until someone steps in and rescues them. They are stuck in that cycle and will die there unless someone is a voice for them.”
I was reflecting on my response, wondering if I should have said something differently, or not raised my hand at all, when the Lord brought back to my mind the implications of John 6.
The world screams, “If you want to have life- you’ve got to exert your energy, deplete your resources, try harder, make it happen.”
Jesus says, “NO- I am the bread of life that be given to you. I’ll exert MY energy, I’ll deplete MY resources. You don’t have to go broke over this. THIS BREAD WILL BE BROKEN FOR YOU.
I’ll give you life at cost to Myself.
I’ll be broken so you can be made whole.
I’ll be cast out so you may be brought in.
I’ll be condemned and rejected, so that you may be accepted.”
Someone has to step in.
And He has. The moment Jesus stepped into the world, the darkness began to be pushed back. The light had come. Hope was here. The insane promises of a Rescuer and Redeemer were coming true.
The moment He took His last breath and gave up his spirit- the victory was won. He had conquered death and sin and the cycles completely. Forever.
He snapped the sinful mentality of “I can do this. I can get to God. I can be good enough. I can do whatever I want to do. I can be whoever I want to be. I can just try hard enough.”
And in its place He extends His hand and offers us this incredibly, staggering gift- HIMSELF.
“I have done it FOR you. I have made a way for you to have complete satisfaction. I have made a way for you to come to Me.”
“I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.”
He invites us to partake of Him. To put everything on Him. Fully embracing Him. To eat the flesh and drink the blood. Not just simply “tasting Him” but a full embrace, continual feasting of ALL He is and His ways. To invite Him to be not the means, but the end of all things in our lives.
May we stop walking down the mainstreets of life, turning to the world and its way for our solutions, and instead come empty handed to the Bread of Life- trusting the One who has been broken in our place.
