Context No. 635 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 6:22-27: in context
22On the next day, the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except the one in which his disciples had embarked, and that Jesus hadn’t entered with his disciples into the boat, but his disciples had gone away alone. 23However, boats from Tiberias came near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24When the multitude therefore saw that Jesus wasn’t there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”
The day after Jesus fed the five thousand, the crowds track him down across the lake, and he sees straight through why they have come. You seek me, he tells them, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. They are not chasing him for who he is; they are chasing him for the free bread, for what his presence can produce for them. And Jesus, rather than flatter the crowd, redirects them with a command that reaches past their stomachs: do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. He names the whole misdirection of their effort. They are working hard, rowing across a lake, for food that will be gone by tomorrow.
That phrase, the food that perishes, describes more than bread. It names everything I pour my labor into that cannot last, the things I chase and strive and exhaust myself for that will spoil, run out, or be left behind, the perishable goods I treat as though they were the point of living. Jesus does not condemn work itself; he asks what I am working for. And he observes, gently and devastatingly, that most of my labor goes toward the perishing, into securing and accumulating what will not survive, while the food that actually endures to eternal life, which he offers freely, gets a fraction of the same effort.
That measures where my energy actually goes. If I tallied up my striving, the things I truly labor for, worry over, and organize my days around, how much of it is perishable food, and how much is the food that endures? Jesus says the crowd rowed across a whole lake for bread that would not last, and I do the same, spending the bulk of my effort on what perishes. Am I laboring mainly for the food that perishes, wearing myself out for what will not last, or for the food that endures to eternal life that Jesus is holding out to me?