At the recent anti-lockdown protest in Sydney…

one of the signs prominently on display read:

“The blood of Jesus is my vaccine”.

Sadly, worldwide, that is not an isolated thought or sentiment.

There are numerous stories of people…

overseas…

who have refused to get vaccinated…

because they believed that God would protect them from the virus because of their faith––

before succumbing.

And it’s not a thought or sentiment that we only find in more so-called “primitive” cultures…

like in South-East Asia…

or Africa…

or the southern states of America…

or among the fanatically, fundamentalist niches of Australia’s religious right.

For example…

Anglican and Catholic priests here report that they have been approached by people––

who are not members of their parishes––

who want to buy consecrated bread and wine from Communion…

in the belief that it will protect them from Covid.

 

Of course, most of you are probably rolling your eyes…

right at this moment…

bemused that there are people so simple…

or gullible…

or superstitious…

to believe such things…

and to take their beliefs––

and what they think that the Bible says––

so literally.

But there’s actually a bigger issue at stake in all of this… and it concerns the nature of symbols––

how they function…

and how we relate to them.

 

At its most basic level, a “symbol” is something––

a picture, a word, an object or an action––

that represents or expresses something else.

But…

by its very nature… 

there’s never an exact match or overlap between the symbol…

and the thing that it’s representing or trying to express.

As such, most symbols can convey more than one meaning…

and more than one emotion.

Thus, they are said to be ‘multi-vocal’…

that is… 

they speak differently to different people.

How any one of us understands…

feels about…

and reacts to…

any given symbol…

is a product of all of the things that shape us as individuals…

and the varieties of life experience that we have had.

As such, symbols are essentially ‘heuristic’…

that is…

they function evocatively or suggestively.

And, therein, lies the problem.

The power of any symbol lies in its symbolic nature––

in the way that it evokes some meaning and emotion for each of us.

The more that we try to explain them…

the more that we try to flesh them out…

the more problematic that they become.

Because the way that you experience the symbol––

the meaning that it has…

and the emotions that it evokes––

will not be the same as for me.

In trying to explain a symbol––

in trying to flesh it out––

I am, effectively, imposing my meaning upon it…

and it ceases to be a symbol.

 

All of which brings us to the Gospel of John.

Perhaps more than any other piece of writing in the New Testament…

its stories and its language are replete with symbols.

We have, here, almost symbol upon symbol.

And symbol is crucial to chapter six––

in which we will be steeped the next few weeks.

And, in our reading this morning, we see both the power… 

and the problem…

of symbols.

Dominating our reading––

although expressed with a variety of nuances––

is the expression that the author places on the lips of Jesus… 

“I am the bread of life”.

Now, clearly, there is next to no correspondence or overlap between Jesus…

and a loaf of bread…

in any sort of physical sense.

But it does serve as a powerful symbol in a metaphoric sense.

Symbolically-speaking… 

the author wants us to appreciate that something of who Jesus is for us…

what he does for us… 

what he means for us…

and how we respond to him… 

is analogous to bread.

And, in that regard, we could note that bread is a basic foodstuff.

In the first century world, it comprised a very large part of the average person’s diet…

especially a peasant’s and a poor person’s diet.

So, bread has associations with sustenance and nurture.

And the author is suggesting that Jesus functions like that for us, too–– 

in a spiritual sense.

Like bread, something about who Jesus is…

and what he does…

nurtures and sustains us…

spiritually, maybe even psychologically.

But, as a symbol, bread can mean a lot more than that to many of us.

It can speak to us of home and family…

of the bread that mum used to make…

and the wonderful smells that wafted through the house as it baked…

and all of the sense of comfort, support, and security that it evoked;

not to mention the simple joy… 

as a kid… 

of spreading jam over the crust of a super-fresh loaf…

and devouring it.

It can speak to us of the boring sandwiches that were sent with us to school…

which we didn’t want to eat––

and sometimes didn’t––

and for which we would get into trouble when we got home;

or of the wonderful sandwiches that Johnny…

the school bully…

used to steal from us at lunch time.

It can speak to us of the hardships and unfairness of life––

as in the case of my father…

when he would recount that… 

during the German occupation of Holland…

a loaf of bread was all that his family had to eat for a week.

Bread…

as a symbol…

can mean all of those things or more.

And any one of them…

or all of them…

may speak to us of what Jesus might mean for us.

 

But the problem is that the author of John’s Gospel tries to flesh this symbol out.

He compares and contrasts Jesus––

as “the bread of life”––

with the manna that the ancient Israelites ate in the wilderness;

and he does so, specifically, as a way of claiming that Jesus has surpassed…

and superseded…

the grace of God that was offered to the Hebrew people through the Covenant and the Law.

As such, Jesus is being turned into an incipient anti-Semitic symbol.

He compares and contrasts Jesus as “bread” that offers “eternal life”…

as against ordinary bread, which is temporary and transient…

with the clear implication…

here…

that those who do not eat this bread will perish…

that is…

not have eternal life.

As such, Jesus is being turned into an exclusive symbol…

one that has been used throughout history…

to scare and to denounce…

those who do not accept what we believe or say about God.

And in trying to flesh out that symbol in regards to this last one…

the author actually gets himself into all sorts of knots––

and I don’t mean that to be some sort of bread-related pun––

claiming that “no one can come to me unless drawn by the Father”…

and yet, those who don’t “come”––

that is…

who don’t “believe––

will not receive eternal life.

As such, we have––

if you excuse the extension of the metaphor–– 

the ingredients from which Calvin made his sourdough of “double predestination”.

 

All of that is what happens, here, when the author seeks to flesh out his symbol.

 

Isn’t it a shame…

then…

that he didn’t just stop with Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life”?