It just showed up one day. Not sure how it got there, but there it was. This conspicuous white bag decorated with blue, yellow and red dots sitting happily right above the word “Wonder.” I’ve ignored it for weeks. Paying enough attention only to notice that as quickly as it comes, one day it is also gone. And for that period of time when the Wonder has seemingly excused itself life seems to be returning to normal. The kitchen and cupboards free of its recent foreign invasion of decorated Wonder. But then, as unpredictably as it will have come, it will predictably return.
So while I commit my days hypothesizing how this little package keeps showing up on my counter (for surely no 35 year old man would purchase a bread that’s only wonder is its ingredients), you and I find ourselves eavesdropping into a conversation of people badgering Jesus for this miraculous bread.
Could it be? The same bag of mysterious wonder sitting on the counter is the same bread these full bellied seekers are asking for? Is my mystery solved? “I have it! I have your Bread of Wonder!”
Still, the people keep searching.
The people are waiting for Jesus to do something; give us a sign, a sight, a work. In spite of having stuffed stomachs, they tell Jesus; “Bread would be nice. Can you give us bread? The bread of Moses to fill our hearts with the assurance that you, Jesus, are who you say you are…This ‘Bread of Life’ sent from heaven to give life to our world. We’d like to eat it.”
Of course, for us, sitting in the privileged place as objective passerby’s we know these people are asking for the wrong thing. In fact, it’s not really getting something that these people are in need of at all. Self aware of not, they come to Jesus not to get something but to get rid of something. The people are asking for Jesus to take away their Wonder.
It should be something we can relate to. It isn’t often that we come to Jesus or our faith seeking more questions, more mystery, more wonder as often as it is to request bread, to get answers, assurances, signs. Yet just as this incessant wondering about who He is and what His purpose is and how all of this fits into our lives motivates us to ask for Jesus to do more, to give more, we hear Jesus say that it is the work we will do that will deliver the signs and assurances we seek; the work of belief, the work of faith.
And it will be in this work that we will develop our ability to find harmony with the constant wonder living in our lives bringing us to a place of peace with Jesus’ message in this passage. It’s the wonder that we live with in spite of all our searching for signs; the wonder that sits on our counters, quietly coming and going, but somehow always present. And mostly it’s the wonder in the ingredients that make up the miracles that even today, in each of our lives, are awaiting our discovery.
As we enter a time of intentional Thanksgiving perhaps what sticks out most to me in this story is that the bread for which they are asking isn’t even something they need. They have already eaten the miraculous bread in passages before. Their bellies are full yet they come to Jesus and ask for that which they have absolutely no need for, more bread.
We might not like the answer, but in our need for assurance, for signs in the form of the most perishable of forms, Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of Life. That if we come to him with a willingness to do the work of belief and faith, we will see that He has already given us that which will fulfill all of our religious needs and human longings.
But before we can get to this place of awareness and gratitude, before we can be grateful for anything in our lives, we must be aware of that which we have in God. It is less about opening our mouths and more about opening the eyes of our hearts. It is less about filling our stomachs with bread and more about filling our minds with wonder.
As we allow Jesus’ words to resonate in our own lives we can begin to accept that there is no proof or sign that will precede faith or belief. It is not Jesus who we come to for assurance but it is Jesus who we come to for wonder and mystery.
In many ways the first step toward gratitude is believing that there are things in our lives worth being grateful for. It is a life that is built not on the promises of tomorrow but on the miracles of today. As people asking for less wonder and more bread out of our faith; we often miss the nonperishable message of Jesus.
That the miracles of our lives never run out and they never grow stale.
That miracles are rising out of our lives regardless of our awareness of God’s purpose or method.
That if we can mix together these ingredients of faith and belief with the gift that Jesus has already given us then what we receive is the real Wonder Bread; both the wonder and the assurance waiting for us in the risen miracles of our lives.
