Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
—John 6:35
Martin Luther’s last written words were, “We are beggars. This is true.”
For most of us, it’s easy to look at our lives — each in a varying degree of comfort — and sniff at Luther’s claim. Me, a beggar? If only Luther knew how many stalls are in my garage, whose labels I’m wearing, how full are my pantry and fridge.
Even if your life is more like a scratching crawl from one paycheck to the next, fending off phone calls from debt collectors, wondering how you’re going to pay for that unexpected repair — even these lives are a far cry from that grubby panhandler on the corner. Me, a beggar?
It doesn’t matter how many or few are the zeros in your paycheck, how red or black are the lines in your budget, how near or far are your family vacations. None of it will matter in the end. This isn’t about our stuff, it’s about our souls. Every Christian is a beggar. When we come to Christ, we must come needy and dependent, our stomachs and wallets empty — we must come empty-handed, or we will never come at all.
How often do we sit on our subway grate, tucked back from the wind, and cling to our little cardboard signs, irrationally proud of what we’ve made of ourselves and our lives? Here comes Christ to meet us on the corner. He takes the cardboard from our hands, stands us to our feet, looks us in the eye, and says, “Come, and eat.” And then he gives us himself.
There’s a quote floating around, something to the effect that “Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.” I’ve found bread, friends, and I want to tell you about it. But a beggar’s bread isn’t quite enough, is it?
When Jesus gives us the bread of life — when he gives us himself — he isn’t stingy with the portions. These are no meager crumbs from the table. No, he gives us “a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine” (Isaiah 26:6), a marriage banquet of “the goodness of the Lord,” of grain and wine and oil and tender meats (Jeremiah 31:12), a king’s spread filled to overflowing. Let’s eat until we push away from the table to loosen our belts!
This is what I hope to point you to, one beggar to another — not a crust of day-old bread from the bins at the mission, but a table struggling beneath the weight of fatty meats, fresh-baked breads, harvest salads, and the finest of wines. I want to point you to Christ himself, a feast for every beggar.
Come, and eat.
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