Read: John 6:1-6

Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat? (v. 5)

My grandma is an excellent cook. She often cooks delicious meals, but Christmas is a feast. For weeks ahead of time, she plans and prepares, cooks, preserves, and bakes. As our family has grown, so has the spread of food, because every person’s favorite dish finds its place on her buffet line. For my grandma, this meal is more than just food. Rather, making food is her way of showing love.

On the hillside, Jesus shows love to the people by feeding them. He cares about their physical flourishing. “What will my hungry people eat?” he asks. Jesus cares about the answer to this question because God cares about every true need. Jesus shows God’s love to the crowd by providing abundantly for all who are hungry.

The people on the hillside were not the only ones who received God’s love through food. The entire world is bursting with God’s love for us. God’s “I love you” whispers through stalks of wheat waving in the wind and drips of water on dewy tomato vines on summer mornings. God’s abundance is seen in every seed, which becomes an entire plant, which in turn creates a bountiful harvest. God’s love for us in the form of food every day is no less a miracle than when Jesus turned loaves and fishes into a banquet. Both are “normal” miracles—gifts of God’s love to us that sustain our lives. —Amy Curran

Prayer: God who gives, help me receive your daily gifts of love to me.

Read: John 6:1-15, 47-51

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (v. 51)

The first part of John 6 tells the story of a miraculous meal, the feeding of the 5,000. With just five loaves and a few fish, Jesus provided a feast for a crowd of thousands. This was more than just a meal, though. For the crowd, it was a moment that changed everything. As we read today’s key verse, afterward Jesus offers the people a very unusual type of feast: his own body and blood. People need not only physical sustenance to live, but spiritual nourishment to receive full life. If we take it seriously, the story in John 6 changes everything for us as well.

In the Gospel of John, this miraculous meal and Jesus’ confusing offer anticipates the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 1:23-26) as a sort of first Communion. Jesus offers the crowd (and us) both physical and spiritual nourishment—nothing less than fullness of life.

In this series of devotionals on food and community, we will focus on John 6 to explore this story and its themes. First, we will look at the loaves and fishes meal, exploring what we can learn about this physical feast. Then we will explore the spiritual feast of Jesus’ body and blood, otherwise known as Communion. Finally, we will think together about what it means to be Communion people. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, please help me see and receive the abundant life you offer.

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:50-56

It was sin that made death so frightening. (v. 51 Message)

Having lived with life-shortening health issues for several years, I have wrestled with the question of how to face life when death looms large. How do we live life knowing that it will end?

In Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault reminds us that Jesus told us we are on a path of “dying before we die.” What does that mean? It means that God the Father is in control of our world. When we live as though we are in control, we deny the most basic reality: God is the king; we are only creatures in God’s kingdom. When we try to wrest power from God, we miss the glory that the Father created for us to share in. Every minute we live, we can either choose to surrender that moment to God (dying before we die) or choose to go our own way, denying the reality that we ultimately die whether we are ready or not.

Choosing to die before we die means letting go. We learn to give up control—first of situations and events, then of people, then of our own life, and finally of our death. Recognizing that we have no control over death is the hardest to accept. We don’t need to be frightened of death. The more we deny it, the less value our life has. When we continually die to death, we also live until we die. —Karen Bables

Prayer: Jesus, help me die to death and live until I die.

Read: Psalm 33

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death. (vv. 18-19)

In an interview titled “The Miracle in Front of You” that appeared in the January 2016 issue of The Sun magazine, pediatric oncologist Dr. Raymond Barfield says, “I think of each day as a gold coin that you are required to trade for something. You’ll never get that coin back, so whatever you trade it for had better be worth it.” While we can’t determine the number of days that have been allotted to us, we can make wise choices about how we use each of them. I’ve always known this, but getting a terminal diagnosis made this very real for me.

The psalmist’s hope comes from the knowledge that, as our earthly days wind down, we can trust that God will deliver us from death. Our last day on earth will be our first day in the eternal kingdom. The Lord will deliver us even from death.

What are you trading your day’s “coin” on? Complaints? Angry words? Frustration? Self-pity? Isolation? Fear? It is better to seek out serenity and joy, friendship and service, peace and patience. We all get only one day at a time. And who but God knows what tomorrow will bring? James 4:14 asks, “What is your life?” We are like “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes,” with no guarantee of another day. How will you spend today? —Karen Bables

Prayer: My God, may I live each new day for you.

Read: Matthew 6:26-34

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (v. 27 NIV)

Before I had cancer, I was the caregiver for my husband, who has been ill for years. As his caregiver, my mantras included: “You need to eat more.” “Don’t you think you need to call the doctor?” “If you get out of bed for a while, you will feel better.” None of these comments were received well. And so, of course, I ratcheted up the advice. In times of frustration, I became mean-spirited. I soon learned, however, that my fixing not only wouldn’t help, it made matters worse.

This behavior, I knew, was based on fear—fear that my husband’s health was getting worse, and fear that I was not a fit caregiver. It also was based on loss, both his inability to do what he used to do for himself, and the loss of what we used to do together.

Finally, as my body began to fail, I realized that as both a patient and caregiver, I was facing the same enemy: my desire for control. I had to surrender my husband’s life to God, just as I was surrendering mine. I had to take Jesus’ words for it: none of my worry or anxiety could add a minute to either of our lives. I had to surrender my worry and my meanness to God and receive in exchange patience and self-control. This transformation, like most, is a process, undergirded by prayers and fueled by opening my spirit to God’s Spirit. —Karen Bables

Prayer: Lord, govern my heart and behavior so I can serve.

Read: Psalm 71

So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me. (v. 18)

“Who am I when my body fails me?” Karen Bables asked me to share my reflections on this difficult question. I had an easy answer at first: “I am myself in a failing body.” Then it hit me. One of my early narratives (and now, I know, a false narrative) was that my value as a person is all in my mind and intellect, that my body is just the means by which my mind is carried around. So if “I” am my mind, my failing body doesn’t really matter.

“Who am I when my mind fails me?” is a much more frightening question for me. It hits at my identity and sense of worth in a way that my failing body does not. Who will I be if I am diagnosed with early dementia? What if the part of my body that lets me down is a couple of pounds of gray matter?

Here is what I decided: “I am whoever God thinks I am.” And whether I experience physical disability or changes to my mind, he will always know who I am and who he intends me to be. Whatever happens to me, God will never forget me, never let me slip away from his mind. I am whoever God thinks that I am. And the day is coming when the full radiance of God’s answer to “Who are you, God? And who am I?” will be made perfect in my body, mind, heart, and life. —Jeff Huisman

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for making and loving me.

Read: Romans 12:1-8

In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. (v. 5 NIV)

The more people who found out I had cancer, the more offers for help I received. People like to have something they can do for me: meals, chores, driving. For a while I tried to find ways to turn down these offers with creative ways to keep doing everything myself. However, pain and exhaustion are insistent and instructive teachers. The lesson I had to learn was twofold: I needed other people and I was not in control.

In Romans 12, Paul tells us not to think of ourselves more highly than we should. Every person has a God-given gift and should use that gift for the body of Christ. Even when we are most able to do things, we shouldn’t try to do everything ourselves. And if we think we are, we are deluding ourselves. Few of us grow and make all the food we eat, pave the roads we drive, or even take note of the thousand ways we depend on other people every day. It isn’t a matter of “asking” for help when we need it. We always need help.

So eventually, when my sister offered to help weed my garden, I said yes. When my grandson said he would mow the lawn, I said yes. Each time I accepted help I saw that unless I asked for help, these people wouldn’t be able to use their God-given gift. Who can help you today? —Karen Bables

Prayer: Teach me, Lord, to ask for help when I need it.

Read: Genesis 1:28-31; 3:1-14

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (1:31)

Who wants to admit to powerlessness? Surrendering control to God suggests capitulation, throwing in the towel, waving the white flag. Often, when Christians see the word “powerlessness,” they read it as weakness and helplessness. The truth is that as we turn over the reins to God, we come closer to the original intention of God’s creation.

Harmony was the way of the world in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were in harmony with God, accepting their place as his image-bearing creatures, responding when God called. They were in harmony with each other as co-laborers and companions. They were in harmony with nature, understanding their role in the preservation of God’s creation. Harmony even reigned in their own minds, in their “self.” There was no artificial split between body, mind, and soul. No cacophony of voices clamored for control of their minds. There was no need for power. God was in control and they were content. They were “power-less” and it was heavenly.

Then the serpent played his wily hand. His challenge led to rebellion in the Garden. A struggle of wills replaced harmonious relationships. Powerlessness was to be feared. This is the world we inherited. However, from the perspective of the Garden, accepting powerlessness brings blessings, not fear. When we give up a life of struggle, we gain the opportunity to come closer to Eden. —Karen Bables

Prayer: Once again, Lord Jesus, I surrender all.

Read: Mark 8:34-37; Philippians 2:5-7

You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. (Mark 8:34 Message)

Life can seem like a boxing match—the jabs, the right hook, the uppercut all take their toll, but we never see the knockout punch coming, and then we go “down for the count.” When severe illness or other hardships come into our lives, how do we get back up? We get out of the driver’s seat!

What a verse to read when our bodies fail us! At the time when we want most to be in control of our bodies, our treatment, our schedules, Jesus tells us to move over into the passenger seat. We need to learn about surrender. Surrendering the goal (and illusion) of being in charge is the foundational task of our spiritual journey. If we want to walk with Jesus, we must give up control of our lives. As Eugene Peterson says so well about Mark 8:34, we can’t go or grow with God and remain in charge of the journey. We need to consciously turn our will over to God. Surrendering does not mean giving up on our lives; it means giving our lives to God.

Paul says something similar in Philippians 2:7. He advises us to have the same mind and love toward others as Jesus did, who “emptied himself” by becoming human. Now that’s a posture of surrender! We need to renounce the idea that we are in control of our lives and completely submit ourselves to God, trusting that we are safe in God’s hands—as Jesus did when he assumed humanity. —Karen Bables

Prayer: Jesus, I surrender all.