Approaching the first Christmas after her husband died, our friend Davidene wrote a remarkable letter in which she pictured what it might have been like in heaven when Jesus was born on earth. “It was what God always knew would happen,†she wrote. “The three were one, and He had agreed to allow the fracturing of His precious unity for our sake. Heaven was left empty of God the Son.â€
As Jesus taught and healed people on earth, He said, “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. . . . For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day†(John 6:38,40).
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, it was the beginning of His mission on earth to demonstrate God’s love and give His life on the cross to free us from the penalty and power of sin.
“I cannot imagine actually choosing to let go of the one I loved, with whom I was one, for the sake of anyone else,†Davidene concluded. “But God did. He faced a house much emptier than mine, so that I could live in His house with Him forever.â€
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son†(John 3:16).
The 40-year experience of the Israelites in the wilderness where God sustained them by manna (Ex. 16) provides the backdrop for this passage in John 6. The miraculous feeding of 5,000 men (vv. 1-13) caused the Jews to compare Moses with Jesus. Jesus corrected them, saying that it was God, not Moses, who had fed the Israelites (v. 32). Jesus then gave them one of the greatest revelations of Himself: He said He was the new manna—sent down from heaven to sustain them. “I am the bread of life†(v. 35) is the first of seven “I am†sayings in this gospel where Jesus provides a clear picture of who He is (John 8:12; 10:9; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1).
