No Surprises Here!

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The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."

How can that which we already know (or imagine we know) satisfy the hunger that consumes us?

Doesn't this hunger require something new, exotic, unfamiliar, something or someone from far away?

How can Jesus be our Bread? We've already heard all about Him. The stories about Him are too near, familiar and worn, ordinary as gravel stones strewn on the path before us. He's too available, too much a part of our routine. There's Christian "stuff" everywhere. Churches everywhere. Turn on the radio and there it all is again, blah, blah, blah.

And our souls--aren't those interior landscapes/hungerscapes exhaustingly familiar as well? If we'd received Him as our Bread, wouldn't everything inside us have changed all at once? Why enter into our hearts when we've already been there and found nothing particularly of interest?

And the Church--those people we've known since childhood, perhaps--no surprises here! How can we be bread for each other?

Why shouldn't we murmur amongst ourselves?--we're hungry, starving, and there's nothing here but what we already know!

Jesus said..., "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me...?"

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