Believe in Christ
May 5, 2025 - Monday of the Third Week of Easter
John 6:22-29
In our passage today, the crowd that ate the bread pursues Jesus, curious about how Jesus got across the lake to Capernaum. Jesus could easily tell them what the reader knows that he walked on the waters. Instead, he tells them that they pursue him for the wrong reason.
“Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3). This statement interprets the miraculous provision of manna in the desert. The giving of the manna, like all other miracles that took place during that journey through the desert, had one objective in mind - that people may believe and obey God. The same goal works in the case of the multiplication of bread by the lake of Galilee. Unfortunately, the people did not trust God nor did they believe in Jesus.
Jesus points out that they were searching for him because they ate the bread and were filled and not because they believed in him. “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life”. The contrast between perishable and spiritual food is similar to the contrast between material and spiritual water in John 4:10-14. Only Jesus can give that water which springs up into eternal life; only Jesus can give food that endures to eternal life.
We know how to work for food that perishes. We do that by working five, six, and some people even seven days a week. But, how to work for food that endures for eternal life? That is what the crowd wanted to know also. The answer is shockingly simple and yet extremely challenging. Believe in Jesus. “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
What is faith? Grace or work? God’s gift or our decision? An act in a certain moment of life or constant quality that permeates the entire life? Or both? What happens when we are given the grace to believe in Jesus and we respond to that grace by putting our trust in him?
“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” How marvellous is the work of God. It creates the universe, gives life, transforms us, and leads us to faith in Christ. What should we do to do the works of God? Believe in Jesus. Why? Because faith in Christ leads to accomplishing other good works of God. As Saint Paul said: “For we are [God’s] workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 3:10).