Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s Gospel lesson from John 6:27-40 incorporates one of Jesus’ central “I AM” claims.

In the context of God feeding the Israelites in the desert during the time of Moses, Jesus tells his listeners “I am the bread of life.” Jesus claims that it was not Moses who gave the ancestors bread in the wilderness, but “it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven” and that this “bread of God” is that which “gives life to the world.”

The nuance of this need for physical sustenance and spiritual life comes through elsewhere in Jesus’ instructions on prayer. “In this manner, therefore, pray”

“Give us this day our daily bread…” (Matthew 6:9)

The bread here is not simply physical food. I understand the Greek word used here (epiousios) in the Septuagint text means “above the essence,” not simply “daily.”

When we pray, therefore, we are asking for God to give us what we need— both bread and the bread of life: Jesus himself! Whoever eats this bread (and drinks this cup) “abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:56) as we are told later in the same chapter of John, and that Jesus will “raise him up at the last day” (v. 54).

There are many wonderful settings of the Lord’s Prayer, but perhaps my favorite is Nikolay Golovanov, a Soviet-era conductor and composer.

In his setting, Otche Nash, the outpouring of feeling and supplication at the phrase “but deliver us from evil” is one of the great moments in choral singing, displaying the Russian genius for melancholic joy. Perhaps it is simply the “bright sadness” we are told characterizes the Lenten season.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin