Those Doctor Who aficionados in the room will recognise that quote. There is a point! The Doctor brings down the Prime Minister with just those words because she made one mistake. But, and here’s the thing, when the Earth was moved and was out of phase and they needed The Doctor to save them, it was that same person who gathered his old companions and helpers and found a way to show how to find the Earth and who then sacrificed herself.

The Doctor had judged her on one mistake and didn’t see past that to what she was capable of and who she really was.

The Jews in the Gospel reading (John 6:41–58) knew Jesus as Mary and Joseph’s son, as a man in their small community. They rejected Him. They did not believe. Pride prevented them from seeing Him as anything other than a poor lowly man and stopped them seeing who He really was – the Son of God – the one from God.

We likewise make assumptions about others. We put them in little boxes instead of seeing them with open hearts and minds, instead of seeing who they really are and what they will achieve.

So do we see Jesus as the Bread of Life? As the one who will sustain us?

Jesus said “I AM the Bread of Life”.

“I AM”.

These two words tell us precisely who Jesus is. We don’t need anything else. We are left in no doubt about who Jesus is.

“I AM” – the covenant name for God (Yahweh) in the Old Testament, a name for God that the Jews were very familiar with. The Jews, well versed in the Scriptures, knew precisely who Jesus was claiming to be.

But Jesus is also taking His miracle of the day before, providing actual bread, to the next level – the spiritual level. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven…The bread I will give to you is my flesh which I give so the world might live”.

Jesus is the incarnation of God who came down from heaven. He, like bread, is essential to life. Our Spiritual life, our Spiritual nourishment, renewed in our sacrament of Holy Communion.

Dying on the cross to save and forgive us and rising to new life. Just as, when we believe, our old life dies and we are raised to new life with Christ.

A repeated thread throughout the Scriptures is man’s desire for righteousness with God, a desire for eternity and to earn our way to heaven.

Jesus says those who believe in Him will never hunger or thirst. He is referring to our spiritual hunger.

By believing in Him and having faith in Him and His sacrifice for us on the cross, where He takes our sins and atones for them, He does what no one else can and feeds our spiritual hunger allowing us to be right with God.

The very moment a sinner believes in Jesus he is justified, welcomed, loved and accepted with no condemnation. He has peace with God instantly.

However, knowledge is nothing if you don’t believe! Knowing that Jesus died on the cross for us is not enough to save us. We have nothing if we do not believe in Him. The point now to be considered is whether we do actually believe.

“He that believes has everlasting life but he that does not believe will not see life” (John 3:36).

So let us believe and allow Jesus to be in our hearts, sustaining us as our Bread of Life.