In John 6, Jesus makes the boldest of claims in the plainest of images: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." Watch what He does in that one sentence — He reaches back to His conversation with the woman at the well in John 4, where He offered "living water," and pulls hunger and thirst together into a single promise. Bread and water are the two things a body cannot live without, and Jesus says He is both. Today's reading sets that claim against Israel's wilderness, where God gave manna to eat and water from the rock to drink — and where, as Jesus reminds them, "your fathers ate the manna… and they died." The bread that lasts and the water that finally satisfies turn out not to be something He hands us, but the Person He is.
