Bread, Water, and Light: Three Blessings of a New Exodus

some thoughts on John 6-8

This year, I’ve been preaching through the Gospel of John. Since the Revised Common Lectionary doesn’t have a year dedicated to John, I decided to make my own. Following the basic outline and themes in the liturgical year, I fashioned a preaching schedule that covers John in about a year—technically a little less to account for travel. Yesterday, I had the privilege of covering the second “half” of John 8. The five-minute reflection that follows is somewhat of a summary of my sermon.

The Need for Another Exodus

Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea. Isaiah 11:11

According to conventional wisdom, there is no way Israel should have escaped Pharaoh, but she did. This was not through her own strength or cunning but because God was with her. Fast forward seven hundred years, and Israel’s kingdom has been divided, and the prophets are saying that doom is at hand. At the hands of the Assyrians, the northern tribes were swallowed up by the nations (Hosea 8:8). After a few generations, the southern tribes went into exile in Babylon.

Despite the threat and eventual reality of exile, the prophets’ proclamation didn’t end there, for there was coming a time when God would, out of faithfulness to the covenant between God and Israel, restore the people. And while the southern tribes experienced something of a restoration 536 years before Christ, it wasn’t the glorious return everyone expected. In the first century, faithful followers of God like the prophetess Anna, continued to look for the restoration of Israel (Luke 2:25; 24:21).

The people needed another Exodus.

Going back to Isaiah 11, the Scripture promised that this second Exodus would happen “on that day.” Isaiah 11 speaks of a descendant of Jesse (David’s father) who would be immersed in the Spirit of God and bring justice to the poor and downtrodden.

The New Testament affirms that this finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the restoration of Israel, and his death and resurrection kick starts a new Exodus (Luke 9:31, Greek: exodos).

The Exodus in John

The Gospel of John, like most New Testament books, picks up on this theme and regularly employ it. For example, John the Baptist immediately recognizes Jesus as the “lamb of God,” a description that ties Jesus to the Passover lamb (John 1:29). Unlike the other Gospel narratives, John highlights the Passover throughout the book: John 2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28; 18:39; 19:14. The Passover, of course, was instituted on the eve of Israel’s departure from Egypt.

Jesus also turns water into wine, a miracle that calls to my mind the first plague: water to blood. Jesus, then, is performing this same sign but with a different intent; while the plague of turning water into blood made the water undrinkable, Jesus’s miracle turns water into a source of joy and merriment, and it prefigures the blood and water that would flow from his side on the cross, speaking to its redeeming properties and perhaps the use of wine in communion.

Having covered chapters one and two, let’s briefly notice chapter three. In Jesus’s nighttime conversation with Nicodemus, he compares himself to the bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness during the Exodus. Jesus would be similarly lifted up to “draw all men” unto himself (cf. John 12:32).

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. John 3:14–15

By the time we reach John 6, Jesus has already discussed living water (John 4:13-14; Exodus 17:6), the life-giving words of Jesus and the choice involved (John 4:24-29; Deuteronomy 30:19), and brings Moses forward as a witness to his works (John 5:45-47).

Bread, Water, and Light

During the first Exodus, God provided the people with bread from heaven, gave them water from a rock, and led them by a great light during the night. We see these three blessings fulfilled in Jesus. It’s not that Jesus provides these blessings as something exterior to himself; he is these blessings.

In John 6, Jesus feeds five thousand with miraculous bread. In response to this miracle, the people wonder if Jesus could be “the prophet” (John 6:14). This is a reference to a promise made in Deuteronomy 18, which says, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him” (Deuteronomy 18:15). In the midst of a lengthy debate following this miracle, Jesus announces, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven…” (John 6:51).

In John 7, Jesus stands up on the last day of the feast of booths and says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37–38). As the living water flowed from the rock in the wilderness, Zechariah saw that it would flow again at the time Israel would be restored (Zechariah 14:8). Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise, and we participate in it through the Holy Spirit.

In John 8, Jesus begins, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12). As the pillar of fire led the children of Israel in the wilderness, Jesus leads us out of darkness, delusion, and death and into light, truth, and life. Jesus says later that the “truth” would set them free. He later defines “truth” by saying “who the Son sets free is free indeed.” Jesus is the “truth” that sets us free because Jesus is the perfect revelation of God as Father, Son, and Spirit—as Love (John 14:6).

Abraham was told that all nations would be blessed through his seed, and this happened in part through the Exodus, but its ultimate fulfillment takes place in Jesus. Jesus could then say, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad…Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:56–58).

“Before Abraham was born, I AM.” The same God that freed the Israelite slaves from Egyptian bondage frees us from the bondage of sin, darkness, and death that entered the world through the original lie. We are free, we are home, and, as the Hebrews writer said in Hebrews 12, “You have come to Mount Zion” (Hebrews 12:22).