“Through the noise, You stand calling my name”
The Ache of Not Being Believed
John 6:34–40 smacks me about as my brain glitches trying to fire itself up between sleepy eyes and needing the coffee to kick in. This piece of Holy, Holy Scripture not only shows Jesus defining Himself as God, but He reveals the nature, will, and purpose of God.
Reading this portion of Scripture, I am reminded of a post I was too tired to respond to. The post stated that “Obedience to Christ is Christian virtue.” As fascinating as that idea is, the truth is far deeper than mere virtue. Obedience to Christ is life-saving. Obedience isn’t God’s idea of controlling us, but His divine love wrapping us in spiritual cloth so that we might be spared inevitabilities. Eventualities, His heart shatters for us not to choose. No, obedience is more than virtue. Obedience is walking into the place of perfect love, surrounding us with saving, sustaining, and sanctifying grace that rescues humanity.
I hear the ache in Jesus’s words, “You have seen and yet you do not believe.” I have some sense of that ache. Of the thirteen relationships I tried over twenty-eight years, each one cheated. My heart broke as the dawning of not being seen, heard, or loved hit me like a ton of bricks each time. But I cannot imagine what the weight of planetary-sized people-rejection must be like.
Scripture: John 6:34–40 (NKJV)
Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”
And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Theological Reflection
This moment in John’s Gospel is holy ground. The crowd, still clinging to yesterday’s miracle of multiplied bread, responds, “Lord, give us this bread always.” But like the woman at the well who first misunderstood the “living water,” they ask for the product without understanding the Person.¹
Jesus answers not with provision, but with identity: “I am the bread of life.” This is the first of the great “I AM” declarations (ego eimi), a deliberate echo of Yahweh’s name revealed in Exodus 3:14.² He isn’t simply saying, “I can give you bread.” He’s saying, “I am what your soul is starving for.”
But He is also painfully honest: “You have seen Me and yet do not believe.” He names their blindness. They’ve witnessed the miracles, travelled across the sea to find Him, asked for the bread, yet still want the gift over the Giver.³
Here, the mystery of faith unfolds: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me…” Faith is not manufactured, it is a divine drawing, an act of grace.⁴ And yet, this grace is also invitational: “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” Jesus welcomes the weak, the wandering, the wounded. He makes no exclusions, only invitations.⁵
His obedience to the Father (“not to do My own will… but the will of Him who sent Me”) reminds us that divine love is not arbitrary. It is deliberate. It is anchored in a covenantal will that refuses to lose even one soul the Father has given.⁶
And finally, He repeats it twice: “I will raise him up at the last day.” The Bread of Life does not merely fill hunger now. He secures resurrection later.⁷ The language shifts from metaphor to eschatological promise, from present need to eternal life.
Application: Obedience as Safe Refuge, Not Tyranny
In a world allergic to authority, obedience often sounds like a threat. But Jesus reframes obedience not as domination, but as refuge. To obey Christ is to step under the will of the Father, the safest place in the cosmos.
This obedience is not virtue for virtue’s sake. It is not moral performance to earn favour. It is the response of the hungry finally realising that the meal is a Person, not a provision.
When Jesus says, “I will by no means cast out,” He is speaking to those of us who’ve been cast out, by lovers, by churches, by families, by ourselves. And He is saying: Come home. I will feed you. I will hold you. I will not let go.
Conclusion: Bread That Bleeds
The Bread of Life would one day be broken on a Roman cross. The feeding of the five thousand pointed to the deeper mystery: the One who feeds must first be crushed.
This is no ordinary bread. This is a Bread that bleeds.
And those who feast on Him in faith will find what they never found in relationships, religion, or rebellion:
Life.
Forever.
Raised.
So I wait.
Not for a sign.
But for the Son.
Poem
And this is the cry of a soul that waits…
Not Service-Dog Love
I wish I could hold You.
See Your face when we speak.
I confess, curiosity gnaws,
makes a child of me.
How will You appear?
How will Your voice
shape silence,
and not fracture the cosmos
into another Genesis?
Sometimes I wonder
if I need You like the blind
need a dog
to trust what eyes can’t see.
But Yours is not service-dog love.
No, far from it.
You shape me
with unspoken syllables,
thunder
threaded through brainwaves,
sermons,
pages,
phrases that lodge
like seeds beneath damp skin.
Yet a melody,
a single line,
a Bible verse
undoes me.
And I ache again
with waiting.
When will time
let fall the veil?
When will trumpets rip the sky
wide open?
Will Glory taste
like colour never seen,
or breath unchained?
What part of me,
so stitched to shadow,
will be startled by Light?
What blind spots
will blush into view
as gravecloth falls
to the floor like tired excuses?
No,
Yours is not the love of animals trained to aid.
Though You serve.
Though You rescue.
Though You walked eyes-wide-open into crucifixion
for the ones too frightened to see.
Still,
I long to touch You,
not in metaphor,
or Spirit,
but in marrow.
To be enfolded,
not in concept,
but in You.
That love,
the kind that makes angels shield their faces,
and saints collapse in awe,
singing:
“Holy.
Holy.
Holy.”
And so I wait.
Needing You still.
As a child needs light.
As a wanderer needs home.
As a soul needs You,
not as service-dog,
but as Saviour.
So,
I wait.
ajb ‘25
Prayer
Bread of Life,
You see our hunger beneath the hunger, our longing to be known, fed, and held.
Thank You for not casting us out when we come empty.
Thank You for being broken so we could be whole.
Teach us to obey, not out of fear, but because Your will is love, and Your way leads to life. We believe, Lord, help our unbelief.
Until the last day, keep us in Your hands.
Raise us, feed us, and never let us go.
In Jesus’ Holy name,
Amen.
Bibliography
1. David Guzik, Enduring Word Commentary on John 6, https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/john-6/.
2. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 140.
3. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 308.
4. Charles Spurgeon, Sermons on the Gospel of John (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1864), 42.
5. Richard Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (London: Kegan Paul, 1886), 174.
6. R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. John, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Leicester: IVP, 1960), 95.
7. Adam Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary: The New Testament (London: Butterworth, 1831), 534.
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