I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 6-7.

    John’s account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand contains a piece of information the other Gospels do not mention: the crowd He fed was about to declare Him king and start a revolt against Rome (the latter is not stated, but is implicit in declaring Jesus their king). When the crowd caught up with Jesus the following day, He began teaching that He was the bread of life. Taking part in Communion (or the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper) is a reminder of, and a dedication to, fulfilling Jesus’ teaching about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. What Jesus is teaching us here is twofold. One element is that we must be willing to suffer similar to the way He suffered when He was crucified. The other element is that we must imitate what He did by caring for the needs of those around us. Latter in today’s passage Jesus expresses some of this meaning by speaking of giving Living Water to drink to those who come to Him.

    I believe that Jesus intended to call to mind the River of Healing which Ezekiel spoke about. As a result, my understanding of what He means by a River of Living Water is that He is referring to the way in which experiencing the love of God causes us to show love to those around us and their experiencing our love causes them to show love to those around them. However, the important point in Jesus’ teaching here which is not presented in Ezekiel’s vision, is that for this river of Living Water to continue to flow each person in the chain must become connected to the Source. While it is true that the results of loving action will be multiplied by the actions of those who experience it, that “water” of love will also become diluted and polluted the further it is downstream from God. The only way for it to stay fresh and pure is for each person in the chain to have a direct connection to God. This is why it is important to preach the Gospel along with doing good for those in need. We do not do good for those in need so that they will listen to the Gospel. However, we preach the Gospel for the same reason that we do good for those in need, because they need the Gospel in order to experience the joy which God intends for them.