By Brother Gary Wheeler

If you had 30 seconds to introduce yourself, what would you say? You’d share your name, where you live, your marital status, what you do for a living. You might add where you go to church and maybe your likes and hobbies. In the end, you’ve given someone else a glimpse into who you are and what you do.

During Lent, our weekly emails will look at what Jesus said about Himself; very important things that will lead us into a better understanding of who He is and what that means to us as His followers.

But we must understand something that we miss because we don’t speak Greek or Hebrew, and this is key to this series. So, let me direct you to John 6:35.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (ESV)

There are two Greek words we need to study: ego eimi (pronounced “Eggo” as in the waffle, and “Amy” as in a girl’s name).

Let’s look at the second word first. eimi is the verb for “to be”: is, are, was, were, am. We are here. I was there. Sentences like that. Eimi is the form that means “I am.” If I was hungry, I would say “eimi hungry”; I am hungry. So eimi means “I am.”

Now to the first word: ego. We know this word: the self. Alone, it is translated “I”. Ego love my wife. Ego went to church today.

Ok, so let’s put the two words together.

Ego means what? “I.”

And what does eimi mean? “I am.”

So, ego eimi means “I I am.” Wait, that’s weird. Why does Jesus say, “I I am?” Did He flunk grammar at Nazareth Elementary School? What’s the deal?

Well, to understand fully what He is getting at, we have to go back to Exodus 3 and the calling of Moses at the burning bush, as he argues back and forth with God. Finally, he says,

“If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.” (Exodus 3:13-14, NLT)

God called Himself I AM (Hebrew “YHWH”, as biblical Hebrew was written with consonants only). “Yahweh”: a name describing His eternal power and unchangeable character. “I am.”

Fast forward to Jesus in today’s Scripture. The Greek equivalent of YHWH—you guessed it—is ego eimi.

And in today’s passage, Jesus said, “Ego eimi the bread of life.” Jesus states He is the divine nourishment that satisfies and gives life eternal. As bread is to the stomach, He is to the soul.

It was St. Augustine who noted that every single person has within them a god-shaped hole in their soul. We attempt to fill that cavity with a host of other things, but nothing fills our hunger for purpose and significance except Jesus. We are never truly content in life without Him.

“He said, ‘I am…’” That transforms our thinking about Jesus.