Many of us will experience a feeling of incompleteness, a sense that something is missing from our lives. We seek to fill this ‘vacuum’ in our lives with our achievements, our wealth, our possessions or other desires. This is true even for people such as the rich and famous who appear to have everything one could ever need or want. And yet there are countless examples of such people who have sought gratification by indulging in unfettered sexual activity, and drug and alcohol abuse, in a an attempt to satisfy the longing for completeness, only to inflict pain and suffering on themselves and those close to them in the process.
Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer, described this feeling of incompleteness as “a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” Pascal argued that God is found only by those “who seek Him with all their heart.” His thinking reflected that of Augustine of Hippo, the 4th century theologian, philosopher and bishop, who was quoted as saying in relation to God “for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.”
In the Letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul prays that we become aware of the “God-shaped vacuum” within us and realise that God alone can fill it. He prays that we “may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
In the story of the ‘feeding of the five thousand,’ the author of the Gospel of John tells us that after the five barley loaves and two fish have been distributed and everyone has eaten as much as they wanted, the crowd “were satisfied.” In other words they were ‘filled’. The author then has Jesus offer an insight into his feeding of the multitude. Jesus refers to himself as the bread that fulfils and not just fills. “I am the bread of life,” he says. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry . . . Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”
The story of the feeding of the five thousand can be seen as a metaphor for the sense of incompleteness we experience in life. We can fill the vacuum with material objects such as money and possessions, with feelings of importance that come from status and our achievements, or with pleasures derived from sexual gratification, drinking alcohol or taking drugs. However these measures are only temporary in their effect.
The hunger of the crowd who ate the bread that Jesus gave them was satisfied, they were filled; but eventually the people would become hungry again. But the ‘bread of life’, which is how Jesus refers to himself, doesn’t just fill, it fulfils. Jesus says that those who believe in him and follow him will never be hungry. Jesus fills the God-shaped vacuum within us because God is revealed in Jesus.
