John 6:32-58

March 5, 2006

I am the Bread of Life

Two years ago the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure known as the "cheeseburger bill." The bill protects the fast food industry from potential lawsuits filed by overweight customers.

Caesar Barber, 56, pointed the finger at McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC, and Burger King for his heart attacks, diabetes, and weight problem. Gregory Rhymes, a 15-year-old high school student, joined his mother in blaming fast food restaurants for his obesity. Rhymes' mother stood before a judge and stated she "always believed McDonald's was healthy for my son." Gregory weighs 400 pounds.

Another way to put it is with the old adage, “you are what you eat.” The saying is attributed to the German Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach who once said, "Man is what he eats."

Now Feuerbach was a materialist. He didn't think there was anything or anyone beyond the material world; no God, no soul. Religion is meaningless. We are merely flesh and bones, material beings, and nothing more. But Feuerbach unwittingly spoke a truth deeper than he understood. There is a great connection with what we eat and what we are, with how we nourish our bodies as well as our minds. In fact, food plays a pivotal role in Scripture as it defines us physically and spiritually.

The goodness of creation is summarized by God giving our first parents dominion over creation and every green plant for food. He calls this good. Food forms the core of God’s great command of what not to eat and it is the fruit from the tree of life that offers a great promise. It is with food that they were tempted and it is over food that the first murder occurs.

The answer to the curse in Scripture is the picture of the sacrifice, killed, drained of blood, burned as an offering and consumed by the participants.

 
That food is a blessing and a curse is no surprise. Potato chips, cheese curls, and candy may be some of your favorite things to eat, but for a few mule deer in Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park, these foods proved to be deadly. Park rangers had to kill over two dozen mule deer because they became hooked on junk food left by visitors to the park.

Once they get a taste of the sugar and salt, the deer develop an extreme addiction and will go to any lengths to eat only junk food. The result is the animals ignore the food they need, leaving them in poor health and on the edge of starvation. Because of junk food cravings, the deer lose their natural ability to digest vegetation. One park ranger called the junk food “the crack cocaine of the deer world.”[i]

Now our concern is not with proper nutrition, as important at that may be. But food fills a vacuum, not just in our stomachs, but often becomes a picture of our lives. The relation of food and faith permeates Scripture. Food carries with it the desires we have for satisfaction, contentment, life, health.

Far too often we consume junk which makes us sick, just as we believe lies that destroy our souls. We long to be filled, but we fill ourselves with toxic wastes thinking they will give us health. During the Sundays leading up to Easter we will focus our minds on seven I Am’s of John’s Gospel, I am the light of the world, I AM, gate, good shepherd, resurrection and life, way truth and life and the vine. This morning we’ll look at the first one from John 6, I am the bread of life.

An ancient tradition in Christianity during this season of Lent, found particularly in Roman Catholicism is to fast, withhold food to focus one’s attention on the passion of Christ. Fasting is a discipline lost in an age where consumption is king and desire is divine. But the promise of God’s Word is not that we need to punish the body to save the soul, but rather feast joyously on the good which God provides. In John 6 Jesus promises himself.

Our passage picks up the day after the feeding of the 5000 along the Sea of Galilee. As the people gathered to hear Jesus teach, he takes the five loaves of bread and two fish and has an abundance of food. The people follow him to the other side of the lake the next day, begging for more. But what they want and what Jesus offers is completely different. READ John 6:32-58. We hunger for contentment that only Jesus can fill

 
We are content because Jesus satisfies us                           32-36

Contentment in this world is fleeting or as one cynic said: “If you can look back on your life with contentment, you have one of man's most precious gifts -- a selective memory.”

Life is like Thanksgiving dinner – even when you eat till you burst, you are strangely drawn to the frig hours later to nibble on cold turkey or another slice of pumpkin pie because your contentment never lasts. So also in our lives – contentment comes and goes, but mostly it goes. Yet, with Christ…

The Jews along the Sea of Galilee knew Jesus’ miracle pictured the feeding of in the wilderness 2000 years before. They wanted Jesus to continue with his miracles – once was not enough; they wanted something more akin to the 40 years of manna in the wilderness. In reply Jesus points out that their allegiance to Moses is misplaced, for two reasons

·     First, Moses did not provide the manna, it came from God. The people confused the bearer of the gift with the giver of the gift. Moses merely told them what God was going to do.

·     Second - Moses gave, but the Father gives. Note the change in tense in the verbs. What happened in the wilderness came and went. Every day the manna was there, but there was time when it was no more. Yet what God the Father gives is in the present.

It is not enough to content yourself with stories of God’s goodness from years past. It is important to taste and see that the Lord is good today. The satisfaction God gives us in Christ is applicable for every day of our lives.   

If we feast on contentment that this world has to offer we will be full now and hungry later

In our search for satisfaction, our quest for contentment, we find things that satisfy, but only for a time. Nothing lasts, nothing gives constant pleasure.

The sip of a drink may calm, but its pursuit for ongoing pleasure produces pain.

The salary increase gives more buying power, but debt mounts. Our toys seduce us to think that technology will mend an aching heart, but all too often they only aggravate. 

God’s gift is on-going. The satisfaction that comes from God knows no end. Why? Because what we are fed is not a substance, but a someone, not a meal but a man.

We are satisfied relationally                                                                                34-36

The people clamored for this bread that the Father continually gives.

They see benefit of a continual satisfaction, so they ask for this food. Like the Samaritan woman in John 4, they want this food to avoid the hunger they feel. But the reasons are often selfish (4:15). Once the crowd grasps the food Jesus offers, they are far less receptive (v41).

When they clamor for food, Jesus offers himself as the only satisfying substance.

This is why we can be content, because God gives his Son, not solutions or things, but himself. It is only in relationship, in union with the God who made us, who knows our deepest needs, that we can find true satisfaction.  Contentment is not a destination, it is a relationship

But it was the spectacular provision of bread which attracted the crowds. They sought the works to the neglect of the Worker. It was He that was the wonder, not His deeds.

We imagine we can satisfy by feeding our souls with things. We may pursue technology or spirituality, it may be a car or a book, a career or a truth – but in the end all will leave us dissatisfied. Why? because we are created to relate.

I know many of you are frustrated by the lack of clear explication of what you are to do.

You think satisfaction will come with a list, a program, a new and better set of facts. The people asked Jesus this up in v28: “What are the works God wants us to do?” But the answer that comes back doesn’t satisfy most – “believe in him whom he has sent”

If you say, “sure, I know, but what else…” you’re seeking satisfaction in something other than a relationship with the living Son of God.

We are content because Jesus preserves us                                    37-40   

We are preserved by being given by the Father                         

We eat not just to cease the immediate churning in our stomach, but we eat to live. It is what preserves us from day to day. We may be able to forgo a meal now and then, go without food a day or so, but eat we must if we wish to live.

How much more does the feeding on Christ preserve us? The contentment Jesus gives is not fleeting, but lasting, it preserves us to the end. But it is not about our eating, but the work of the triune God in us what really matters. Having called the people to believe he next reminds them that the preserving work in us is all of God’s grace.

Here we see the work of the Godhead focused on our good.

The great promise here is that whomever the Father gives to the Son will come to the Him. There are no missing children, no overlooked people. When we gaze into the starlite sky at night and may wonder at its immensity whether God really knows or cares – this verse reminds us what we would never deduce on our own – God is committed to your preservation.

And if God is so committed to that, we may rest assured God will see it through to the end.

When I was eight my father passed on to me a ring that was in the family for generations. It was an infant ring, placed on a baby’s thumb, attached with string to avoid the inevitable thumb suck. The ring is not terribly valuable in itself, a simple gold band with a small garnet stone. I treasure that ring and I will not only not throw it away, but take care of it and pass it on to the next generation.

How much more are you a precious gift of the Father to the Son? It is not you who found him, but he who called you and gifted you to His Son.

We are preserved by being secured by the Son             

At first glance it appears that in 37b Jesus is merely saying that he will welcome us or at best let us stay. We could read this as if He won’t cast us out … but he may not treat us very well.

The literary form here is the strongest affirmation of the positive by the denial of the negative. When Jesus says that those who come, that is, those whom the Father has given to him, he will never cast out, he is committed to our preservation. We who are gifts of the Father to the Son are then safeguarded by the Son to the very end.

We spend so much of our lives wondering what our standing is before others. The fear of rejection is not just a middle school dilemma, but is a fear deeply ingrained at any age.

But while we have no guarantees in this life of how others will view us today or tomorrow, we have the promise that we will be preserved to the end.

So certain is our position that Christ promises to lose nothing of what the Father has given (39)

Jesus points to the very end of time as the limits of his preserving power – to raise us up on the last day. When we have died and decayed, our perseveration will continue. We need not fear death, for even in the face of the greatest unknown – Christ is there for us

What Jesus declares here is stated in the most emphatic form. We are not to focus on the strength of our faith, the depth of our knowledge, the purity of our heart – but on the rock solid promise of God made in our behalf. Four times in this passage (39,40,44,54) Jesus repeats the promise of the resurrection.

We are preserved by being willed to believe                                          40

In this work of preservation it is all of God’s grace, but we are called to respond, to receive the gift by looking on the Son for our satisfaction, trusting him to preserve us. The divine choice is clear – it is the Father’s will, not our decision that matters. Yet the Father wills that we believe. Here’s the great coalescing of God’s choice and our faith, each not denying the other, but affirming its importance.

That the Father gifts us to the Son and that the Son promises our resurrection on the last day calls for a response. That response of faith is but another evidence of God’s choice in us.

Jesus as the bread of life both should satisfy our hunger for significance as well as strengthen us to live. As we feed on him, look to him, trust in him in every aspect of our lives, we will find the contentment we need.

Once again Jesus’ audience objects.

Imitating the story from Exodus and Numbers where the children of were feed on manna, but still complained wanting the rich foods of which they ate as slaves they grumbled.

Here the Jews grumble not because Jesus had feed them, but because he claimed to be the food they need. They thought they knew him. They could point to his humanity and by that consider him nothing special. Still Jesus invites them, knowing that if they respond in faith, it is only because of His Father’s work in them making them believe.

We are content because Jesus invites us                                           41-51

We are invited because God the Father initiates                         43-44

We can not activate the Father’s choice. God makes the first move. We contribute nothing; we can’t figure it out on our own. Still Jesus invites. There is a general call issued to all, but there is also the specific, personal, selective call of the Father drawing those who are his own.

The reason we don’t come to Him is because we will not. It is not because we cannot. There is only one reason why we cannot - our will is corrupted, and we are not willing to come.

Let me illustrate. There are those among our number who have a rather odd proclivity to like bananas. I myself, joined by other wise souls, disdain that foul fruit. I do not eat bananas, not because I am unable to eat them, but my will is so turned against them that I will not. It is not a matter of ability, but a matter of proclivity. I will not will to eat them.

If my sin stained soul is likewise turned against seeking God, finding contentment in him alone, what good is Jesus’ invitation for me to come? As Christ invites us, it is the Father who draws us to himself. But this drawing by the Father to the Son is not the savage constraint of a rapist, but the wonderful wooing of a lover. No one comes to Christ unless the Father draws him.

The word draw is used of moving an object that can not move itself or of a person hauled into court. The Father’s wooing is indeed loving and kind, but we are not so easily moved. But the God who created the universe knows how to draw us to himself.

What this means is that we need not sit in fear that our coming to Christ was our idea but we came without an invitation. Like the party crasher, we force our way in but when discovered will be tossed out on our ear. If we profess to believe, we are not just making believe to believe, but that faith is another evidence of God’s work in you. We can find contentment in knowing that even there Jesus is at work in us.

We are invited to learn                                                                                                    45-46

The Father draws us and we come, we come to learn – but what we learn are not mere facts, but learn of God’s grace poured out on us. Jesus quotes in v45 from the Prophets – Isaiah 54. Read v13, but look at the context, vv10-14. 

Like frightened orphans we scavenge for contentment. For some it is in what the world has to offer, it may be in your career, your marriage, with children, only to find that even in the good things God has for us in this life, that when we seek them to be our god, giving us the happiness that only he offers – we are left alone and afraid. For others we may know that this life can’t fulfill our deepest longings – but we ignore the promise of God’s compassion is already secured because of Christ’s work. So we work hard at trying to make God pleased with us.

But Jesus offers to fill us with good things, to build us up. The Father draws us to himself so that we can see, know and experience the goodness of our God.

William Randolph Hearst invested a fortune collecting art treasures from around the world. One day Mr. Hearst read the description of a valuable art item which he sent his agent abroad to find. After months of searching, the agent reported that he had finally found the treasure. Wanting to secure the prize, Hearst inquired as to its whereabouts and cost. To the surprise of Hearst, the priceless masterpiece was stored in none other than the warehouse of William Randolph Hearst.

The multi-millionaire had been searching all over the world for a treasure he already possessed.[ii]

You have the promises of God spelled out of you’re here and Jesus calls you to come and eat.

We are invited to feed on him                                                                                          47-58

Jesus makes the issue more clear and more divisive. The manna in the wilderness was a picture. As wonderful as that was, it was a painting and what Jesus presented to them that day was the reality. Their ancestors died in the wilderness, but what Jesus offers will cause them to live forever

He invites them to a feast where their only hope is to feed on him. When we look at what he says in vv53-54 we can perhaps understand why both Roman Catholic and Lutherans have remained fixed on the body of Christ being somehow physically present in the bread and wine. Yet Jesus sets up this metaphor in v35 clarifying the issue not of our eating and drinking, but in coming to him, believing in him that we may be satiated.

Here at this table we do have the opportunity to feast on Christ, not physically, but spiritually.

These elements are not just a simple metaphor, only a picture, but serve as that point in which a great spiritual truth is joined with material substance. Tangible reminders are necessary for tangible people, like us. We are invited to eat, to find in Christ our satisfaction, our contentment.

You are invited to come, having been reminded of the great truths of God’s pursuit of you to offer you true, lasting satisfaction. Come and eat, feed on him.

In v54 the word used there is shockingly graphic: it means to eat noisily, often used of animals munching and of people with the idea of eating with enjoyment and friendship

When you come to this table do you come hungry? Or do you come here already fairly satisfied with what this life has to offer, content in what you can hold in your hand, buy with a credit card, or hold close to you? If that is the case you’ve spoiled your appetite for what will truly satisfy your soul, what will last for all of eternity. Instead come and eat the bread of life, come to Christ and find in him that which will forever satisfy your greatest desires.