(John 6: 35-51)
Growing up as a kid in the fifties and sixties part of my weekly routine was eating a bowl of cereal in front of the television on Saturday mornings taking in all of my favorite cowboy shows wondering if this week was the week that the Lone Ranger or Roy Rogers met their end at the hands of a bad guy that just wouldn’t do right. Roy and the Lone Ranger never went looking for trouble but when trouble reared its’ ugly head, they would come riding to the rescue to help the hapless citizens who couldn’t seem to solve their own problems. High Noon, one of my favorite movies starring Gary Cooper, was like that. Frank Miller and his gang of thugs had been previously cleared out of Hadleyville so the people could live in peace, but he was being released from a New Mexico prison and was intent on restoring the status quo of lawlessness and oppression on the meek God-fearing citizens. Will Kane, the town Marshall, not looking for a fight, feels an obligation to stay and stand up for the townspeople who, in the face of impending danger, are beginning to have their doubts. A few of the people who liked it when Frank ran the town are grumbling out loud about the way the Marshall is running the town and doing their best to undermine Marshall Kane clearing the way for the return of the Miller gang and their much-missed status quo. The tension mounts with each tick of he clock as the showdown gets closer.
And a showdown is what we have in our scripture reading for this morning. Last week we learned about Jesus telling the crowd that followed him to Capernaum all about this Wonder Bread that would sustain them for life, a pretty shocking revelation. When the people couldn’t wrap their heads around what Jesus was telling them he bluntly says to them: I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. He’s preaching freedom from the status quo, a better and more meaningful life focused upon what is truly important. He continues by saying: But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. At this, we’re told that the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I came down from heaven?” I think at this point it is important to put it into context. It’s not until you read verse 59 that you learn that Jesus is speaking in the synagogue in Capernaum. So, when the Apostle John says Jews, he is not referring to the common people, but the Jewish leaders who were present in the synagogue and hostile to what Jesus was teaching. The people liked what they were hearing and that troubled them greatly. These people, the Jewish leaders and power structure grumbled in disagreement because they could not accept Jesus’ claim of divinity. They saw him only as a carpenter from Nazareth and not the royal savior they were expecting to come from their own ranks, one of them, someone more fitting. They refused to believe that Jesus was God’s divine Son, and his message was one they could not and would not tolerate as it didn’t fit in with their narrative.
Jesus knew what his mission was. He knew he didn’t work independently of God the Father, but in union with him. His purpose was to do the will of God, not to satisfy his human desire or set himself up as some sort of an earthly king. So, Jesus says to them: Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. This is some pretty bold talk, and you can sense the tension building in the room as Jesus speaks bluntly to these religious leaders. Jesus is telling them, and the listening crowd crammed into the synagogue, that it is he who does the Father’s will, which entails giving eternal life to those who believe in him, and not losing any of those whom the Father has given him. For Jesus to claim he will raise them up on the last day is to claim that he will be the agent of resurrection at the end of time, a prerogative of God alone. Who does this guy think he is? You can just see some of the religious leaders, Pharisees and teachers of the law, working the room saying: “Don’t listen to this guy, we know his parents, he’s just an itinerant carpenter from Nazareth. He’s delusional.” Don’t like the message, attack the messenger. Jesus continues by saying: It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall be taught by God.’ (Referring to Isaiah 54: 13.) Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Jesus is staking a pretty big claim here and you can just imagine the rumbling undercurrent coming from the religious leaders as the people hung on his every word as he told them that whoever believes has eternal life. He says: I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. Not die? What does he mean by that? Jesus is not telling them that they will actually live forever if they are a believer, but that they will have eternal life with God now and will be raised for eternity at the resurrection. He’s telling them, and us, that there is a life after death, a life worth dying for. Just in case there was some confusion out there as to his meaning Jesus emphatically states: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Though it was undoubtably lost on those listening, Jesus is telling them that he is willing to sacrifice his life for them. That’s how committed he is to them. Can the religious leaders, the grumblers, say the same?
When Jesus said he would not lose even one person whom the Father had given him, he was saying that anyone who makes a sincere commitment to believe in him as Savior is secure in God’s promise of eternal life. Now many people reject Christ because they say they cannot believe he is the Son of God, it’s some sort of ancient fairy tale. In reality, however, the demands that Christ makes for their loyalty and obedience is what they cannot accept. It’s an inconvenient truth that gets in the way of living life they way they want to, in the here and now with no concern for the future. To protect themselves from the message, they reject the messenger much like the Jewish grumblers in our scripture reading for today rejected what Jesus was telling them. But God is working on them, just like he’s working on us. When someone chooses to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, he or she does so only in response to the urging of God’s Holy Spirit. Something is going on in their lives and they can’t quite put their finger on it. Maybe it’s an interaction with a Christian they might know or just met. Maybe it’s some random act of kindness they experienced that seems oddly spiritual. They want to know more but how do they learn about God? Well, hopefully like we learned. We were taught about God through reading and studying the Bible, God’s word. We learned about God through our experiences that provoked thoughts about the existence of God that the Holy Spirit planted in our minds. And we learned about God through our relationships with other Christians. People just have to be open to God’s teaching as it can come from anywhere and out of nowhere. We have to pray that God will use us as he sees fit to be that conduit, that person who helps to bring light into the darkness.
To eat of this living bread that Christ speaks about means to take in Christ, to accept him into our lives and become one with him. We are united with Christ in two ways: first, by believing in his death and resurrection, and second, by devoting ourselves to living as he requires, depending on his teaching for guidance, and trusting in the Holy Spirit for power, the kind of power we need when we are faced with a showdown of faith.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God, how we praise you for sending your Son, Jesus Christ, to us to be our Savior, to sacrifice himself for us on the cross so that we may be saved for eternity. We praise you for showing us the way to you through the bread of life offered up through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We praise you for the plain-spoken truth he offers if we only accept him and live a life in service to you. We believe in his death and resurrection, and we devote ourselves to living as he requires, depending upon his teachings for guidance in our daily lives, and trusting in the Holy Spirit for the power and strength to endure the challenges we face as faithful Followers of the Way. In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.