John 6:35, 41-51.                    Jesus comes to give life!!!                   12/8/12           

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ⁴¹ At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² 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’?”

⁴³ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

 Here today in this reading we have another very real and important challenge placed before our present day church; and you and I. We want everything to be simple and uncomplicated; down to earth. Easy to accept and which makes us feel good; and which doesn’t put us too far out of step with our society around us and its thinking. On top of that we want it all to revolve around us and our ease and importance. So we are placing ourselves in a very dangerous position and are here challenged to rethink our present position.

 We are living at a time when there is a lot of grumbling about, with regard to biblical positions that have been readily accepted since the foundations of the Church: homosexuality and homosexual marriage, women’s role in the church, our understanding of worship or Divine Service, to just name a few. So there is a growing unwillingness to take God at his Word, and a growing readiness to listen to Satan’s lie; ‘Did God really say?’ Together with this we also a much heavier emphasis placed on ourselves and the importance of what we do, think and feel.

We are the centre of our world and we view everything from our own viewpoint. This is a deadly, dangerous position that we have placed ourselves into.

 We don’t need to scratch very far beneath the surface of our present day society and even the church to see the results of this thinking. The loneliness and futility of life; the lack of meaning and purpose to one’s existence; and more, all is compounding at an ever increasing rate. This emptiness is exhibited by the ever increasing alcohol, drug and sex addictions. The violence against one another; and high rates of suicide, all are indications that our current thinking on life is disastrous. This self-centred view of life and our world is having a terrible effect on life today.

 Now, during a Bible Study this last week I came across this little statement that we need to consider very carefully. It said: ‘This life is not about you. This life is about God, not about us. God made this universe, he created life, he brought everything into being. And when we sinned, he provided the only sacrifice that would satisfy his own righteous anger: the blood of his only Son.’ Now this is a radically different perspective with which we as Christians are to approach life. And it is one that actually ensures us a life that his filled with peace, hope and the assurance of eternal life.

 In many ways this is the very point that Jesus himself is making here in this reading this morning. We need God and what comes from him if we are to have that which we all, deep down, know that we need for this life and the next. He is the one who is all important in life, not we and the world around us. He says: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

 Because of the sinfulness and selfishness of humanity, we do not have and will never be able to achieve for ourselves, that which makes for a good life. Sadly, of course, those who choose to reject God and his ultimate authority, will fight ‘tooth and nail’ to try to convince themselves and others that this is not the case. Sinful humanity will always look for human means to improve our lot here in this world.

 Consequently sinful humanity cannot and does not want to believe that God in Jesus came down from heaven. Our selfish pride wants the focus to be on us and what we can do, so only wants to look at Jesus in terms of him being a good man, a great teacher, rather than God himself come to help us out of our hopelessness.

 Most significantly we need to recognize that none of us can make ourselves and our life good and great and to then be acceptable to God. Now this is a bitter pill for humanity to accept, but that is the reality of the situation. Jesus himself says here: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is only through him that we can have any real hope of coming into God’s presence when we die, which we all surely will; unless we happen to be alive when the end comes.

Jesus goes on to say: They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one then has an excuse! We all have had written in our hearts the knowledge that there is a supreme God who is over all and in who we alone can have any hope of coming into God’s presence. So we all know this truth that our only real hope can come from him. So we need to look to him and trust what he has to say in this regard.

Our assurance that all of this is case is none other than Jesus Christ himself. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Jesus is God’s Son come to us from God himself, so that we can know that this is all for real. His life, death and resurrection is our assurance that all of this is true. This is not just some ‘fairy story’ made up by some fanciful story-teller; but finds its reality in the one that history itself has recorded as having died on the cross and come to life again three days later. It is in him alone that we can be certain that our real hope and life comes from heaven above.

 This life therefore is all about God. He is the centre and the hope of our existence. We can and are to believe in him. In this regard Jesus himself says: Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. We can trust that it is in him alone that we can truly live and move and have our being.

 Jesus then goes on to say: I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.

 So as we look to and trust in Jesus we have the assurance that we have that which will give us life in all of its fullness. Because he comes from heaven and gives himself to us we can know that we have that which ensures that we will not die but live forever. And with that he will also give us all we need on order for this life, here and now, to be full of hope and meaning. All this will be the case because God Almighty himself will be allowed to be Lord of our life; the centre of our existence   

 Even when he tells us things that seem ridiculous and goes against the grain of our thinking we accept what he says; and receive it as that which obviously God deems as good for us: Whether that has to do with homosexuality or women in the ministry and the like, or Jesus real presence in the Lord’s Supper. We trust him when he says the bread and wine is his body and blood, through which he assures us of the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. So even those these words: This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world, were not spoken in connection with Holy Communion, they remind us that it is in Jesus alone that we can trust, with regard to the important things that we need in life.

So let us take to heart the point that: ‘This life is not about you. This life is about God, not about us. God made this universe, he created life, he brought everything into being. And when we sinned, he provided the only sacrifice that would satisfy his own righteous anger: the blood of his only Son.’ Along with that, it is he who gives us all that we need in order to satisfy our life here on earth and get us into eternity with himself in heaven. So again to him then be all glory and honour, now and always. Amen.

 Pastor Roger Atze

Glandore/Underdale Lutheran Parish