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.
36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 41
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves.
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—
46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.
47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.54
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. 59
Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. 60
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)
65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”66
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.”
71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
Jesus is
explaining to the multitude that He is the true bread come down from heaven. He is exegeting Exodus 16:4, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” Yesterday we looked at His first point, He gave them. This morning we look at the
rest of the Savior’s explanation in this sermon we call, “The Bread of Life Discourse”.
Second, in 6:35 and 6:40, Jesus builds on His previous point. He declares that He is the bread of life, and that the nourishment he gives, 6:40, is that which brings
life eternal. God sustained his people with food, so that they would live, but God has always pushed His people past just living, to real living, eternal living and that nourishment also comes from Him, that Bread is also His provision.
But, here is the key, eating, as Jesus explains it, is not just moving our jaws up and down…it is hearing, it is believing and it is receiving. It is bringing what
is eaten into yourself that might provide true strength. That which is eaten becomes part of who you are. To eat the true Bread come down from heaven, is to take Christ into your body, soul and being!
Third, the bread came down, from heaven. (6:41)
The point here is that God is both doing the teaching and God is Himself what is being taught. Then Jesus adds in verse 51, the one who is the divine food is also the One who suffers, the One who gives his life for the sake of the world.
Now…so far so good, the folks listening would not be so put off by this…I mean perhaps there was some confusion about what He meant when He equated himself with the
manna, but that they could have looked over as the eccentricities of a teacher, who was after all very different from the others.
And here is where everything changes. The Lord begins to turn up the heat and make his application. Again, scholars will say that right about here He had the folks,
He had the big church, He had the popularity, He just needs to close the deal…But then he starts talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He starts using language that means that everything has to be given up…that following Him, requires more
than what most of those listening could even begin to fathom.
He was calling for such a unique connection to Himself, a commitment that really meant having to lose all sense of self and to be absorbed in who He was and what His
purposes were. This too the people did not miss, but they didn’t care for such a radical call to commitment.
In a book I read the author deals with his own Christian experience and how he had invented over the course of many years his own Jesus… many different Jesus’ in fact.
Jesus’ who would say what he wanted them to say and do what he wanted them to do. The book is about how all of that unraveled and he had to come face to face with the real Jesus, as Jesus is, not the image that the author had created. He writes:
How do you deal with a God who breaks all the rules that your confident, well-meaning friends have told you He will follow? They told me that Jesus wouldn’t invade
my life with inconveniences…things that make me stop and realize the fragile, illusory nature of nature.
…Instead here he was, showing me that little things like pain and death and the rules of the universe weren’t going to get in the way of his doing whatever he liked.
I can remember lying in the dark and thinking, If this is true, then he can do whatever he pleases. Who knows what he might ask of me? I can’t control him. I can’t box him in with my own beliefs and my own philosophies. But time after time, I keep returning
to the imaginary Jesus that I liked, because deep down I preferred him to the real thing.” You see, the real Jesus was frightening sometimes, and he said things I didn’t like. He required sacrifice. He scared me by doing things I didn’t believe he could do
and so I preferred my fake Jesus.
The author is not unique or odd, he is merely honest…And he has hit on what has become the modern dilemma…the Jesus of the bible…or the tame Jesus who is more like
us than we are like Him. The Jesus that we carry around like we do a lucky rabbit’s foot, or the Jesus who just wants to be added to our already existing life, not one who gets to define life…this is what American Christianity has mastered and this is what
Jesus’ sermon here in John 6, destroys.
Jesus tells the crowd that just as those in the wilderness ate the manna and lived, so you must eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood. What is he saying?
Simply this: You must take this Jesus, as He is, as He proclaims to be, bow to Him and make your life given over to this singular purpose, to know intimate fellowship with and have no other purpose than, Jesus…the bread of heaven, given to sinners.
The same book that I referred to describes being a follower of Jesus by saying: You
would eat when I eat, you would rest when I rest, and under the same olive tree. You wouldn’t take the shortcut while I went the long way. We would be inseparable. You would live like my shadow, mimicking my actions until you could do what I do without thinking,
until you had the same instincts, the same thoughts, and the same words.”
That is being a disciple. Although the folks listening that day did not get it, they did know that Jesus was calling them to a radical way of life…an extravagant giving
up of everything so that one might have Christ. They knew that the commitment being called for was not partial, it could not be mediocre, or apathetic, it was full, it was real and it was anything but, “add Jesus to your life”, rather it was, Jesus is your
life.
Look at verse 60: “When many of his disciples hear it they said, this is a hard saying: who can listen to it?” Jesus doesn’t even back down then, but in verse
62 says that they will see him ascend into heaven, which is where He is from. Look at verse 66, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” I don’t know how it is that we can think of Christianity, of following Jesus
as something that WE get to manage, organize and control. Jesus knew what He was calling those folks too. He doesn’t even seem surprised that most of them left him. But He did not dicker with them. He did not make bargains. He did not water things
down or knock off the edges of what He was saying so as to keep them and their agenda’s in tack. He didn’t even offer them a compromise…you know, part of what I want, part of what you want…let’s meet in the middle.
He even asks the 12, and through them, He is asking you and me…Look at verse 67: Do
you want to go away as well? What do you say to Him? We will, by the faith God has given, by the grace that is His gift to us, we will take our stand with
Peter. Lord to whom shall we go…there is no one else, there is no other place, there is no other food…You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. If you can profess from your heart, your
desire to really follow Him, His way, not your way…to follow the real Jesus, not some imaginary Jesus of your own making…Then we confess this together:
Lord to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.
Prayer: Father, I know that there is nowhere for me to go but to the feet of Jesus. Forgive me for thinking to control You or to manage Your calling upon my life.
Forgive me for trying to bargain and compromise between what You have called me to and what my own flesh desires. I want to be fully devoted in thought, word and deed to a true and unadulterated following of my Savior. Father grant me the courage, the humility
and the pure sight, to be deterred at nothing, that Jesus might be fully mine. I ask this in His name, Amen.
Song: Be Still My Soul (This is an old throwback song from The Imperials)