Pentecost 12 – 16 August 2015– Year B
Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for our meditation is as written in today’s Gospel reading the 6th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 51-69:
Let us pray: Father, guide the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts that you Word of truth will lead us to continually feed upon Jesus Word, body and blood that we may abide in Him eternally. In Jesus name. Amen
If your sermon meditations have been following the 6th Chapter of the Gospel according to John over the past few weeks then you would have spent considerable time examining what our Lord means when He calls Himself the Bread of Life. We have also considered at length what He means when He speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. In short, we have heard what it means to eat of the Bread of Life. In these words of our Lord, recorded in John chapter six, the Lord is calling upon His hearers to believe in Him. To eat His flesh and to drink His blood, in the context of John chapter six, is to believe in Him, to be intimately close to Him, to believe in Him as one's personal Saviour and Lord. In Verse 56, The Lord Jesus says, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him". "Abide in Him…." You know, had all these false disciples, those who fell away at hearing His words, continued following Him, they would have been there on Maundy Thursday evening to hear Him speak these words as recorded in John 15:4-11 "Abide in Me, I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full".
In these words, Jesus invites His disciples, not just the Twelve, but also those not present, including you and me, to abide in Him. This is what it means for one to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood. It means that one hears the Word of the Lord and keeps it, for the words the Lord speaks to us are spirit, and they are life. The Lord wants us to eat His Word; there’s a old prayer (or Collect) for the Word that sums it up: "Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us the faith and wisdom to hear them, read, mark, learn, AND INWARDLY DIGEST THEM, that in patience and comfort we may embrace your holy Word, and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen"
The very idea was a scandal to the unbelieving Jews. That Jesus, as the Bread which came down from heaven, is greater than the manna that fell for their ancestors. Their blessed ancestors who ate God’s manna eventually died a physical death; but here is this man Jesus declaring that anyone who eats the Bread of Life will live forever. The result is in Verse 60 of our text; "Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a hard saying; who can understand it?'" The Lord asked them, "Does this offend you?" The Greek word for offend is the root of our word scandalise. Originally, the scandal served as the stick that, when tripped, activated the trap and ensnared the prey. The animal would be caught up in the trap, and would meet an early death. The Jews were scandalised by the words of the Lord. They could not accept His teachings. In the hardness of their hearts they were unable to think past the physical language He was using, and they refused to understand that they needed to believe in Him. To them He was nothing more than the Son of Mary and Joseph. Thus they were scandalised by His words and followed Him no more. Little did they know that in their outrage and sin they were putting themselves at risk of eternal death.
The Jews in our text are not the only ones who were scandalised by the Lord's words. We are also offended. We also are scandalised. The Word of God scandalises us. We are condemned by the words of God's Law, for the Law exposes us as poor, miserable sinners who are by nature sinful and unclean. We are not like the Israelites in our Old Testament book of Joshua who, following Joshua, served the Lord. Rather, we are, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:11-12. “Partakers with the sons of disobedience.” And he goes on to instruct us to "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret". Yet we associate with them and even become them, for we despise God's Word, we do not hold it sacred, and we do not gladly hear and learn it. We hold Scripture with such contempt that we reject those parts of it that we don't like, those parts that make us uncomfortable, those parts that don't make us feel good about ourselves. We despise the Law because we don't like to think of ourselves as sinners, and it hurts our feelings. We also hate the Gospel, for the Gospel tells us that there is nothing—absolutely NOTHING—we can do to get into heaven, for Christ has paid the price for us with His very life. The Biblical martyrs paid for their faith with their very lives, for they by the Holy Spirit confessed Christ, even at the very losses of their own lives. Such martyrs as the mid-third century deacon St. Laurence, the blessed Apostle St. Bartholomew, those who lifted high the cross and lost their lives as we celebrate Holy Cross Day on 14th September, and the blessed Apostle and Evangelist St. Matthew, whom we commemorate on the 21st September. They and countless others have lost their lives for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the Gospel, and for the sake of the Church.
The martyrs serve as examples for us to follow on this the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, 200. They ate of the flesh of the Son of Man and drank His blood. They read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested the Word of the Lord. They had the promise of eternal life because, by the Holy Spirit, they believed in Christ; they craved the Bread of life, the promise they now realise in its totality as they were faithful unto death. The Lord calls us to this same faithfulness, even if we do not die due to martyrdom. He continues to call us to be faithful to Him all the days of our lives, just as He has been faithful to His heavenly Father for all eternity. As we confess in the Nicene Creed, it was Christ's faithfulness "who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human". In the same way John 1: 14 tells us; “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The Word Incarnate revealed His glory when He would have His flesh nailed to the cross and His blood poured out for the life of the world…for the life of you and me. Let us remember, though, that Christ was no martyr, for He is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"(John1: 29); He has mercy upon us, and He grants us peace, His peace, that peace which surpasses all understanding, that peace which the world cannot give. This flesh which was nailed to the cross would die, be buried, and on the third day rise again. The Word who became flesh died and rose again for the life of the world…for the life of you and me. And since Christ has risen, the Word He speaks for our hearing is spirit, and it is life.
By the Holy Spirit, we who believe the Incarnate Word, the Word in true flesh who gives us the spoken Word have the promise of eternal life, which we shall see with the martyrs and all who have gone before us in the faith, as they now partake of the unending Feast in heaven, the Feast of which we shall one day partake, the Feast of which we are given a foretaste this day in the body and blood of Christ.
At this table we shall eat of Christ's body and drink His blood sacramentally, for we have been prepared to do so in eating of His flesh and drinking His blood spiritually, as we have been fed Christ through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the ongoing catechism process that comes through the teaching and preaching of Holy Scripture. By the Holy Spirit are compelled to say with the blessed Apostle Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (vv. 68-69). This is the spiritual eating to which the Psalmist refers to in Psalm 34; when he says: "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. …Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all"
Friends in Christ, having now been fed Christ spiritually, we look forward to that time each week when our Lord will feed us sacramentally as He gives us His body to eat and His blood to drink, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. The promise He gives to all who believe in Him. By the Spirit of God we thank Him for these gifts He gives through Word and Sacraments, and we thank Him for the gift of faith He gave. Today still Jesus asks us as He did the Apostles: “Do you want to go away as well?’, - ‘Is my grace enough for you?’ the abundant love and Grace our Lord and Saviour has lavished on us undeserving sinners, compels us to join with Simon Peter in answering; ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”. Amen.
The love and peace of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
Merv James
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