Grace to you and peace from God our father and our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The Gospel reading is written in the 6thChapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 35 – 4:
35 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 betaught 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.”
I am sure that you would have to agree that there have been some really big issues that have shocked us and fired up our opinions and caused us to question truths and values we have lived by for ages. The Royal Commissions into institutional abuse involving the Church and the blatant corruption in the banking and finance sectors have rocked our values to the core. The debate and outcome of same - sex marriage in Australia has drawn anger and various strong opinions and divisions. Then there is the extremity of political correctness where in one case alone it offends people if we refer to a female as ‘she’ and a male as ‘he’. Every day we are confronted with examples of extreme change which in fact show us how our culture is rapidly changing.
Some of these changes seem related, but other changes seem to have nothing to do with each other. Never the less, if you examine these changes carefully, you will find a common idea behind them. These changes came about because the relationship between truth and feelings have changed in our culture.
There was a time when truth was important in our culture. We thought it was important for people to know the truth so that they could make good decisions as they lived their lives. Now, our culture values feelings more than truth. Who cares if something is true or not as long as it makes me feel good about myself?
If you look at that motivation behind all these revelations that shock, disgust and annoy us, in just about every case it is based on selfish human desire. People want to do whatever is necessary to achieve what they want; they want to feel good regardless of the impact on society as a whole.
The really strange thing about this is that our culture still wants most other people to base their decisions on truth. We want ourbanker to keep careful track of our money, and not just do what he feels like with our money. We want the doctor to treat usfor the disease we actually have, and not for the disease that is more interesting to him. We even want the fast food restaurant to giveusthe food we ordered instead of the food they feel like giving us. Our lives are full of examples where it is actually dangerous to base our decisions on our feelings instead of on the truth. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer the dull boredom of being in an aircraft that lands on a runway, as opposed to the excitement of landing it in the nearby paddock. In spite of all this, we have become a culture that celebrates people who follow their feelings instead of following the truth.
This problem with truth is not something new. People down through the centuries have always had this strange attitude toward truth. When we are dealing with things in this world, we value people who can deal with reality … businessmen, leaders, scientists, and so forth.
Never the less, when we consider our eternal well-being, the importance of truth more or less disappears. Even though God Himself revealed eternal truth through His prophets, people prefer the religion from their own imaginations. They wander away from the truth. They forget the promises God made through His prophets.
The Holy Spirit made promises about the Messiah in Isaiah 35:5–6. “When the Messiah comes,the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy”. Jesus has been fulfilling those signs. As Jesus preached and taught the blind received their sight, the lame walked, lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, the dead were raised up, and the poor had good news preached to them. In fact, Jesus had taken the contents of a boy’s lunch box, and fed 5,000 men and their families. The crowd should have seen these signs and shouted out loud, “Jesus is the Messiah.” They should have known that His Words are the truth.
Therefore, when Jesus began to tell the crowds about the blessings of believing in Him, the crowds should have listened. When Jesus described Himself as the Bread from heaven that cures eternal hunger and the drink that cures eternal thirst, they should have recognised Him as the Messiah. When Jesus described Himself as the One Who came down from Heaven, they should have recognised that God the Father sent Him into human flesh. When Jesus described the relationship between Himself and the Father, they should have believed that Jesus is the Son of God.
Sadly, when people forget the truth and believe a lie, the truth often makes them angry. Instead of listening to Jesus, the people grumbled. They remembered the boy Jesus who grew up in the home of Joseph and Mary. How could someone who grew up in their neighbourhood be the Messiah … the Son of God? They considered it ridiculous, offensive, and foolish that He claimed to have come down from heaven and to dispense a bread which afforded eternal life. They thought He was either an evil liar or a great fool for trying to persuade them that He had come from heaven. In spite of all the signs that Jesus was proclaiming the truth, the people rejected Jesus.
This should be a warning to us. Like the people of Capernaum, we sometimes also prefer to reject our saviour. Each of us needs to examine ourselves. How am I like those people? How do I reject the truth that God wants to give me in His Word? Do I skip over the parts of God’s Word that bother me? Do I just read my favourite parts of the Bible and ignore the rest? Do I try to explain away the parts of the bible that bother me?
Perhaps the most offensive thing Jesus said came near the end of today’s reading. He said,“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.”(John 6:51)That small wordanyonemeans that the salvation He earned with His suffering and death on the cross are for all people in all places and in all times. It means that the worst sinner in the entire history of the world can receive the forgiveness that Jesus earned with His death.
At the end of World War II, an American Army Chaplain, Henry Gerecke, was set a very challenging task. His commanding officer sent him to Nuremberg to provide spiritual council for the NAZI prisoners who were on trial for war crimes. Being of German descent himself, he spoke fluent German and he was also experienced, as before the war he had conducted a prison ministry in the United States.
Some of the NAZI prisoners rejected the Gospel of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins, but others heard Gerecke’s words and the Holy Spirit brought them into the family of God even while they waited for the hangman’s noose. Joachim Von Ribbentrop was one of the NAZI criminals in Gerecke’s prison congregation. As he stood on the hangman’s platform, he said, “I place all my confidence in the Lamb who made atonement for my sins. May God have mercy on my soul.” Then he turned to Gerecke and said, “I’ll see you again.” The black hood was pulled over his face. The thirteen-coiled noose was put around his neck – and he dropped through the trap door.
Jesus said, “… anyone …” The Apostle Paul described himself and said, “I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”(1 Corinthians 15:9)He also said,“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”(1 Timothy 1:15)
Jesus said, “… anyone …” St. Augustine was an immoral, womanising playboy before the Holy Spirit performed the miracle of faith in him. He lived a life as obscene as anything that you hear about today. Never the less, the Holy Spirit worked faith in him and he became one the great theologians of all time.
Some people take offence that such obscenely evil sinners are waiting at Jesus’ side … waiting for the resurrection on the Last Day. The truth is that the salvation of these horrible sinners points to the simple fact that Jesus died for the sins of the world. When Jesus said, “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever,”He meant that it makes no difference who you are or what you have done. There is forgiveness for allin His perfect life, His suffering, and His death.
In the words of John 3:16“Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”.
It is by the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith that we can eat of Jesus Christ, the bread of life from heaven. By that gift of faith, we can believe that Jesus is eternal food and drink who will keep us alive with Him in eternity. We have the promise of Jesus that just as He rose from the dead, so also will He appear on the Last Day to raise me and all the dead. On that day, all the sinners who believe in Him will rise in body and soul and join Him in eternal life.
And as Jesus said … this promise is for anyone. Amen
The grace and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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