+ 13th Sunday after Pentecost - August 19th, 2018 +
Series B: Proverbs 9:1-10; Ephesians 5:6-21; John 6:51-69
Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
You are what you eat, my parents would say when I was a child, as I (with delight) and they (with disgust), watched me devour a box of nerds, airhead candy, or a package of smarties.
Silly as it sounds, there’s a grain of truth baked into this old saying.
“You are what you eat.” The fruits, vegetables, proteins, and nutrients we eat and drink affect our bodies, they sustain our physical life, satisfy our needs, and keep us alive.
“You are what you eat” is true of our Christian life as well. We live in a world where “Have-it-your-way Christianity” and Happy-Meal-Theology is far more popular than a steady, solid diet of hearing, singing, and praying the Scriptures and receiving Jesus’ body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.
Thankfully, like loving parents feed their kids what is good and healthy, our Heavenly Father knows best what we need and how best to satisfy our hunger and thirst for righteousness. We do not need catchy slogans, but salvation.
In John 6, this is exactly what Jesus puts on the menu, a full-course meal of grace, true comfort food in the Crucifed one. In the first course, the Father gives us His Son. In the second course, Jesus declares himself the Bread of Life. And now, today, in this final course, Jesus declares:
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
According to Jesus, there are two kinds of food. The food of death. The food of life. Bread that’s gathered from grain, baked, and eaten - all of which takes hard work. And there’s Jesus, the Bread of Life, given to us free of charge, by grace in Christ Crucified and Risen, not our work but his work for us.
There’s the bread of iniquity from Adam...
“By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
And there’s the bread of Life and righteousness in Jesus our Second Adam. Iam 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.”
If the Jews weren’t angry with Jesus before, they were after hearing that. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat”? Is Jesus proposing that his followers turn into cannibals? No.
Perhaps, then, he’s speaking figuratively? But how can that be? Jesus doubles down on the fleshly language. Eat. Drink. Jesus’ language is far too earthly, ordinary, and tangible to be a metaphor or a symbol. After all, metaphorical food won’t satisfy, and symbolic drink won’t quench thirsty souls. We are flesh and blood creatures and Jesus is our flesh and blood Savior.
It’s more likely, in fact, that the Jews were upset not because they misunderstood what Jesus was saying, but because they understood him all too well and didn’t like it.
The feeding of the 5000 in the wilderness. The healings. The teaching of God’s Word with authority. It all sounds rather Moses like. And yet Jesus claims to be greater than Moses. 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.
When Jesus declares he is the Bread of Life, he’s saying that he is the God of Israel who can and will prepare a new table in the wilderness for his people. He will feed, provide, and save in his own body and blood broken and shed on the cross.
They took offense at him. Grumbled, just as they did in the wilderness in Exodus.
Do we take offense Jesus’ words too? If we’re honest, we have, and we will. Sometimes Jesus’ words upset us because we misunderstand them. Other times, however, it’s because we don’t like the truth his word reveals about us.
For His Word reveals all our hidden faults like a menu exposes all the hidden calories on the plate before us. That we were darkness, foolish, and dead in our trespasses. His word is a warning label against the devil’s Turkish delight, which he constantly wafts before us, tempting us with whatever is pleasing to our eyes and sinful desires. Our Lord takes his word in hand, like a master chef with his blade, and exposes our sinful heart that constantly looks inward and outward for satisfaction in anything and everything other than God’s promises. Yes, our Lord’s word kills, but it also makes alive.
Jesus feeds, forgives, and fills us with his Word of absolution, his word and water in Baptism, his word with the bread and wine, our Bread of Life, true Manna from heaven.
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live,
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
Flesh. Blood. This is sacrificial language. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, for you and me and all. Jesus’ flesh and blood are the antidote to our Sin, the “medicine of immortality.” His flesh given into death for our sins, destroys sin in His flesh. His blood poured out for you and for all. Blood of an eternal covenant. “I will forgive their sins and remember their iniquities no more.”
Flesh. Blood. This is sacramental language too. In bread and wine, the Creator comes to his creatures to feed, satisfy, and save us. Jesus the Bread of Life gives us living bread and true drink in his body and blood. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
Jesus took all our sin into a cup - every grumble, complaint, hurt, pain, sorrow, suffering, all our offenses - and he drank it down to the last drop on the cross. Jesus let the grave swallow him whole, only to be spit back out again three days later like Jonah out of the belly of the fish. His crucified and risen flesh and blood are true food and true drink.
Jesus uses the food of the fall - bread - fills it with his own body and redeems, restores, and rescues us. Jesus, who tasted death for us, takes the fruit of his cross - his perfect life and perfect death - and gives his body for the feast; gives his sacred blood for wine...oh taste and see that the Lord is good.
In this Sacrament, we partake of a grand, yet gracious mystery. We eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus who knew no sin yet became sin for us. Jesus consumed all that we are, our sin and death on the cross, so that in this Supper we receive all that he is: his grace, forgiveness, life, and salvation. In this sacred meal, we truly are what we eat: Forgiven. Saved. Alive forevermore.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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