Sermon for Pentecost 14: "Holy in Jesus"

 + 14^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 29, 2021 +

Series B: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Ephesians 6:10-20; Mark 7:14-23

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,  since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” … And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 

 

Whether he knew it or not, Oscar Wilde perfectly illustrates this in his famous book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the story, it’s not hard to understand the picture Wilde is painting. In his story an artist named Basil Hallward meets a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. Hallward is impressed by Gray’s physical appearance and paints a portrait of him. In the course of the story Dorian Gray comes into contact with a friend of Hallward’s – Lord Henry Wotton - whose worldview revels in beauty and sensual desire. This, in turn, causes Dorian to realize the fleeting nature of his own beauty; he thinks that if only if only his portrait would age instead of him, he would sell his soul to do so. 

 

And that’s exactly what happens. In a magical twist, not only does his picture age, it also begins to take on the changes and appearance wrought by all the wicked acts Dorian starts to commit. Gray goes through life looking beautiful and perfect on the outside while his picture becomes hideous and disfigured, an embodiment of the evil within. Thinking he was pretty as a picture Dorian Gray was in fact ugly as sin. 

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a perfect picture of Jesus’ teaching here in Mark 7. “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,  thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

 

What starts out as a conversation about the kinds of foods Jews could or could not eat to remain ceremonially clean quickly turned into a much deeper teaching from Jesus. 

 

Last week Jesus’ teaching dealt with things external (the washing of hands and so forth). This week Jesus deals with things internal (our unclean hearts).

 

Last week Jesus dealt with washing hands, saucers, and couch cushions and how the Pharisees had made a religion out of cleanliness. This week, Jesus deals with the dietary laws and all the restrictions in view of the same religious types who believed that “you are what you eat” in the sense that if you ate something “unclean” (bacon wrapped scallops, for example) you would be unclean, unholy, and unfit to appear before God.

Once again, Jesus turns the tables on his hearers. “Not so,” says Jesus. In fact, it works the other way around. “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” It’s not about what goes in but what comes out. 

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, ¹⁹ since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? 

 

Jesus is giving his disciples a little bit of a biology 101 lesson. Our bodies digest and filter out the good stuff from the food we eat while the rest is, to use Jesus’ polite word, expelled. It never touches the heart. And when Jesus is talking about the heart he’s referring to the seat of the will, where we determine what we will think, do, and say. Food doesn’t touch that. Jesus jumps from biology to theology.

 

Here’s what defiles us: what comes out of our heart. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,  thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 

 

If those words don’t make you uncomfortable, they should. Not a one of us is left standing after that. Oh sure, we can try and pass the blame on to someone or something else. We can try and avoid our sin. We’ll even try and deny it. Just like the picture of Dorian Gray revealed his great evil within, Jesus words reveal the ugly truth. Where does all the evil in the world come from? Not from foods, but from within. From our heart corrupted to the core by Sin. 

 

When there is no hiding place from our sin. When there’s nowhere to run away from sin. When all we are left with is empty hands. Where do we go? Not to our heart, but to the one who is greater than our heart. To Christ who gives us a new heart cleansed. Holy. Alive in him. Jesus is our hiding place. Jesus is our rest. Jesus takes all our sin – all our evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,  thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness – he takes it all into his hands on the cross. And into our empty hands he gives us himself. His body. His blood. His purity. His holiness. His very life for you.

 

Ordinary food can’t fix an unbelieving heart. 

 

But there is a food and drink that will. Our Lord’s body and blood that we receive. “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”  

 

Here is heavenly, food that is holy and makes you holy. Here is ordinary bread and wine filled with an extraordinary promise: Jesus’ body and blood given for you. Here is a food where you truly are what you eat – forgiven, cleansed, holy in Jesus.

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for Pentecost 13: "Handed Down"

 + 13^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 22, 2021 +

Series B: Isaiah 29:11-19; Ephesians 5:22-33; Mark 7:1-13

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Life is full of traditions. Everyone has them. Singing “Take me out to the ballgame” at the 7^th inning stretch. What you eat for Thanksgiving. When you celebrate Christmas. The playing of Taps at a funeral for a fallen soldier. 

 

Tradition means to hand down or hand something over. Like a baton in a relay race. Tradition is a handing down of the past to the present. 

 

The Christian faith has many traditions as well. Think of all the things that are handed down to us in the Church. The reading, hearing, and preaching of Scripture that goes back to the days of the synagogue. The celebration of certain holy days that goes back to the Old Testament. Even Scripture itself is a divinely inspired tradition, books, letters, Gospels, and psalms from the prophets, apostles, and evangelists and copied and translated by Christians in the past and handed down to us. 

 

Traditions like these are good, necessary even. Everyone has traditions. Problems arise, however, when we forget why certain traditions exist. Imagine singing the national anthem or celebrating Christmas without knowing why those traditions are important. Problems also arise when traditions take the place of God’s promises or lead us away from God’s word.

 

And this is what had happened to the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, and why Jesus confronts them. 

 

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus ² and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.³ (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.⁴ When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.^[a])

 

The Pharisees were steeped in tradition – 613 things to do and not do in order to do the righteousness of God. Washing hands and feet and dishes and cushions, not just for personal hygiene but for ceremonial purity. And like all religious types, they took note who followed the traditions and who didn’t. 

 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

Before we get to how Jesus responds to the Pharisees, it’s worth noting a few important parts of historical context here. For one thing, we tend to think of the name Pharisee as a pejorative. Like someone who is sanctimonious and holier-than-thou. Not so in Jesus’ day. The Pharisees were spiritual super-stars, religious over achievers who were looked up to.

Also, for the Pharisees, and for 1^st century Jews, this wasn’t an issue of hygiene, but of ritual purity. The idea was that by touching or coming into contact with things that were unclean, you would be ritually impure, and would need to go through a cleansing, or purification before receiving God’s gifts, whatever those gifts were, be it food or his Word, and so on. 

Sounds fine you say. What’s the big deal? It becomes a problem, as it did for the Pharisees, when you believe that it is by your hands and by your following of the traditions, especially the man-made ones, that are doing something that makes you worthy or holy enough to be holy in God’s presence. The problem isn’t so much the tradition as it is thinking that by doing the tradition – the ritual hand washing in this case – that by doing that, you’re doing something for God. The problem comes when sinful hearts elevate the tradition above God’s word, or put aside God’s word in favor of the traditions of men.

“This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.”

 

Jesus illustrates his point with the 4thCommandment: “Honor your father and mother,” which also includes taking care of them when they’re old and providing for them. But the tradition of the Pharisees said that if you declared a portion of your wealth to be “Korban,” which was like sacrificing it in advance, then you didn’t have to use it to help your parents. 

 

Not only did the Pharisees elevate their human traditions above the commandments of God; they also abrogated those commandments to uphold their traditions. “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

 

When Jesus quotes Isaiah he’s warning the Jerusalem’s leaders, who were acting just like the leaders in Isaiah’s day, that divine judgment of their own self-righteousness was coming. Righteousness, holiness, purity, cleansing – are only found in one place…in Jesus. In his life lived perfectly, in holiness and obedience to the Father, all for you. In his life laid down, where he died on the cross for all our unholiness, uncleanliness, and impurities – where Jesus was defiled with sin that we might be cleansed in his life. In his resurrection which raises us from the dead. 

 

If you think about it Jesus is the ultimate tradition. Jesus is the one who was handed down to us from the Father that we might not be handed down to our sin. 

 

Jesus gets to the heart of the issue with handwashing and traditions here in Mark 7. Do our traditions exalt Christ or do they exalt ourselves? That’s the difference between a good tradition and a bad one. It ultimately comes down to the question of what is it that makes someone holy or righteous in God’s sight? Is it by the work of my hands or Jesus’ hands? His holiness or mine?

 

It is Jesus holiness that makes us holy. It’s Jesus’ hands, pierced and bloody that purify and cleanse us. Every single time. Every drop of blood he shed was for you. To cleanse you. Forgive you. To declare to you…

 

Come; you are welcome. Never mind your burdens, sins, and hypocrisies, come to me and my table, and I will welcome you, feed you, cleanse you, forgive you and save you. The Pharisees will cluck their tongues and wag their accusing fingers at you, but come to me all you who are heavy laden. And I will give you rest.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Sermon for Pentecost 12: "The Bread of Life Abides"

 + 12^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 15, 2021 +

Series B: Proverbs 9:1-10; Ephesians 5:6-21; John 6:51-69

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

According to a quick Google search (I know…super scientific!) there are roughly 4,300 religions in the world. But in truth, far less than that. Care to take a guess? Two in fact. 

 

In all the world’s religions - but one - you must go up to god. Travel the eight-fold path. Keep the ten commandments. Follow the five pillars. And so on. Not so in Christianity. In the Christian faith, Jesus descends to save and rescue you in his dying and rising. God comes down to you. 

 

Or in the words of Jesus in this last section of John 6, Jesus abides with us and for us.

 

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

 

These past few weeks we have heard how Jesus The Bread of Life satisfies our greatest need. How Jesus the Bread of Life raises us from the dead. And now today, we hear Jesus’ promise: The Bread of Life abides. 

 

To abide. It’s a beautiful Greek word. Meno. To abide is to remain, to stay, to endure and persist, to continue, to live in, to dwell with someone. Notice how personal that word is. Imagine that you are in pain, or afraid, or grieving and someone simply says, “I’ll sit with you; I’m not going anywhere.” All of that is what it means to abide. 

 

And that’s why abide is the perfect word to describe who Jesus is and what he came to do. For this is what God has always done. From the very beginning God abides with his people. He walks with Adam in the cool of Eden. Even after the fall, God abides with his people. He is the God who abides with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God who abides with Moses in the burning bush and Israel in the tabernacle and pillar of fire. He is the God who promises time and time again, through prophet after prophet, “I shall be their God, and they shall be my people.”

 

And when we turn the pages of Scripture to the New Testament God’s saving history repeats itself. Once again, God dwells with his people. God abides. Only this time he does it as the human and divine Son of God. Jesus abides in the womb of Mary, in the manger of Bethlehem. Jesus abides in the temple, in the wilderness, in the homes of the sick and dying. Jesus abides with the leper, the lost, and the least. Jesus abides with us and for us on the cross, in the grave, in his resurrected flesh. And now he abides in his word. He abides in his flesh and blood. 

 

If all of this sounds rather hard to get your head around, you’re not alone. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” How can this carpenter’s son be the Son of God in human flesh? How can he give his flesh to eat and his blood to drink? Later on, even many of Jesus’ own disciples walked away. They were offended. Scandalized. “This is hard saying,” they said. 

 

It’s the wilderness wandering all over again. God dwells with. Jesus abides with his people. And they reject him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him, John wrote back in chapter 1. 

 

There’s a warning in here for us too. Apart from Jesus we have nothing. “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. Apart from Jesus the only thing we abide in is death, despair, and our own depravity. 

 

And yet, this is precisely why Jesus came. To abide with us. For us. As one of us. 

 

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^[c] the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 

 

With Jesus’ words, John is drawing our attention ahead from John 6 to the cross. Moses and Israel ate bread in the wilderness and they died. Jesus will die too, but unlike the manna of the exodus, Jesus the Bread of Life will die and rise. He will abide in our grave that we might abide with him forever. 

 

Jesus’ words also draw us to the upper room on night in which he was betrayed, and to his table set before us. 

 

It’s hard not to hear these words and think of the gift of the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus who abides on the cross for us, now abides with us, giving us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. 

 

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

 

When Jesus the Bread of Life abides with you, you have everything he promises. Jesus, the Bread of life satisfies. Jesus the bread of life raises you, now and on the last day. Jesus the bread of life abides with you. In his word. In his supper. In his very flesh and blood given and shed for you.

 

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Sermon for Pentecost 11: "The Bread of Life Raises"

 + 11^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 8, 2021 +

Series B: 1 Kings 19:1-8; Ephesians 4:17-5:2; John 6:35-51

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

 

I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

 

This is our confession. We declare it every week in the Nicene Creed. The body God knit together in our mothers’ womb, the body He baptized as a dwelling for the Holy Spirit, the body redeemed by the Son – is the same body that will one day be raised from the dead in a real, bodily, physical resurrection.

 

This is our hope. For we do not grieve as others do who have no hope. For just as Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, so too, on the last day, he will change our lowly bodies to be like his glorified body. Real. Physical. Tangible. And eternal. As Johnny Cash so beautifully sings, “Ain’t no grave, can hold my body down.”

 

This is our comfort. A real, physical, tangible, bodily resurrection. Not reincarnation, not some kind of metaphorical resurrection, and not that we join the spirit in the sky. Resurrection of the body. Your body. Your friend’s body. Your loved one’s body. Our bodies matter to God so much in fact that he who created us also took on human flesh to redeem us so that when we die, like Lazarus, we are simply asleep until Jesus raises us from the dead. That’s the comfort – the certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life and a joyful reunion with those we love who have died in the faith. 

 

This is also Jesus’ promise throughout Scripture, and especially here in John 6. 

 

“This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

Last week we heard Jesus declare he is the Bread of Life who satisfies. This week, we hear that Jesus, the Bread of Life raises us from the dead.

To be raised means to be rescued. To be pulled out of the grave. To be in the cold, dark grip of death one moment and the next, to be in the light and life Jesus won for us by his dying and rising. To be raised certainly means to be saved from death. But it also means life here and now. 

Ever since the Fall, death has cast its ugly shadow over every aspect of life in this world. Our relationships, our intellects, our communities, our bodies, our emotions, our wills. All of human history has been darkened by self-inflicted death and despair. 

 

In John 6, the crowds experienced this in their hunger pains, and in their grumbling and refusal to believe in Jesus. Remember that many disciples walked away from him after His teaching in this chapter. 

 

To be sure, Jesus rescues us from death and promises to raise us from the dead in him. But he also saves us from ourselves. As Jesus declares, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 

 

Jesus, the Bread of Life, raises us from the dead, to life in him. Again, this isn’t an abstract, disembodied, spiritual existence. God’s promise isn’t to raise us from the dead just to be Caspar the friendly ghost for all eternity. No. A full, physical, bodily resurrection. As real and touchable as Jesus’ own body when he appeared before his disciples after his resurrection. That’s how Jesus often works, giving us real flesh and blood promises.

 

As Jesus proclaims three times in our reading from John 6 today. I will raise him up on the last day.

Who will he raise? You. His baptized, beloved, blood-bought people. You, the ones he feeds, forgives, and fills with faith in His Son Jesus. 

 

When will this happen? Jesus answers that too. On the last day. When he returns. And yet his resurrection promise is also a promise for the here and now. For today. For you. 

 

“This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

 

Did you hear that? Has eternal life. Present tense. Right here. Right now. Today. Eternal life is yours. The resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting is yours. Forgiveness, grace, and peace are yours. Faith in Jesus and all his gifts are yours. Jesus’ words planted in your ears, hearts, and minds. Jesus’ life poured over you and in you in Baptism. Jesus’ flesh and blood given for the life of the world is here for you in simple bread and wine.

 

Yes, Jesus will raise us from the dead on the last day, just as he promised. But he also raises you from the dead today. 

 

“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.”

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Funeral Sermon for Buddy Allison: "All Better"

 + In Memoriam: Buddy Allison - January 13, 1938 – July 15, 2021 +

July 28, 2021

Job 19:21-27; Revelation 21:1-7; John 11:17-27

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior + Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Some people joke about what they’d put on their tombstone. Something clever, witty, or funny. But not Buddy. No, he possessed that rare and wonderful quality of a man who would simply tell you like it is. To say what you mean and mean what you say. That’s one of the things that made conversations with him such a delight.

 

During one of our more recent conversations he told me, “On my tombstone I am going to have it written “all better”.

 

And he said it with such confidence knowing that his hope and comfort rested in the hands of our Lord Jesus. Buddy’s hope that one day things will truly be “all better” echoes the comforting promise of Jesus in Revelation 21.

 

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

 

That’s quite the remarkable statement if you think about it. I am making all things new, Jesus declares. Not just some. Not just a few. All things. You, me, Buddy, and all the baptized in Christ. And not just a little remodel, or refurbishment. But new. In fact, better than new. Redeemed. Rescued. Restored. Resurrected. Raised from the dead to live eternally with Jesus. 

 

It almost sounds too good to be true. After all, when in life does anything really stay new for very long before it breaks down. What things in life truly seem to last, to be permanent. To endure. All too often it appears as if our own sin, disease, and death win the day. 

 

Buddy, however, would be the first to remind us that there’s more to the story. That there is a Savior who died on the cross and stretched out his arms wide enough to swallow the whole mess of this broken, disease ridden, sinful, fallen, dying world in order to make all things new. That there is Jesus’ word, promise, life, death, and resurrection. And that Jesus came to overcome all that overwhelms us. 

 

That in Jesus’ dying and rising - we, along with Buddy - will truly and eternally be all better. When Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished” he could have just as easily cried out  those words from Revelation 21. Behold I am making all things new. For that is what he was doing on the cross, for Buddy, and for you. 

 

You see, our Lord is also one who says what he means and means what he says. He truly tells us like it is. He declares his word and promise with utter certainty. Like the time he visited his close friends Mary and Marth at the death of their brother Lazarus. 

 

“I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. 

 

That is the promise our Lord declared to Buddy in his baptism. This is what Buddy believed in. These words and promises of our Lord anchored and kept him rooted to Christ throughout his life. Whether he was stationed in North Korea or tending the backyard garden. Whether times were good and especially when times were tough. 

 

Buddy and Job have that in common. A confession of faith. A promise to hold onto in dark days. 

 

 For I know that my Redeemer lives,

    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

    yet in my flesh I shall see God.

 

The same is true for you as well. Job’s redeemer and Buddy’s redeemer is also your redeemer. Jesus died that we might live. Jesus rose from the grave so that on the day he returns, Job and Buddy and you and me and all the baptized will rise from the dead as easily and as quickly as Lazarus rose from his grave when our Lord called him out. When Jesus says I make all things new he’s telling us like it is. He means what he says. Jesus’ promise to raise us from the dead is as real and concrete as he is. It is as flesh and blood as our Lord’s own resurrection was. A real, glorified, risen body that dwells forever with Jesus who died and rose for us.

 

Buddy knew that one day - maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow - but one day, Jesus would return to take us to be with him forever. And that on that day. The day we confess and long for. The great day of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. On that day, we, along with Buddy and all the faithful departed, will truly be all better. Not just for a bit. Not a little while. But forever. All better in Jesus.

 

 

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

 

 

Sermon for Pentecost 10: "The Bread of Life Satisfies"

 + 10^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 1, 2021 +

Series B: Exodus 16:2-15; Ephesians 4:1-16’ John 6:22-35

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 

 

That’s one big mouthful of a promise if you think about it. Hunger Thirst. Longing. In this life it seems we’re rarely satisfied. We can relate to Bono when he sings, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Or when Keith Richards wrote those famous lyrics, I can’t get no satisfaction. Even Disney’s Little Mermaid with all of her gadgets and gizmos aplenty wants something more.

 

Satisfaction is a fleeting feeling on this side of Eden. No matter how many Red Robin’s bottomless fries we hork down, eventually we'll be hungry again. No matter how many free refills we fill up we’ll still find ourselves thirsty. One way or another, we’re always searching, longing, hungering, and thirsting for more.

 

Despite Jesus’ compassion on the crowds, despite his day long teaching, despite their fill of the loaves and fish on the green grass of Galilee, the crowds follow Jesus to Capernaum wanting more.

 

Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

 

The crowds saw Jesus more like a divine food-truck than the promised Messiah. To be sure, the healing, teaching, feeding he was doing part of his ministry. But those were signs meant to lead the people to who Jesus is and where he was going.

 

As good as the food was that Jesus served up at the feeding of the 5,000, he had something better in store for the crowds.

 

Same is true for us. Like the crowds we are constantly longing, looking for something more. We’re never satisfied. The crowds’ problem. Our problem, however,  isn’t that we expect too much of Jesus, but that we expect too little.

 

C.S. Lewis observed this in The Weight of Glory, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

 

For us, as for the crowds, Jesus gives more. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

 

The bread we eat is for this life, not the life to come. And while it may build strong bodies twelve ways, it won’t lengthen your life or bring eternal life. The bread God gives is completely different. The manna was a picture/type of it, but only a type. Like other bread, it went bad after a day and the eater still died. But the manna provided a foretaste of the true bread that God gives in the sending of His Son. This isn’t bread you work for, but bread that is given you as a gift of grace. This isn’t bread that fills your temporal hunger pangs but bread that goes straight to your soul, a bread that will raise you up on the Last Day.

 

This is the bread that God alone gives. No man on earth can bake it. “What must we be doing to do the works of God?” they asked Jesus. Listen carefully to His answer. “The work (singular) of God (God does it) is this: That you believe in Him who He has sent. That you believe in Jesus. Faith is a work. That’s right. Faith is a work. Not a work we do, but a work that God does. Salvation is God’s work. Forgiveness is God’s work. Justifying sinners is God’s work. Faith is God’s work and gift to us, the means by which we receive the forgiveness, life, and salvation Jesus died to win for us. Without a mouth, you can’t eat bread. Without faith, you can’t eat the Bread of Life. And without Jesus, the Bread of Life, nothing else truly satisfies. 

 

Like the crowds in Capernaum, we’re constantly searching. Searching for a happier home life. Searching for medical treatment that will work. Searching for more recognition, more vacation, more income, more security, more something. No matter how satisfied we are for a moment, the moment always passes.

 

In Jesus the Bread of Life, however, our thirst and hunger find their true satisfaction. 

 

“Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.” When Jesus promises He can relieve hunger and thirst for good, He is talking about more than food or drink. Luther calls it a “spiritual hunger” (Luther’s Works 23:43). 

 

To satisfy it, Jesus offers something which does not perish—namely, Himself. He alone is imperishable, for He alone has risen from the dead, never to die again. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 

 

Does that mean we will always be satisfied with everything in this life? No, but it does mean that our desires will be shaped and met by the only One who can satisfy.

 

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus says to you. “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” The feeding of the 5000 with bread multiplied beyond measure was a foretaste of the feast to come. That deep hunger that you feel – no bread from this world can fill it. That deep thirst in your soul that leaves you restless and thirsting for something more – no drink in this world can quench it.

 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they will be satisfied. Come to Jesus, the Bread of Life. Eat and drink of Him by faith in His Word. Hear His Word forgiving you. Eat and drink the bread of His Body, the wine of His Blood, the gifts of His cross for you. He won’t let you down. He won’t leave you hungry for more. He won’t make you thirsty. Trust Him. He is true Food, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else. He is true Drink. The deepest longings of your soul will find strength, and nourishment, and refreshment in Him.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.