+ 11th 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.
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