+ 12th 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.
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