Sermon for Pentecost 12: "Second Course: Living Bread"

 + 12^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 11^th, 2024 +

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

Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church

Milton, WA

 

 

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

 

One of the surest ways to find God in the Scriptures is to look for him dining at table with his people. Time and again, when we open God’s word we find that God loves a feast. He loves to feed his people with good things for body and soul. He loves to bake his everlasting promises in and with earthly food.

 

So he did in Eden for Adam and Eve as he gave them fruit of the tree of life. So he did for Israel at the Passover where the flesh of the lamb that saved was eaten in a holy meal. So he did at Sinai as Moses and Israel ate and drank with God on the holy mountain. So he did in the wilderness as he rained down quail and manna from heaven in abundance. So he did for Elijah on the run from wicked Jezebel.

 

So he did for the crowds with the loaves and the fish. So he did with tax collectors and sinners. So he does for you. If you want to find God, look to where he finds you gives his flesh for you and gathers you and feeds you the Bread of Life…on the cross, in his word, and at his table. 

 

Today, Jesus the Bread of Life opens the menu of his holy word for a second course of teaching from John 6. Today, once again, Jesus feeds us with his promises. His word is our food. And more. So is his flesh. Today, when Jesus the Bread of Life gives us Living Bread, he is giving us himself…on the cross, in his word, and at his table.

 

You would think that after hearing his teaching. After witnessing his miraculous healing. After he cast out demons. After he fed the crowds. The Jews gathered who hear and saw Jesus do all these things would believe in him. And yet, as Mark Twain once said, history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. 

 

Here in John 6, history rhymes yet again. Israel grumbled in the wilderness. So God fed them. 6 days a week, and double on Fridays. For 40 years. They didn’t starve. They didn’t lack. They wanted for nothing. And yet they grumbled against God and rejected him. Said it was better in Egypt under Pharaoh. Where they were enslaved. Where their sons were thrown in the river to die. This is why Proverbs equates unbelief with foolishness.

 

The crowds that followed God in the flesh were hungry too. So God fed them: bread and fish in abundance. All ate. All were satisfied. They wanted for nothing. And yet, once again, Israel rejected God in the flesh. And even though they didn’t realize it, they were enslaved too, and in the same prison as Israel was in the wilderness in Exodus: in sin, unbelief, and death. Here was God in the flesh, healing, teaching, and feeding his people. And still they disbelieved. 

 

This is why your faith in Jesus is always a gift. Whether you were given the faith as in infant in word and water of your baptism, or came to faith later in life – it’s God’s work in you. 

To come to Him is to believe in Him, and no one comes to Him or believes in Him unless the Father draws him. A better translation would be “dragging or pulling.” The Father drags us like a cat into a bath, kicking and screaming into the faith. Into the water. Into faith. Neither your brains nor your brawn will get you closer to Jesus. For there is nothing good in us, that is, in our flesh. We are conceived and born sinful, turned inward, deaf and blind to God and His Word. The Father must draw the believer by the Spirit whom He sends, preaching the Word into your deaf ears, breathing life into your dead clay. Raising us from the dead by giving us his word and flesh and promise.

Only the flesh and blood and life of Jesus the Bread of Life can save us. on the cross, in his word, and at his table.

 

Good news for us is that is exactly what he gives us. He gives us himself. His word. His promise. His very life. His flesh and blood is our living Bread. This is what God wants to give you. Himself. This is his will, to save you by being lifted up on the cross.

 

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.”

 

Like Adam and Eve, our Lord Jesus wants us to look to his cross as our tree of life and see the fruit of our salvation hanging on that tree. Like Israel in Egypt, Jesus is our Passover Lamb who is sacrificed for us. His blood poured out on the beams of the cross. His flesh that saves you is given to eat in a holy meal. Like Moses at Sinai, Jesus goes to a mountain to dwell with his people and give us a feast of forgiveness. Like Israel in the wilderness, the Son of Man is lifted up; we look upon him and live; and he rains down Bread from heaven. The manna of his flesh. Living food from the crucified, risen, and living God. Bread that gives life from the cross where the Bread of Life was broken for you. 

 

When Jesus the Bread of Life gives us Living Bread, he’s giving us himself. Tragically, the crowds in John 6 didn’t believe it. They were scandalized by the ordinariness of Jesus. This isn’t the savior they ordered off the messiah menu. But then again, that’s how God works: unexpectedly, and according to his good and gracious will. This isn’t Burger King. You don’t get it your way. And it’s a good thing we don’t. We receive Jesus the Bread of Life in God’s way and will. Abundantly. Graciously. Mercifully. As undeserved. Unmerited. Unconditional grace and goodness.

 

Jesus, the Bread of Life came to do the Father’s will. And it is the Father’s will for the Son to give his flesh for the life of the world. Here in John 6, that hasn’t happened yet. But it will, not too many chapters from now. 

 

This is what Jesus does, what he’s always done. He gives. Here in John 6 he gives his word. His promise: I AM the Bread of Life. Living Bread. Not bread that only holds off death for a while. But Bread that dies and rises again with new life for you. Jesus gives his flesh on the cross. And the same flesh Jesus gave on the cross for all our sin, for all our grumbling, for all our rejection, for all our death – that same flesh, he gives as food.

 

God loves a feast. He loves to feed his people with good things for body and soul. He loves to bake his everlasting promises in and with earthly food. And when Jesus the Bread of Life gives us Living Bread, he is giving us himself. The flesh Jesus laid down for the life of the world on the cross is the same flesh he lays before at his table today. The flesh of Jesus crucified for you is now delivered to you in his body. The same blood Jesus shed for you is poured out into the cup and into your mouth.

 

If you want to find God, look to where he finds you, gives you his flesh and gathers you and feeds you the Bread of Life… on the cross, in his word, and at his table.

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.”

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