Sermon Text: John 6:24-35
Date: August 11, 2024
Event: Proper 14, Year B
John 6:24-35 (EHV)
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26Jesus answered them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You are not looking for me because you saw the miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27Do not continue to work for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28So they said to him, “What should we do to carry out the works of God?”
29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent.”
30Then they asked him, “So what miraculous sign are you going to do, that we may see it and believe you? What miraculous sign are you going to perform? 31Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”
32Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the real bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34”Sir,” they said to him, “give us this bread all the time!”
35”I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.
Jesus’ Gifts Are Different; Jesus’ Gifts Are Better
The child is opening presents for his birthday. One from a grandparent feels very promising because it feels like the highest priority on his birthday list—the brand-new video game that everyone was talking about. He opens it up to find a game he’s never heard of. Grandma smiles and says, “I know that’s not what you asked for, but they were all sold out. The clerk told me that this game was great too!” He smiles and thanks Grandma, but inside, he’s disappointed that he did not get what was on his list.
Later that evening, after the party was over, he pops the unknown game into the system and turns on the TV. To his surprise, this game he had never heard of before is great. In a tremendous surprise, the present that was different than he hoped for might actually be better than the one he had wanted. And time proves he’s not just coping with disappointment. In the coming days, friends come over and play with him, and they quickly are hooked on this new game that none of them had known about before.
Sometimes things work out that way. You have in mind one thing, something else happens, and in hindsight, you say, “That might actually have been better.” It doesn’t mean there’s no disappointment in the moment. It doesn’t mean that this conclusion comes quickly. But in the end, you might be able to see a benefit in how things worked out compared to how you had planned them.
In our Gospel for this morning, we have a group of people looking for one thing from Jesus while he’s trying to give them something far better. But can they see that? Can they understand that what Jesus has in mind is better for them? Or are they stuck in their own thoughts and priorities?
Our Gospel readings in recent weeks from Mark and now from John have all been dealing with the events before, during, and after Jesus fed the 5,000 men (plus women and children) with those few fish and loaves of bread. That miracle worked to feed the hungry bellies of those who had chased Jesus down when he and the disciples left them to try to find a solitary place. And then, after teaching them and the miracle meal, Jesus sent the disciples off ahead of him, and he later met them that windy night, walking on the water's surface, as we heard in our Gospel last week.
Now, after that windy trip and the miracle of Jesus walking on the rough sea, they have separation from the crowd. But, the crowd is not so willing to let them go. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Those in the crowd rush off to Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, which served as a type of home base for Jesus during his earthly ministry. They find him and are amazed that he’s there so far ahead of them—how did he get here without traveling in a boat?—but Jesus knows what they’re looking for, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You are not looking for me because you saw the miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”
Jesus says that this crowd has a problem. They’re not coming to him because they know his teaching is from God. And they’re not even coming to him to marvel at the miracles that he performed. Jesus says they’re coming to him for a much more crass and base reason, “because you ate the loaves and were filled.” In other words, all they care about in that moment was a full belly they didn’t have to work for or pay for. They wouldn’t care if Jesus had worked another miracle to feed them or if he had been sitting on a warehouse full of free food from which they could take what they wanted. Their goal with Jesus is that he will be able to feed them.
And so Jesus takes this wayward, misguided desire and tries to put them back on the path he wants. “Do not continue to work for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Jesus has something in store for them that is far better than the physical food he gave them. He wants to give them something that endures to eternal life.
The crowd senses Jesus’ hesitancy to address physical things, so they try to take the conversation spiritually. But even their spiritual turn is misguided. They think that to get something good from God, they have to do something for God. They’re looking for a way to earn what God will give: “What should we do to carry out the works of God?”
Jesus plays with their question a little bit. He says, “This is the work of God,” not necessarily the work that God commands us to do, but the work that God does. “You believe in the one he sent.” This is faith in Jesus as Savior. He’s trying to get the crowd to see that he’s not just concerned about their physical well-being (although he is); he’s much more concerned with their eternal well-being.
This shift from food to faith is not what the crowd is looking for. And it’s gross, actually, the way they attempt to manipulate Jesus. They say, “Well, okay, if we’re going to believe in you, what miraculous sign are you going to do?” And then, they reference the bread and quail that their forefathers ate after their exodus from Egypt. “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. Just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
They are under the mistaken impression that the “he” in that verse was talking about Moses. They imply that people should have listened to Moses because he could give them food when there was none in the wilderness. But Jesus says that’s not at all what we’re talking about here.
The crowd quotes from Psalm 78, and if you read that psalm, it clearly talks about God’s work, not Moses’ work. The bread and quail in the wilderness was never about a guy earning the respect and admiration of a group of people by giving them something to eat. This was always about God providing for his people—and looking ahead to something far more important. So Jesus says, “‘Amen, amen, I tell you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the real bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ‘Sir,’ they said to him, ‘give us this bread all the time.’”
And now, here’s the turn. Jesus explicitly states that he is not talking about flour, water, oil, and maybe yeast baked in an oven. He’s talking about himself. “I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Does our prayer life reflect an attitude like the crowds or the goal that Jesus states? Are we treating God like some genie in a lamp that can grant us wishes? Would Jesus tell us, “You are not praying to me because you saw the miraculous signs. You are not praying to me because you know that I can grant you eternal life. You’re praying to me so that you can be comfortable here and now”? None of us want to treat God this way, but from my experience, this is an easy trap to fall into.
God has a purpose and a plan for our lives, and that purpose and plan may not always be what we want it to be. We may come to God with a request, and his answer might be, “No.” Frequently, his answer is, “I’ve got something better in store for you.” But that’s hard to deal with, especially from our perspective, especially when we don’t have God’s promise in the front of our mind that whatever he does for us will be for our good.
We have to take these things on faith. We must listen to what God says and say, “Yeah, I trust you, Lord. I trust you to provide what is best for me.” Some days, that might be something akin to the feeding of the 5,000. God might essentially say to you, “Here, this is what you need to get through the day or week or month. You didn’t see where this would come from, but here it is because I care about you, and I love you.”
Other times, Jesus’ purpose is to lift our eyes from this world, this life, and instead look forward to eternity because that’s what’s truly important. God is primarily focused on our eternal well-being, and he wants us to be primarily there as well.
This takes us back to the crowd’s question, “What should we do to carry out the works of God? How can we make sure that we are okay eternally?” Jesus’ whole point in this discourse in John chapter 6 will be, “You can’t.”
Nothing that you do or I do can ever satisfy God’s demand because God’s demand is flawless obedience to his law. And that is not what you have done nor what I have done. In our sin, we starve to death eternally. But Jesus is the Bread of Life. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Jesus did not come to this world to be a popular preacher, a miracle worker, or certainly to provide meals free of charge for everyone all the time. No, Jesus came with a much greater purpose. He came to be our Savior from sin.
This moment is going to be a turning point in Jesus’ popularity. In two weeks, as we continue this account in John’s Gospel, we’ll see the crowds turn away from Jesus en masse. He won’t have the outward, earthly popularity again that he has right here and right now. But that’s not why he came. He’s going to press on to the cross. There, he will do what he came to do, what we needed him to do.
In the moment, it’s tempting to think of Jesus as only providing for our earthly needs because that’s what we can see and feel. But what we really needed from him was forgiveness, to be food that endures to eternal life. And so Jesus will go to the cross without any popularity, being abandoned and denied by the people who were closest to him. And he will suffer the agony not just of crucifixion but of hell itself as he pays for your sin and my sin. There is where Jesus becomes our Bread of Life, food that endures to eternal life. There, we receive the spiritual nourishment we need, the spiritual medicine we require, and the spiritual resurrection that is necessary because we were dead in our sins. And now, through Jesus, we live.
Don’t walk away this morning thinking, “Any concern I have for any earthly thing is wrong.” That’s not the point. And in fact, God tells us to come to him with our concerns for day-to-day life. He wants us to pray to him about those things. But we always pray that God’s will be done in everything, knowing full well that God’s will might not be the same thing as our will and that his will is always focused on eternal life rather than the here and now.
God will give you that daily bread that he told you to pray for. But much more than that, he provides for your eternal well-being. He is your Savior, the one who forgives your sins and will bring you home to heaven. He does this because he loves you and forgives you, because he is the Bread of Life so that in him we will never be hungry or thirsty again. Thanks be to God! Amen.
