Sermon Text: John 6:51–69
Date: August 25, 2024
Event: Proper 16, Year B
John 6:51–69 (EHV)
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52At that, the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53So Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day. 55For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. 56The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
59He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 60When they heard it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?”
61But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this cause you to stumble in your faith? 62What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh does not help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray him. 65He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is given to him by my Father.”
66After this, many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore. 67So Jesus asked the Twelve, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”
68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus, Jesus, Only Jesus!
What is your most valuable tool? Maybe it’s a trusty hammer you’ve had since forever. It’s well-made, solid, and will probably outlive you. Maybe it’s a set of cookware that is made to last generations—it cooks well, cleans well, and properly maintained, could probably be an heirloom in your family. Maybe it’s something a bit more ephemeral and temporary but very useful. Maybe it’s a cell phone that keeps you in touch with people near and far away. Maybe a computer allows you to do your necessary work and do things to unwind and relax.
But no matter how useful any given tool is, you would be hard-pressed to get rid of everything else and rely on that one thing. That hammer might be awesome, but it won't do much good when it comes time to cut something. And trying to drive that nail with your laptop? That’s not going to end well.
For the better part of the summer, we’ve been with the crowds around Jesus’ miracle of feeding more than 5,000 people. In our Gospel readings, we’ve seen the people’s helpless reality like sheep without a shepherd, Jesus’ overwhelming compassion for them, and then the crowd’s misguided hope, thinking that Jesus was providing what they wanted—physical food—not what they needed—eternal life.
This morning’s Gospel is the culmination of all of this. This conflict comes to a head as Jesus stresses why he had actually come and faces the fallout for that. This morning, we will ideally learn the lesson that the Twelve did and showed through Peter’s confession: that when it comes to any needs, there’s one tool, there’s one solution for us: Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus!
In our Gospel, we pick up exactly where we left off last week, repeating verse 51, where Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The people listening were really confused about what Jesus was talking about. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Then, Jesus goes further and gets more graphic in his depiction. He says, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.” Now, that sounds grotesque, and you might well sympathize with the people who reacted negatively to this.
Because what does that mean? Do we have to eat and drink Jesus' flesh and blood? This is the sort of thing that was forbidden by the law that God gave to his people when it came to animals for food. They weren't to eat raw meat but to cook it. They weren't to leave the blood in it, but to drain it out. And this is to say nothing of the raw horror of thinking about what it means to ingest parts of another human being.
Jesus here is not speaking about literal physical eating and drinking. He says, “My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” This is a picturesque (albeit alarmingly graphic) way for Jesus to describe what it means to receive him, to believe in him. You're so connected to him for your spiritual needs that you might as well be gnawing on his flesh and drinking his blood that he would dwell in you wholly like food and drink dwell in you after you've swallowed it. Jesus is very clear about the results of this receiving, this eating and drinking: Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
Physical food and drink come and go. That’s not what Jesus is offering. This is not physical food, something to chew with the teeth and swallow. This is only something that can be received by faith.
The people are not pleased with the direction of this conversation. When they heard it, many of Jesus's disciples said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?” The people who were following Jesus wanted something easy. They wanted a solution that made sense to them, a solution that they had come up with. And their thought was, “Hey, if we just have an unending supply of physical food, things will be good.”
But Jesus knew that wasn't true. Even if one did have an unending supply of physical food, death would still come. And with death comes judgment. And judgment because of sin means that we stand condemned before God. No, we don't need a solution to the problem of physical hunger and thirst; we need a solution to the problem of spiritual hunger and thirst. And when meeting those needs, Jesus says, "The only thing you get is me." There's no alternative path. There's no way for anyone to do these things on his own. We need Jesus. Jesus is all we get. And Jesus is all we need.
Jesus says, Does this cause you to stumble in your faith? What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh does not help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. It becomes very clear to the crowd gathered around Jesus that he won't do what they want. No amount of arguing will lead Jesus to give them more to eat.
This is where Jesus' earthly popularity dropped off a cliff. Many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore. Jesus lost followers when he presented himself as the sole thing they needed, and they needed to be more focused on the spiritual than the physical. He was the sole thing that they would get from him and the only thing that they truly needed, but it didn't meet their expectations, so off they went.
Not much has changed in the intervening 2,000 years because the message from Jesus is still the same. He's all you get. Truly, he's all you need. But what is it for you that pulls you to turn away from Jesus? What causes you to think, "Ah, this Jesus is not really worth it. This faith is not something I want to dedicate myself to. This is a hard teaching. This is harsh. Jesus is stubborn. He's not going to do what I want him to do. Who could stand to listen to him?”
This will vary wildly among each of us here this morning. Maybe it is some command from Jesus when he says that something that I want to be right is wrong or something that I want to be wrong is fine. Maybe it is dissatisfaction with my lot in life, the reality of where I am, the struggles I have to deal with, and the crosses I have to bear. Maybe you're not dealing with physical hunger like the crowds, but maybe you're really, really tempted to withdraw from Jesus because he's just not doing what you want him to do. He's not making this part of your life better. He's not bringing healing to that loved one. He's not bringing to fruition what I think should be done in my life. And if this is how it will be as a follower of Jesus, it's really, really easy for me to say, "You know what? Enough is enough. I can't do this anymore. I'm done." And to turn back and to not walk with Jesus anymore.
There may be some immediate gains by doing that from our human perspective. Maybe I’m happier ignoring Jesus and seeking my own will and joys. By turning away from Jesus, I might find some temporal joy, some earthly pleasure, some way to satisfy the longings of my heart. But if I do that, what have I just traded away?
Not only do I say thanks but no thanks to Jesus in terms of the day-to-day things of life, but I also say thanks but no thanks to Jesus when it comes to his forgiveness. Unless I eat that flesh and drink that blood, I have no part with him. Unless the Spirit-given conviction, trust, and faith in Jesus are alive here, in my heart, I don't benefit from what he did at all.
As the crowds were leaving, Jesus turned to the twelve and asked them, "You do not want to leave too, do you?" What is Jesus asking? “What are you looking for? Is it me, or is it something else?”
Peter knows that there’s no solution besides Jesus. That was clearly illustrated for Peter just hours before when he asked Jesus to call him out to walk on the surface of the Sea of Galilee. Everything went wonderfully when he was focused on Jesus, but when other things took Peter’s attention, he began to sink into the water. The disciples that were leaving were looking at the wind and the waves of this life and saying, "I don't think Jesus is going to do what I want him to do." They were taking their eyes off of him and found that they were content to fight their own way through the stormy sea.
But again, Peter knows that there's no help outside of Jesus. It is Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus. “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
This trade, giving up the eternal for the temporal, is not a wise move. We don't want to do this. Jesus, and Jesus alone, has the words of eternal life. Jesus is all that you get, my brothers and sisters. He's all you need, and by God's grace, he is all you want. Because here is your God, who, yes, provides for you physically (even if it might not always be precisely what you or I want). But more to the point, here is the one who provides for you for eternity.
God was not content to let us eat bread in this life for a time and then die and face the punishment for our sins in hell. And so Jesus took our place, becoming this bread of life, as he said, by offering and giving his flesh for the life of the world. And in that sacrifice, Jesus pays for your sins and mine, for every time that you and I have wanted to turn tail and go away.
Every time I have sought to serve another master, whether my own whims and desires, money, power, fame, accomplishments, peace, or security in this life. All of those times that for me, it has not been Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus, that those are sins for which Jesus died, sins that are gone.
And now the Spirit gives life to you and to me by connecting us to the bread of life. By his Word, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit creates and sustains our faith in Jesus so that you and I have what we need. And by God's grace, we have what we want because we have Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus!
Lord keep us ever focused on you and content that no matter what happens in this life, we are safe with you forever. Amen.
