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Grace, mercy and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I
am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever
believes in me shall never thirst.
Prayer: Dear Lord
Jesus, send to all of us your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to
all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
In our Gospel
reading today, Jesus says to us: I am the bread of
life. Now why does Jesus talk about himself like this?
I find that it’s
quite common for us to talk about learning the bible and learning about God’s
kingdom as “being fed”. And this way of talking comes from our reading today,
where Jesus speaks of himself as the bread
of life, the living bread that
came down from heaven. And it’s quite common for
people to talk about hearing God’s word like this—if there is a time in the
church where people are not hearing God’s word, we say that many people are
hungry to hear God’s word. And if there is a time where people really are
hearing God’s word, people often say that they are happy that are being fed.
Have you ever
thought this through? Why do we talk about hearing God’s word as being fed?
In the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke, we read very detailed descriptions about when the devil went
and tempted Jesus for 40 days in the wilderness. We actually read that the Holy
Spirit was the one who drove Jesus out into the wilderness just after his
baptism by John in the river Jordan. It wasn’t as if Jesus was being abandoned,
but it was the Holy Spirit who led him to that place, and Jesus’ temptation in
the wilderness happened so that Jesus could win a wonderful victory over Satan,
and so that we could also rejoice in that same victory. When we read about
Jesus in the wilderness, and we read about how he managed to get rid of the
devil, simply by quoting bible verses, it gives us great encouragement and
fills us with great joy.
But we read there
about the first temptation that the devil gave to Jesus, where he said: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become
loaves of bread. Now, as I just said, this event where Jesus was
tempted by Satan in the wilderness, happened just after Jesus was baptised. And
on that occasion, we read that Jesus was in the water, the Holy Spirit came
upon him like a dove, and God the Father spoke: This is
my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Now—if God
the Father had already spoken in the full hearing of everyone who was there
that this Jesus was actually his beloved Son, why on earth does the devil think that Jesus then needs to prove it to
him? God has already said it.
And so we read
here, that the devil tempts Jesus in matters of food. Jesus has not eaten any
food or drink for 40 days, and he is hungry. But anyone who has ever gone
without food for a while, like if they have been in hospital, knows that you
don’t just go and eat a three course meal straight away. You need to start with
little bites, and gradually build up your appetite again. And so, here is
Jesus—and he hasn’t eaten for 40 days or 40 nights. And the devil doesn’t just
command him to turn one stone in a single loaf of bread, but to turn a whole
lot of stones into bread. Jesus would only have needed a small amount of bread
to bring his time of fasting to an end, but the devil wants him to “pig out”,
and have a feast. And of course, if someone hadn’t eaten for 40 days and then
tried to eat 10 loaves of bread, they would probably vomit it all up and it
would all be wasted. And then the devil would have a good old laugh! So this is
the temptation that the devil presents to Jesus.
And what does Jesus
say on that occasion: He says: It is written, “Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.” This is a famous passage. Notice here that Jesus
simply quotes the bible. He says: It is written. Here is speaking from the Book of Deuteronomy. And he says, that it is
not just bread that we need to eat. Man does not live by
bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Can you see how right from early on in the bible, it speaks about God’s
word as living food? The words that come from God’s mouth are what we eat.
This passage
actually comes from Deuteronomy chapter 8, which is a wonderful chapter where
Moses is encouraging the people of Israel to remain faithful to God, and he
gives this encouragement to them just before the enter into the promised land.
And it’s also a chapter where Moses gives the people a warning: Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not
keeping his commandments and his rules and his statues, which I command you
today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and
live in them…then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Moses is
warning them so that they when they eat physical bread and have fattened up
their bodies, that they don’t then forget God, and forget to feed on his living
word.
And so, here we
come to our Gospel reading today, where Jesus says: I am
the bread of life… I am the bread that came down from heaven.
Now you might have
been thinking: hang on a minute… Jesus is not talking here about being feed
with God’s word, but he is speaking about being fed with himself. He is not
talking about the bible or preaching as the bread of life, but himself as the
bread of life. And yes, you are right. But let’s go back a few chapters in our
Gospel, in the Gospel of John, and go right back to the beginning to John
chapter 1. Here we read: In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. Normally, when we talk about God’s word, we talk
about it as “it”. We say: Let’s hear God’s word and learn “it”. We talk about
God’s word as a thing. But here at the beginning of John’s Gospel, he speaks
about God’s word as a person. Instead of saying, “it”, it says “he.” He was in the beginning with God. And he says that this Word of God existed right from the beginning, and
that he was with God, and he even says that this Word was God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. This is an amazing passage.
Later, it says: The Word became flesh
and dwelt among us. Here it speaks about God’s Word as becoming human
flesh.
Now, what’s going
on this passage, you might think? Well, this passage is speaking about Jesus
and God’s word as the same thing. Anything that God has ever spoken, has been
spoken by Jesus. And so, sometimes when we come to church and we hear God’s
word and speak God’s word, we’re not just involved in some kind of brain-activity.
Listening and studying and learning God’s word is not simply a thing where we
feed our minds and our intellects. When we hear God’s word, we are actually
meeting the living Jesus. Every time we hear God’s word, we are listening to
Jesus. You might have a friend that you like to get together with, or
visit—what do you do to spend time with them? You speak to them. You have a
conversation with them. And so, when we hear God’s word, we are actually
listening to the living Jesus.
So when we are
being fed with the word of God, we are being fed with Jesus himself. He is our
food when we are hungry, he is our drink when we are thirsty, his our companion
when we are lonely. He is the living bread that came down from heaven.
Now, sometimes
people might think: what use it that to me? If I’m hungry, what use is God’s
word? It’s not going to feed my belly, is it? I can’t read the bible instead of
eating dinner, can I?
Well, sometimes we
might find ourselves in a time of life, when God takes away from us a few of
things that we think that we need. And sometimes we get angry with God, and
say: “I needed that. Why did you take that away?” But when this happens, then
thank God for giving you a spiritual hunger. God knows exactly what you need,
and he gives everything we need to us for the time that we need it. But he also
wants to awaken us to see our need to feed not just on earthly things, but to
feed on his word. From a human point of view, we just can’t imagine how God’s
word could actually feed us and fill the void and the hole that we might feel.
In our Gospel reading, the people actually say this. They said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know? How does he now say, “I have come down from heaven?” Jesus
answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless
the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It
is written in the Prophets, “And they will all be taught by God.” Everyone who
has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
So we might think
then: What are we grumbling about in our lives? What are we dissatisfied with?
What are we hungry for? Are we hungry for Jesus? How is God the Father drawing
you to Jesus? How is God reaching down to you and teaching you, and what do you
think he is trying to teach you at this point in your life? And if God the
Father is drawing you to Jesus, then Jesus says: I will
raise him up on the last day. What a wonderful
promise!
Our sinful flesh
resists this, though. We know that we need to be fed with God’s word and we
need to meet Jesus. But at the same time, we would rather be fed with earthly
things. We’d much rather have a good long life on this earth rather than
prepare for eternal life. We’d much rather have money in our bank account that
have the one thing that we really need—the words of Jesus. We’d rather have a
healthy body than to have a body and a soul that is being shaped and formed in
the image of Jesus. And so, it is not us that goes to Jesus and believes in him
by our own reason or strength. Martin Luther puts this so well in the Small
Catechism: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in
Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the
Gospel. How has the Holy Spirit called you by the Gospel? Hasn’t he
continually been reaching out to you? Hasn’t he wonderful been calling you to
follow Jesus in a new fresh way continually throughout your life? Didn’t the
Holy Spirit baptise you with water and the word of God, and set you aside and
call you out of the world for a holy purpose? Even now, how is God changing
you? How is he shaping you and moulding you and forming you? What old opinions
is the Holy Spirit calling you to set aside so that you can take up your cross
and follow Jesus in a new way today?
And so, Jesus says:
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the
manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from
heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.
Can you see? When
we eat earthly food, physical food, we eat it and then we die. But when we eat
the bread of life, when we feed on Jesus and his words, then we will not die.
Jesus says: 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.
Now, you might
wonder, what about the Lord’s Supper? So far, I’ve been talking a lot about
hearing God’s word, but surely when Jesus speaks about himself as the “bread of
life”, the Lord’s Supper also has something to do with this? And yes, this is
true—and we have many songs to do with Holy Communion that speak about Jesus as
the bread of life, and the bread of heaven.
Jesus says: The bread that I will give for the life of the world is
my flesh. We might think: How can Jesus’ flesh give life? We
might think back to the time when Jesus was on the mountain and his body was
transfigured with glorious wonderful light. We can see the human body shining
with all of the divine power of God. This is Jesus’ flesh that gives life to
the world. But then also on this occasion, a cloud comes and overshadows Jesus
and the disciples hear God the Father speak: This is
my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.
And so, we are
called to listen to Jesus. And when we listen to Jesus, we feed on him. These
two things go together. When we listen to Jesus and believe what he has to say
to us, then we feed on him, on the bread which gives life to the world, which
is his flesh.
We are sinners and
none of this makes any sense to our fallen reason. But Jesus has died for us,
like a lamb led to the slaughter. He offered himself as the one, true sacrifice
for the sin of the world. In the Old Testament, when they offered a lamb as a
sacrifice at Passover, what did they do with it? They ate it. They fed on it.
The sacrifice became their food. In the same way, now that Jesus has died, and
he has sacrificed himself for us, he has become our food—not dead food, but
living food. His flesh gives life to the world.
So when we come to
the Lord’s Supper, we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. But eating
and drinking these things with our mouths is not the only thing that we do
here. We don’t come like pigs going to a trough and simply having a good feed.
In the Lord Supper, there are two ingredients: bread and wine, but also the
word of God: This is my body given
for you. This is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. So when we come to the Lord’s Supper, we feed on Christ in two ways: we
eat his body and drink his blood with our mouths, but with our ears we listen
to him and with our hearts we believe that these things are given for us and
shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. You see: Jesus says: If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. It’s not simply eating the Lord’s Supper that makes us live forever,
without us hearing and believing what Jesus says about it. That’s why we speak
Jesus’ words (the words of institution) every time we have the Lord’s Supper,
and we preach about his death and resurrection. So often we come to the Lord’s
Supper and don’t really listen to Jesus’ word—and then we wonder why the Lord’s
Supper is not very important for us. But the Lord’s Supper is the gift that
Jesus gave on the night he was betrayed—it is like his will. The word of Jesus
is what gives the Lord’s Supper its power, and makes it happen that we can come
and eat and drink the true body and blood of Jesus here. In fact, the words of
Jesus are the living food which give everything in the church its power. Everything
that we do in the church that has nothing to do with God’s word is just
something that increases the void in us and the hunger in us. It is detracting
from the real spiritual food and real spiritual drink that Jesus has prepared
to give to us.
So today, let’s
feed on Jesus, the bread of life. Let’s feed on him not just on Sunday, but on
seven days of the week. After all, don’t you need food every day? Let’s ask the
Holy Spirit to come and shape us and draw our hearts to God in such a way that
it becomes a pleasure and a joy for us to hear the word of Jesus, and to feed
on him. Jesus says: I am the bread of
life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the
bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am
the lifing 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.
Amen.
Dear Jesus, how
wonderful are your words to us! What rich food they are to us! And we know that
whenever we feed on your words, we feed on you. Open our hearts and our minds
and our ears to hear your word in a new and fresh way that we may feed on you
and live forever. Amen.
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