“The Living Bread For
Spiritual Life” John
Intro.: Have you ever noticed that in our day health
consciousness has become an obsession? I
mean it’s good that people want to take better care of themselves,
but don’t you get a little tired of being told all the things that you should
be doing to live longer? As for me most
of the things the health experts tell me to do don’t really inspire me to want
to live that much longer. I mean
exercising regularly, eating healthy foods and all that stuff. I would be a lot happier if instead of
infomercials featuring beautiful hard-bodied models telling me what I should
eat or the selling me the latest equipment for perfect abs, I could just watch
a commercial that would commend me for lying there with my remote control in
one hand and my favorite junk food in the other.
Yet, even if we don’t exercise like we
should, most of us try to keep an eye on what we eat. We are aware of the foods that are considered
good or bad for us, and sometimes knowing the nutritional value of the food we are
putting into our bodies can lead us to change our eating habits. We may be told that we should eat one thing
to keep our potassium level up and something else to keep our cholesterol
down. We hear that certain foods are
dangerous to our health and should be avoided, altogether. Even if our cravings get the best of us out
of concern for our physical health we look at our food and wonder should I eat
this or not? In the constant struggle of
deciding whether to eat or not to eat, things are made worse by “experts” who
tell us that what was good for us yesterday is supposed to be poisonous to us
today. So who knows?
Well God does! And in today’s Gospel He gives us the key to
the perfect diet, but it is not just a diet for our bodies; it is a spiritual
diet for the eternal life of our bodies and souls. The key is in feeding upon the Living Bread
from Heaven, Jesus Christ.
I.
God Provides Us With Living Bread From Heaven.
A. In our Gospel Jesus responds to the people
who were grumbling in their spiritual hunger because they had suffered
starvation under the negligent care of false shepherds, by proclaiming: “I am the living bread that came down from
heaven…” With these words Jesus is teaching you, just
as He taught them, that He alone is the one who can satisfy the deep down in
the soul hunger you have. The hunger
that nothing else in your life could overcome; not the things you have done,
not the relationships you have had, not the possessions you have acquired, nor
the philosophies you have followed. He
is the One and Only, sent by God the Father, to be the
food that will bring you spiritual health and eternal life.
B. Jesus went on to explain what He means by “I am
the living bread that came down from heaven,” by adding, “This
bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Jesus is the very Son of God, being of One substance with the Father, who out of love for you and
me came down from heaven to become man.
He took for himself this very flesh and blood, along with all of its
wants and needs, sufferings and temptations.
He took upon himself the burden of our
flesh, placed Himself under the law for us, and carried that burden perfectly
for us. What we could not do, live a
sinless and holy life in this body, the One and Only from heaven did for
us.
And then for you, for me, and for the whole
world He offered that flesh and blood as a sacrifice for sin upon the
cross. He offered that flesh to be
ripped open, and that blood to be poured out to pay the only acceptable price
for our forgiveness. It is not the flesh
of bulls burnt on altars, nor the blood of goats sprinkled over us by ordinary
priests that saves us, but the true High Priest, Jesus, who entered the Holy of
Holies for us and gave His holy flesh and precious blood for the life of the
world. So that…
C. Whoever eats of it by faith will live
forever. (cf. v.51)
Just as the Israelites in the wilderness
were not required to go foraging through the parched land to find something to
eat, but rose each day to find an abundance of sweet manna covering the ground,
ready to be eaten, so it is for us. We
do not have to search far and wide, nor work our fingers to the bone to eat of
the living bread from heaven. It is
right here in abundance; right here for us to eat as often as we want and as
often as we can for eternal life. We partake
of it in a symbolic and spiritual way whenever we receive Christ’s Word in faith. As He notes in the words following our
Gospel: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh
counts for nothing. The words I have
spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”
(v.63)
But in
an even greater way we partake of the flesh and blood of Jesus, the living
bread from heaven, here at the table He has prepared for us. Here we eat His body and drink His blood for
the forgiveness of sins as He bid us to do in His last will and testament. Here we have the flesh and blood of Jesus in,
with, and under the bread and wine in a truly substantial, sacramental way in
the Lord’s Supper, as we receive the gifts of life and salvation and are united
with Christ, with One another, and with all the saints.
Here the Lord offers us a wonderful diet
of spiritual health food, Jesus Christ, the living bread from heaven. The problem is that often…
II.
We Have Rejected The Diet the Lord Offers Us.
A. In matters physical and spiritual many of us
may prefer junk food over that which is good for us.
Let’s face it junk food often tastes better
than health food. A candy bar or a stalk
of celery, a handful of potato chips or coli flour; on just taste which would
you choose? Unfortunately, this choice
is not limited to matters of the body we also make poor choices in matters of
the soul.
In our Gospel and the verses immediately
following it many of the people revealed themselves as spiritual junk-food
junkies. They did not believe that they
should or could eat of the living bread and preferred the poisonous diet to
which they had grown accustomed. Still
today there are those who will not accept Christ, the living bread, as their
food.
From the beginning mankind has rejected the
good that God offers them. Instead, like
Adam and Eve they have gone for the forbidden fruit that leads to death. We go for what we think looks good, might
taste good, and would serve our immediate goal, rather than what the Lord
offers us for our good. Instead of the
blessing of marriage, we give into sinful lust, dangerous encounters, carnal gratification,
and infidelity. Instead of a life of
contentment with what God provides we pursue a life of greed, selfish ambition,
jealousy, and hatred.
The final and most grievous rejection is
when someone refuses to partake of Christ. God’s greatest gift to the world is His Son
and the salvation which can only come through Him, but most people continue to
turn their nose up at Him. Instead they
stuff themselves full of the empty spiritual calories of tasty philosophies,
gobble up every self-help candy that comes along, or gorge themselves on the
smorgasbord of the false gods whom they find more palatable.
Before you start nodding your head, thinking
that you know exactly who I’m talking about; that neighbor who offends you with
his wild lifestyle, the friend who no matter how many times you have shared
your faith still rejects Christ, or all those members of the church who haven’t
been here to receive the living bread for months or even years, let’s look a
little closer to home. None of us have
completely dedicated ourselves to a strict spiritual diet.
We also reject the goodness God offers us, by
refusing to read, study, meditate, and live according to the Word He has given
us. How much of our day, or how many of
our days, go by without us giving a passing thought to Christ? Do we hunger and thirst for the righteousness
He offers us? Do we crave the Gospel and
long to just take another bite of the bread of heaven through faith?
No, like a child in a candy store we spoil
our appetites for Christ with spiritual junk food. We want a feel good religion, entertaining
worship, a spiritual sugar-high, and a theology that always tastes good.
We imagine that we do not need a steady
diet of the living bread from heaven. A
good meal of Jesus every once in awhile should be good enough, right? Wrong!
B. The result of rejecting the diet the Lord has
given us is severe malnutrition, sickness, and ultimately death. Jesus says in
our Gospel: "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. (vv.53) It is time to stop
fooling ourselves; when we don’t have Christ and feast on him daily we are
putting our spiritual health and life in danger.
When we consistently starve our body of
what it needs it doesn’t take long until we become lethargic and lose our
appetite altogether. Once this happens
sickness and death are at the doorstep.
The same holds true when it comes to
neglecting our spiritual diet. We have all
made ourselves sin sick, saying yes to sin and no to Christ. Look at yourselves, look at our congregation, can’t you see that we are weak, lazy and
sick? Haven’t you noticed how many of us
seem to have lost our appetite for Christ?
Let’s face it we have made ourselves fat on spiritual junk-food, but are
starving ourselves to death.
Right now, today, the Lord calls us all to
kick the junk-food habit and eat the real food that brings eternal life.
III.
Jesus Invites Us To Feed On Him And Live.
A. Jesus offers Himself to us as a steady
diet.
When we are sick, lets
say with diabetes or heart disease, our physicians put us on special diets. Any of you who have been through this
understand that a snack plan will not do the job; the seriously ill need a new
lifestyle. Under their doctor’s care
they learn to say no to the foods that once were killing them, and yes to those
that make them healthy.
In the same way Jesus, the Great Physician
of our souls, puts us on a strict diet. It
is not enough to snack on him now and then.
He calls us to a new lifestyle, in which by the power of the Holy Spirit
we say no to the things that hurt us and yes to Christ. He invites us to feed on him regularly so
that he will remain in us and we will remain in Him. (cf. v.56)
B. God’s promise to us is that a steady diet of
Christ, the living bread from heaven, will result in eternal life. Jesus says in our Gospel, “whoever
feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and
died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." (
vv. 57b-58)
Following our physician’s prescribed diet
can bring health and longevity to even the most seriously ill. Some who are placed
on diets, feel like new people, they have renewed energy, increased activity,
and hope.
So it is for us when we are let to follow
our Great Physicians diet of living bread from heaven. Feeding regularly on Christ brings spiritual
health and eternal life. With this food
we are in truth made into new, forgiven people who live under grace; people who
are renewed with the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us and moves us to
increased activity in Christ’s name. And
above all, we are people who live with hope.
Not the hope of a few more years to dwell upon the earth, but the sure
hope of a resurrection to eternal life to dwell with our Savior in heaven.
Concl.: So come, let
us feast on the living bread from heaven!
Let us eat the flesh and drink the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ, and
live! Amen.