Of Words and Bread: A Meditation on John 6 for the Season of Pentecost

Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,

Murmur not among yourselves.

No man can come to me,

except the Father which hath sent me draw him:

and I will raise him up at the last day.

It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.

Every man therefore that hath heard,

and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God,

he hath seen the Father.

 Verily, verily, I say unto you,

He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

I am that bread of life.

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven,

that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven:

if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:

and the bread that I will give is my flesh,

which I will give for the life of the world.

 

 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying,

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood,

ye have no life in you.

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life;

and I will raise him up at the last day.

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,

dwelleth in me, and I in him.

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father:

so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

This is that bread which came down from heaven:

not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead:

he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.

 

These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said,

This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it,

he said unto them, Doth this offend you?

What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:

 the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

But there are some of you that believe not.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not,

 and who should betray him.

And he said, Therefore said I unto you,

that no man can come unto me,

except it were given unto him of my Father.

From that time many of his disciples went back,

and walked no more with him.

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

thou hast the words of eternal life.

And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,

the Son of the living God.

 

It should probably not be surprising that the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel has fueled controversy and offense down through the ages and into our own day, since it records controversy and offense when Jesus had this actual dialogue with the people who followed Him.  Today as in 1^st century Judea, the people who fall into the orbit of Jesus are of mixed hearts and motives, just as any group of people tend to be who gather around anything.  People in this world are never really monolithic in their hearts and minds, because every person has a unique consciousness, an individual existence, and a particular history which has led them into their present moment.  No two people are ever exactly alike, even though many people can share some likeness or conviction or ambition or hope.  When Jesus spoke to the crowds around Him, He was unraveling some of these individual distinctives and group dynamics, piercing to the heart of every person around Him, clearing away false conceptions and calling them into a deeper engagement with Him.  Then, as now, Jesus’ Words work to strip away our confusion and lead us to Truth.

 

What is important when hearing Jesus, is to believe Him.  Sometimes He says things that are easy or pleasant to accept, as He did with this crowd just a day prior when He fed the multitude on bread and fish by the power of His Word.  Sometimes He says things that are hard or disconcerting to contemplate, as He did when He said that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have no eternal life in us.  Such hard sayings revealed in the people around Him hard hearts unwilling to believe Him, and thus unwilling to follow Him where He was leading them.  Many would ask then, as they do today, how could Jesus give Himself for the life of the world?  How could a man in ancient Judea have actually come from and be God?  How could someone like Jesus, destined to die at the hands of manipulative and treacherous men, be Himself the hope of a dying world?  And how exactly could a specific Judean man of whatever his particular height and weight was, feed a countless multitude of people across all the ages of history by his own body and blood?  They are questions people still ask today, together with a host of others like them, that are fundamentally intended to insulate the individual from Jesus... to keep Him at arm’s length or further away, so that their encounter with Jesus might not make them uncomfortable.

 

Regardless of our rationalizations and sophistry, Jesus’ Word is still true, and it still calls all people to Himself.  And though His Word calls to everyone just as they are, as the old hymn goes, it never leaves anyone just as they were.  To hear the Word of the Lord is to be enlivened by it, convicted by it, challenged by it, inspired by it—the Word of Jesus is alive, empowered by His Holy Spirit to accomplish the task for which He sends it.  To those who hear Him and believe, turning from their sinful and confusion filled lives to embrace Him, Jesus becomes their Savior by grace through faith, feeding His people by His Word and Spirit so that they will never hunger again through all eternity.  For those who reject Him, His Word which they have rejected becomes their judge, leaving them in their sin and confusion, forever gnawed by a hunger they can never satisfy.  Jesus and His Word always accomplish what they set out to do, and our response of faith or unbelief, of embrace or rejection, is a fate the Holy Spirit enlivens each hearer to take.  Thus it is always true that whoever is saved by grace through faith in Christ alone is never saved by his own works or merit, but all those who are condemned shall burn forever by their own most grievous fault.  To each the Word of Jesus remains eternally true, either as beloved Savior or as terrifying Judge.

 

In this context, the endless debates about just how Jesus can be the bread of the world, how He is present in His Supper, how He is consumed by those who eat and drink the bread and the wine, and how exactly Jesus will raise all these people up on the Last Day, fall into distant insignificance.  What remains of tremendous and eternal significance, is that He is in fact the bread and life of the world, that He is actually present in His Supper, that He certainly is consumed by those who partake of the bread and the wine, and that He shall raise up all who have done so on the Last Day.  It is not the Sacrament of the Supper, nor the transient elements of bread and wine, which accomplish these things, but the Word and Spirit of the Living God.  We are not magicians nor alchemists, seeking some potion or ritual which will transform us into what we are not, as if prancing about in fancy vestments and genuflecting at the proper moments could achieve through our works the salvation of souls.  To the contrary, Christians approach Jesus in faith as their Savior, believing what He has said, because like St. Peter we believe in who He is:  the Son of God, the Messiah who takes away the sins of the world, and the only One who has the Words of eternal life.  The detailed how of our salvation where the transcendent omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of the Lord God Almighty converge in unfathomable love through a Roman Cross and break forth from a Jewish tomb, are likely beyond the contemplative power of any finite mind.  But the what and the who of our salvation, the Vicarious Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of the world, which opens wide the portals of heaven to all people through faith and repentance by the present and unconquerable power of His Word and Spirit, this means everything.

 

Hear the Word of the Lord as He encounters you this day.  Feel His Spirit pierce your own, carving away the false pieties, self-justifications, rationalizations, and sophistries you have composed to shield you from the light of grace.  See Jesus for who He really is, and hear Him for what He really says, knowing that our flesh profits nothing, but His Word and Spirit give eternal life.  Approach His table in faith and repentance, receiving what He freely offers according to the terms which He has set by His own Eternal Word.  Let His Word and Spirit fill you even as you consume such humble elements as bread and wine, knowing that the Word of Jesus has made Him present to you, that He might raise you up this day just as He will on the Last Day.  Amen.