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“The Living Bread
John 6:51-58

 

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost—August 16, 2015

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We’re always hearing reports in the news about new “miracle” foods, especially those that will help fight certain diseases, or, what some of us particularly long for, ingredients that will give us snack foods and desserts that we can eat without consequences.  Oat bran eliminates cholesterol!  Red wine prevents heart attacks!  The shortening substitute Olestra will give us potato chips without fat!  And with Nutrasweet and other artificial sweeteners, we’ll have cake without calories!

But, have you noticed that the reality doesn’t every quite measure up to all the hype?  These miracle foods turn out to be not quite so miraculous after all, at cleaning out the arteries or keeping off the pounds.  But, still, the promises and the products keep coming, and we keep buying, searching, hoping, longing for that miracle food which will lengthen our life—or at least shorten our waistline.

For three Sundays in a row, the appointed Gospel Readings have been from Jesus’ sermon in John chapter six on “The Bread of Life.”  The people to whom Jesus first addressed his sermon on “The Bread of Life” were also looking for a miracle food.  Their tradition said that when the long-awaited Messiah came, he would once again give them miraculous bread from heaven, just as Moses had given their ancestors the manna in the wilderness. 

Yesterday, Jesus miraculously fed the 5,000, and John tells us what their conclusion was: “After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’”

Yesterday, they thought Jesus was the Messiah.  But, today, they’re not so sure that Jesus is living up to all the Messianic hype.  They’re not so sure, because today Jesus says to them: “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.  Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. . .  I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. . .  For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. . .  I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.  I am the Bread of Life.  Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

“You’re looking for a miracle food?” Jesus says.  “Here it is—it’s me!  I am the Bread of Life.”  The whole point of Jesus’ sermon on “The Bread of Life” is that HE himself is the true—and only—miracle food.  For, not even the manna in the wilderness given by Moses could give eternal life; not even the bread miraculously given by Jesus the previous day in the feeding of the 5,000 could give eternal life; and not even oat bran or red wine or Olestra or Nutrasweet or any other so-called miracle food will give you eternal life.  As the comedian Red Foxx said, “People are so health-crazy these days, 30 years from now there’s gonna to be a lot of people dyin’ of nothin’.”  But, the Good News is, the true miracle food, the Bread of Life, can and will give you eternal life. 

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. . .  I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  In these verses Jesus is not talking primarily about Holy Communion, because that Sacrament had not yet been instituted.  “Eat” and “drink” in these verses is a metaphor for faith, to trust in Jesus’ “flesh” and “blood”—his sacrifice upon the cross.  Through faith in him, through trusting in his sacrifice for you, you receive forgiveness, you receive eternal life.   “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”  You can stop looking and longing for your miracle food—here it is! “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  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. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Feed on the Bread of Life!  Feed on the Bread of Life, by trusting in him as your Savior.  Feed on the Bread of Life, by taking comfort and assurance in who you are by virtue of your Baptism, born again as a child of God.  Feed on the Bread of Life, by hearing and reading and studying his Word.  And feed on the Bread of Life in Holy Communion, in which he gives you his own body and blood to strengthen and preserve you steadfast in the true faith unto life everlasting.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”  Olestra and Nutrasweet may help you lose a few pounds, but think of the weight that you shed FOREVER with the Bread of Life: the crushing weight of your guilt and sin. 

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”  Oat bran and red wine may help you live a few years longer and healthier in your earthly life; but the Bread of Life gives you life eternal in heaven—and that is no hype!

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”  Feed on the Bread of Life!

Amen.

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