Sunday
08/09/15 Freeville/Homer Ave UMC’s
Sermon Title: “I am the bread of
life”
(“The Bread of the World” series: Part 1 of 3)
Old Testament
Lesson: Psalm 130
New Testament
Scripture: Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Gospel Lesson:
John 6:35, 41-51
Friends, brothers and sisters, welcome once again on this the
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost, that day so long ago that the Christian
Church was born. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit moved in a mighty
way, and the disciples and the early Christians went forth preaching the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. They went forth changing the world.
They went forth making the world into what Jesus taught
them that it should be. They went forth making followers of Christ, and telling
people of the hope that they had found in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, the hope of the nations,
the Good Shepherd, and this morning specifically, “the bread of life” (John
6:35a, CEB). You see in the Old Testament, when the Jews left Egypt, and when
they soon after wandered in the wilderness for 40-years, they had no food at
first. As a result, God provided for them bread or “mana” from heaven. They
were also provided with the water and the drink that they needed to survive.
In referencing this story in a way then, Jesus this
morning, was speaking to an audience that was largely, if not all Jewish. Many
of them knew there history of wandering through the desert with Moses for
40-years. These people knew that God had provided for them, bread or “mana”
from heaven. These people knew that God provided them the water and the drink
that they needed to survive.
Yet this morning, Jesus Christ, tells his mostly all Jewish
audience, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 35, CEB).
So among the many titles that we have in the Bible of Jesus
Christ, which include everything from Messiah, to teacher, to savior, and etc.,
today Jesus Christ says, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35a, CEB). In this
way, Jesus Christ is making a direct connection to God’s power to feed and
provide drink for the Israelites in the wilderness for 40-years. Specifically,
he is making the claim that he is now the “the bread of life” (John 6:35a,
CEB). Further, Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 35b, CEB).
Now it was God Himself in the Old Testament that fed and
gave drink to the Israelites in the wilderness for 40-years, and now Jesus
Christ is saying, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35a, CEB). Jesus is saying,
that He is God’s power, that He provides spiritual food and drink to all
persons. That He is what feeds our souls, and to make this claim, placed Jesus
Christ in a special category. For a mere human could not be “the bread of life”
(John 6:35a, CEB). A mere human cannot feed our souls. So then, who was Jesus
Christ claiming himself to be? Was he saying that he was a prophet? Was he
saying that he had Godliness in him? Or was he making the claim that he was the
fullness of God and the fullness of humanity on earth?
This notion of Jesus being spiritual bread and drink, are
claims that Jesus Christ will make in the Gospel of John, not only this morning,
but also in the next two week. For these reasons, this Sunday and the next two
Sundays following, I am preaching this three week series, called “The Bread of
the World” series.
You
will notice that our congregational response this morning is “Bread of the
World,” out of our United Methodist Church hymnal. We generally only sing this
hymn is preparation for Holy Communion, but this will be our congregational
response, this Sunday, and the next two Sundays. I have chosen this congregational
response, because as I said, this Sunday, and the next two Sundays, Jesus makes
claims about being the “bread of life” (John 6:35a, CEB). He phrases these
statements differently each Sunday, but Jesus is clearly, to me anyway, making
a claim about who he is.
To me, Jesus Christ is saying, that he is God in the flesh,
who has come to earth. To me, Jesus Christ is saying, that in him and through him,
we can have peace, salvation, and wholeness. For many of us feel spiritual
hunger and thirst at times, and sometimes we want to know that God will feed
us.
An example of this, is the reading from Psalm 130 from this
morning that says, “I cry out to you from the depths, LORD—my LORD listen to my
voice! Let your ears pay close attention to my request for mercy!” (Ps. 130:1-2,
CEB). Sometime we feel spiritually hungry and thirsty. Yet Jesus told the woman
at the well that he could give her living water, and that he could take away
her thirst forever. She then desperately wanted this water that he offered.
In the Apostle Paul’s Epistle or letter to the Ephesians
from this morning, the Apostle Paul encourages us to be honest, truthful, patient,
forgiving, and loving towards each other (Eph. 4:25-32, CEB). The Apostle Paul
then goes on tell the Ephesians and us to, “imitate God like dearly loved
children. Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loved
us and gave himself for us” (Eph. 5:1-2a, CEB). The Apostle Paul then concludes
this scripture speaking of Jesus Christ, and said of Him, “He was a sacrificial
offering that smelled sweet to God” (Eph. 5:2b, CEB).
So the Apostle Paul encourages us to be
loving to each other in all things, to love God, and to “imitate God” (Eph. 5:1a,
CEB). The Apostle Paul also tells us to be like Jesus Christ, who said this
morning, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35a, CEB).
So,
in figuring out what Jesus Christ meant by this statement, we can also measure
what he meant by His audience’s responses to his statements. That is to say,
what did the people listening to Jesus Christ think that he meant with his
statement?
Well, in looking at John 6:41, it says in response to Jesus’
statement, “The Jewish opposition grumbled about him because he said, “I am the
bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41, CEB). Now if Jesus didn’t believe
that he was the Son of God, if the people who he was addressing did think that
he was claiming to be the Son of God, then why did they get so angry? I mean
after all if Jesus Christ made the claim that he was “the bread of life,” and
if that statement meant nothing, then why did people get so upset (John 6:35a,
CEB)? A very reasonable conclusion then, is that Jesus Christ, and his audience
were both thinking the same thing. Jesus was thinking that he was God in flesh,
and the response to this was so severe, because his audience thought that Jesus
was in fact making that claim. Why else would there be so much anger over such a
simple statement like, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35a, CEB).
In looking at the rest of Gospel reading from John for this
morning, since the audience that Jesus was speaking to didn’t like the fact
that he was making the claim to be “the bread of life,” they attacked him and
his family (John 6:35a, CEB). If they could discredit him and his family they thought,
then they could ruin him. In John 6:41 it says, “They asked, “Isn’t this Jesus,
Joseph’s son, whose mother and father we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come
down from heaven’?” (John 6:42). You see, Jesus’ parents were regular working
class folks, and not rich or powerful people, so how could the savior, the messiah,
come from a poor family they thought? I would say that this was a “cheap shot”
myself.
Yet in John 6:43
Jesus responds by saying, “Don’t grumble among yourselves. No one can come to
me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them
up on the last day” (John 6:43-44, CEB). Jesus is then making the claim that in
the end of days, He will be the one who is present to usher in the fullness of
the Kingdom of God.
Jesus then goes on to say, “It is written in the Prophets,
And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to the Father and
learned from him comes to me” (John 6:45, CEB). So instead of an Old Testament
prophet who listens to God and then tells others, Jesus is saying that all
people need to come to him. Meaning that he is the path to the fullness of God,
and that he has come in grace and truth.
Jesus then drives this point home further, by saying, “No
one has seen the Father except the one is from God. He has seen the Father. I
assure you, whoever believes has eternal life” (John 6:46-47, CEB). Jesus is
saying then, that only he is from God directly. Only he has been present with
God, as he is God in the flesh. Jesus Christ is saying that he sits at the
right hand of the Father, as he himself, being God in the flesh, is co-occupant
of God’s throne.
To reinforce this, Jesus Christ then says again in John
6:48, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48, CEB). To the make the comparison of
how God feed the Israelites in the wilderness for 40-years, and how He is the
spiritual food and drink for humanity. Jesus then says, “Your ancestors ate
manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from
heaven so that whoever eats from it will never die” (John 6:49-50, CEB). Jesus
is then saying, through me, you can have forgiveness, eternal life, and
salvation.
This scripture from the Gospel of John ends this morning with
Jesus saying, “Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I
will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51, CEB). Jesus is
saying that He is “the bread of life,” that He is the savior of the world, and
that He has come die for all of humanity, so that we may be saved through him (John
6:35a, CEB).
Brothers and sisters, friends, when Jesus says to us, “I am
the bread of life,” how should we all interpret that statement (John 6:35a,
CEB)? Is Jesus just saying that he is someone nice, or is He making the claim
that is the messiah, and the savior of the world? Is He saying that He is God
come down from heaven? That He will die for our sins, and that in Him and through
Him, all things are possible? To me, Jesus Christ, the messiah, was fully God and
fully human on the earth. The fullness of God, and the fullness of a human.
I
would like to share at story with you this morning about seeking and finding
the truth. In this way, as Christians, we need to read the Bible, study,
prayer, and come to understand God’s truths. Well this story is called, “The
Spinach Myth,” and the information for this story was obtained from Karl
Kruszelnicki’s Great Moments in Science website (abc.net.au/science), May 24,
2001. Here is how it goes: “The cartoon character Popeye is famous for eating
spinach. Whenever he breaks open a can of spinach and eats it he gains enormous
strength. Popeye was employed by the US Government during World War 2 to
promote the idea of eating spinach. Meat was a rarity during war, but spinach
appeared to be a great substitute. In the 1890’s German scientists had shown
that spinach contains the same amount of iron as meat. And iron of course is
one of the essential vitamins in building strength.”
“But
the facts are wrong. The German researchers did prove that spinach contains
iron, but when they wrote down their results they put the decimal point in the
wrong place. They overestimated the amount of iron in spinach by a factor of
10! Unfortunately, the correction didn’t get across the ocean until after WW2.”
“This
episode shows how easily false ideas can quickly become accepted truth. It’s
not uncommon in the area of Christian belief for Christians to quickly give
unquestionable status to beliefs that may in fact have questionable origins. We
should never be afraid to go back and ask why it is that we hold a particular
belief or a particular interpretation of the bible. Our investigation may prove
we got it right, or it may show we didn’t. Either way our understanding and
application of God’s word will only be improved.”
So
this morning brothers and sisters, friends, Jesus Christ says “I am the bread
of life” (John 6:35a, CEB). Were we wrong in how he have historically
interpreted this statement, or is Jesus truly the messiah, the Son of God? I
say that Jesus Christ was and is the messiah, the Son of God. What do you say?
Amen.
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