Spirit and Life

 

Text: John 6:51-69

Focus: The Bread of Life

Function: to contrast people who seek spiritual life and those who don’t

⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

⁶⁰When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” ⁶¹But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

This is the culmination of our series on The Bread of Life.

We remember the story. Jesus is teaching in the wilderness and the crowd comes to Him to hear His teaching. At this point, there is no promise of the meal. It is later in the day, the crowd is hungry and it seems, the disciples are tired. They come to Jesus wondering what He will do and Jesus answer to them is that it is their responsibility to feed the crowd.

The thing to remember about the crowd is that they were hungry. They were in a desperate situation under the yoke of Roman bondage and all of a sudden there is a new kind of prophet roaming the countryside with this amazing teaching who has been healing people of all kinds of diseases and who has been shown to have absolute authority over demonic powers. Here is Jesus performing miracle after miracle of mercy toward a crowd that was desperate for someone to deliver them from the cruelty that they were experiencing. They needed a leader who would save them.

And they were sincere in their question to Jesus, are you giving us the same sign that Moses gave his people in the wilderness? Aren’t you going to keep on feeding us? You can, you know, if you did it once, of you can raise the dead, if you can walk on the water, then certainly, you can help us out of this terrible situation.

And Jesus completely blows them away with His response.

He has been telling them that He is the living bread that comes down from heaven. He is. Not the manna that Moses gave them in the wilderness. Not the bread and fishes they just ate on the other side of the lake, but He is the living bread. He is.

Just imagine that for a moment. Imagine that you hear great things about a preacher, you hear, and perhaps have even seen him perform some sort of miracle, you hear that his teaching is new and revolutionary and it includes love for everyone. You hear and see crowds flocking to this individual and you too, are hungry, needing someone to come along and offer you some sort of way out of the bondage that you are experiencing.

And then, just as you are getting ready to believe in him, to trust in him he says to you, In order for you to have eternal life, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

About the time you are questioning if he is serious when he said, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, he repeats it and says, what I mean is this: My flesh is true food and blood is true drink. You must eat it.

It sounds crazy. It sounds impossible. The sincere and hungry crowd asks him how he plans to give us his body and blood as drink.

Something significant happens right here in Jesus’ ministry. It answers a question for a serious student of the timeline of Jesus’ life and ministry. He feeds a crowd of 5,000 and they cross the lake to follow Him. It appears that they are willing to follow Him everywhere.

So, did you ever wonder what happened to that crowd? How did they shrink from a crowd of thousands pressing in upon Him just wanting to touch the hem of His garment so that they can be healed to a small band of disciples and followers who were only numbered around one hundred at the time of the resurrection?

We see it here, reflected tragically starting at verse 66 from our text: ⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

The text tells us that all the disciples were complaining. And rightfully so. Jesus had a great thing going here. They were in on a huge movement. They were they anointed apostles of the new Kingdom who knew what kind of power and glory that would entail in the future?

They were chosen and they had planned on something incredible and all of a sudden, in a few brief phrases from Jesus, the whole thing seems to fall apart and the crowd leaves Jesus because they believe He has gone too far with His words.

Neither the crowds or the disciples understand the words. Jesus tells them that they are thinking about food all wrong. His words are Spirit and Life. By listening and believing, by trusting in those words, you can have eternal life.

Nobody got it at the time.

And it still remains somewhat a mystery. The Roman Catholic Church has chosen to believe that each and every person who partakes of the Eucharist has a miracle happen inside of them every time. The miracle being that the ordinary bread and the ordinary wine become transubstantiated into Jesus’ actual flesh and blood.

They take this literally.

I appreciated the expression of faith that is here and Jesus is speaking of the mystery of the Eucharist. I believe, again, the reason why the Roman Catholic Church uses a crucifix instead of a cross as a symbol of the faith.

In order to be saved, we must take the life of Jesus.

When we partake of the communion bread and wine, it is as if we actually were the ones responsible for His death. Our sins killed Him. He died on behalf of our sins. He died in our place. In order to be saved, we have to let Him be the sacrifice for our sins.

If Jesus were just a man, then it would be unjust to accept His death on the cross in place of mine.

But Jesus is the Bread of Heaven. He is the living bread of God, and remember, He is speaking symbolic words that are Spirit and Life to the listeners. Jesus, as the Bread of Heaven is the Living God who gives life to the world. We are taking the life of God’s own self in order to have eternal life. If Jesus were merely a man, it would be unjust. But instead, Jesus is God, in human form, given as a sacrifice for the sins of the world entire.

Let us live by the living Bread of Heaven.