There is Power in the Bread

 

Text: John 6:35-51

Focus: The bread of life

Function: to help people experience the life giving force of Communion

³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. ³⁷Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; ³⁸for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

⁴¹Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” ⁴³Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. ⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.”

Jesus is the Bread of Life, the Living Bread. He makes an extremely bold claim when he says it.

Remember the story. These are a desperate and poverty stricken people who are burdened down with the oppression of the Roman taxes. No one can save enough to get ahead and they are all living from paycheck to paycheck, as it were, with little hope of escaping the poverty unless a leader comes.

Jesus appears to be that leader.

Jesus has just fed the 5,000. He walked on the water, calmed the sea and now He starts telling the crowd, after He has fed them that it isn’t the food that they ate that they need but the Bread from Heaven, which is Himself, as a life giving force for all their needs.

By chiding them about wanting only food, as we saw last week, we see Him trying to get them to understand that eternal life is more important than physical life because God is in control of the resurrection of the dead and those who believe in Him will live even though their bodies cease to breathe.

I believe that he is referring to communion. Next week, we will hear Him say that His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink. That, I believe, is why the Roman Catholics believe that the bread and cup mysteriously transfigure themselves into the living flesh and blood of Jesus every time they take the Eucharist.

I don’t need to believe that to believe the power of the Eucharist. It is a life giving force and every time I take it I feel spiritually strengthened.

15 years ago, I did a study with a cohort of pastors whereby we studied how we can effectively make disciples of Jesus in a post Christian world. I wanted to know what needed to change in our message in order to get the gospel message across to a generation that has largely rejected Christianity.

We went to London and saw churches that were thriving in their post Christian culture. At one event, we were sitting around the tables and everyone was given two envelopes with a task, a prayer, or a reading to be revealed during the course of the evening worship. The lady across from me at the table immediately spoke up and said that she had never ever been to a church in her life and that if she was asked to pray to do something religious, she would have to refuse because she didn’t want to be an hypocrite.

The lesson that night shared the gospel of Jesus as the two disciples experienced it on the way to Emmaus.

As she heard the gospel, she began to open up about her life and her spiritual needs. She was aware of her need. When her first envelope was opened, we tensed, but it was only a reading that was positive and it helped her on her way. Her second envelope contained a prayer that she was to lead. She lead it even though she had earlier stated the otherwise.

We watched her heart soften as the Holy Spirit took over and called her to place her trust in Jesus.

At the end, the last envelope, opened by the leader was an invitation to trust Jesus through receiving the symbol of faith, the Eucharist.

With tears in her eyes she ate the bread and drank the cup. And just like faith was born in the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we watched a new believer born into the Kingdom of heaven through the life giving force of communion. It was her first experience with Christ and it was powerful.

It wasn’t us. Yes, the service was well planned. And the different thing about the service at the time, although we were in an Anglican Church on the outskirts of London, the different thing was the audience participation. We sat at tables in community, just like the early church did, just like we do here sometimes.

So, my goal this morning, as we partake of the bread and the cup -communion with Jesus- is that we all experience the life giving force of the power of the Spirit as it again cleanses us and fills our hearts.