John 6.35, 41-51
Much of the 6th chapter of John’s gospel is taken up with the nature of the bread of life, and today’s passage is its centrepiece, I think. Jesus says “I am the bread of life! (my exclamation mark, vv.35, 48).
In today’s gospel, Jesus expands and makes clear what he means. Now in last week’s gospel, the centre of attention was on Jesus as the gift from the Father for the life of the world.
Building on that claim, today’s text focuses on Jesus as the centre of faith to which the Father draws people, bringing perfectly to full union the work of the Father and the work of the Son.
The conversation between Jesus and the crowd is getting more and more difficult. In v. 41, the crowds, as we’ve seen over the last 3 weeks, who had made such efforts to find Jesus after he had crossed the lake begin to grumble, just as Israel in the wilderness had done (e.g., Exodus 17:3).
Their complaint in v.42 focuses on the difficulty caused by their own presumed knowledge of Jesus. They conclude that he has not come from Heaven, because they know his parents. Familiarity is breeding contempt. One who has been among them cannot possibly be what Jesus claims to be.
There is great theological irony here. The crowd’s professed knowledge of Jesus’ “father and mother” only reveals their complete ignorance of the Father who sent Jesus (verse 44).
The truth is not found in knowing the human parents who have nurtured Jesus’ childhood. Rather, the truth is found in knowing that Jesus has come from the Father in Heaven. The crowd’s self-assured “knowledge” stands in their way of seeing the truth.
We suffer from the same difficulty of seeing beyond what we “know” to be true (about the poor, about ourselves, about the line separating “the saved” from everyone else, etc.), so that we, too, can be blocked to seeing the divine Truth of Jesus among us.
The only way out of such deadly unbelief is to be drawn into faith by the Father, and this activity of the Father is a major focus of today’s text. Once again, the profound and holy mystery of faith is embraced by this text, and we ought to be careful not to unravel it into bland or moralistic cliches.
Faith is not simply a human choice to be made, but is the activity of the Father drawing people to Jesus. Remember, back in v.28, Jesus said that the Father’s work was that they would believe in his son?” In v.44, Jesus says to the crowd, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.”
The word “drawn” is the same word used to describe fishing nets being hauled into the boat (e.g., John 21:6). We must be dragged into faith by God; there is no other way to come.
But what does that say about the grumblers in this text? What does it say about those around and among us who, to all appearances, have not been drawn to Jesus? What does it say about ourselves, when we recognize our own resistance to faith to be so deep and persistent?
Don’t we complain about how God comes to us, too? We want him to make himself present among us through extraordinary ‘spiritual’ experiences. We want to see God in a flashy display of Glory, God showing himself in some visible power in our lives.
We want the mountain top experience in worship and have a tendency to think if we don’t ‘feel’ God’s presence that must mean he’s not active here. We want God to show himself in our lives by doing something big, like taking away our illness, or making us successful, or solving our family problems.
But here is the thing, here in Drayton and all round the world, just like the apostle Paul said, “We preach Christ Crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.” I think we can paraphrase that verse for modern times into “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the straying Church and foolishness to non-believers.”
For, apart from the cross, Jesus’ claim to be the Bread of Life is meaningless. Today’s reading ends with a statement that full and richly refers to the cross; “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
”No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.” The wonderful promise and hope in this text’s declaration is that God does is constantly drawing people to faith in Jesus.
God is busy doing that right now through the words of Jesus read in this text, preached from the pulpit, and most obviously in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
The great tension in this text is between the call to faith to each of us, and the claim and declaration that faith can come only from God.
This is not a tension that needs to be untangled, but to be heard and believed, and thereby to be drawn by God. Even to the grumblers, Jesus comes as the bread of life, opening our eyes and hearts to new possibilities.
Jesus is clearly not worried about offending the complacent grumblers. He had begun by talking about “bread from heaven,” and he was misunderstood.
In response to that misunderstanding, Jesus made the claim both clearer and more offensive: “I am the bread of life.” That claim got the people grumbling and complaining at the beginning of today’s text.
When people begin to respond negatively with our own statements, we often respond by trying to make the point more gently, more acceptably, less open to objection by others.
Instead, Jesus again makes the claim even more bold and offensive. At the end of our text, Jesus defines the bread that he will give as his own flesh. Such a statement seems designed to make people nervous and worried about just what following Jesus might involve.
As the conversation go on and objections are raised, Jesus does not seem interested in making it easier to swallow.
Jesus wants them to be under no illusions as to who he is and what is at stake here. The point is that one must follow Jesus on Jesus’ own terms, which always lead to the cross and that’s what it means to be a disciple.
In believing and trusting in this flesh and blood Jesus we have eternal life, not only for our eternal future but right here and now. People come to faith in Jesus, not by human will, power or choosing, but by God’s will, power and choosing.
Paul writes in Eph 2:8-9, "for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Eph 2:8-9, ESV)
It is hearing the word of God, the good news of the real, flesh and blood Jesus Christ that creates faith in human beings. That is how we eat the bread of life. That is how God draws people to himself.
By giving us the good news of Jesus Christ, living, dying and rising again. It comes through the cross of Jesus Christ, offensive as it may be.
The bread of life, the true bread from heaven, will give life to the world, astonishingly, by dying for it. This bread of life from Heaven is no ‘free lunch;’ it will cost Jesus his life. Feeding on this bread brings us too, to the cross (John 12:32). Let me pray ...