Does anyone recognize this food item? Of course, it is a Happy Meal. By a show of hands, how many of you parents have fed your children one of these things? How many of you kids have ever eaten one of these things? We know that a lot of kids eat these because apparently over 2.5 million of them are sold annually in the United States alone.
And you wonder why these meals are so popular with kids and parents. They are convenient, relatively quick, they have some great stuff in them like these soggy French fries, and these tasty Chicken McNuggets, a drink and of course a plastic toy. But the really good thing about this meal is that it keeps your child from grumbling in the car for at least twenty minutes or so while they consume them. Has anyone been guilty of giving a Happy Meal to their child to quiet him or her in a car for a few minutes? I certainly have.
The bad thing about these Happy Meals is that each one contains about 500 calories. In fact I recently read that there is a group of concerned parents in California who are trying to ban the production of Happy Meals because of their high fat, sugar, salt, and overall calorie content, but hey they do give you this nice little toy, so that makes it okay, right? Wrong, McDonald’s is using the toy to entice the child so the parent will buy the Happy Meal. So the people in this class action suit are claiming that children will become somewhat addicted to this type of meal and develop unhealthy eating habits and will never mature to the food with substance.
And as we open our Bibles today to John Chapter 6 we see that Jesus was dealing with people who also had not matured in their eating habits. They were in a happy meal mentality. They didn’t want to move beyond the temporal food to the real spiritual food. And Jesus is saying that he offers food with real substance; food that is not only good in this life but also in the life to come.
There is a lot of substance in this section of Chapter 6 so it is good to give an overview of where we have been before delving into today’s passage. You may recall earlier in Chapter 6 that Jesus had performed the miracle feeding of 5,000. He had crossed the Sea of Galilee and went to the other side of the lake for some alone time. Yet the people followed him across the Lake. Throughout the day as Jesus taught and ministered to the people the crowd continue to swell. And at some point late in the day Jesus looked up at the crowd and turned to his disciples and said: “Where will we get enough food for these people to eat?” And Philip basically replied: “I have no idea, but I do know that eight months wages would not buy enough food for these people to eat!” And then Andrew pipes up and says: “Well there is this boy with five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what can be done with this?” And we discover that Jesus was able to do something with it. He was able to take it and multiply it enough to feed the entire crowd. So much so, that there were twelve baskets of leftovers.
The people were so impressed that they wanted to make them king by force. And as the story made clear Jesus wanted nothing to do with this so he withdrew from the crowd, and went off to a mountain to pray while his disciples got on a boat and headed back to the other side of the lake. We know that late that night during the 4th watch Jesus appeared to the disciples walking on water.
Anyway, they get to the other side of the lake and the crowds continue to follow them. So Jesus has this huge crowd following him and Jesus decides that it is about time to begin to weed the crowd out between the curious and the committed. As we saw last week, there were a certain number of people who followed Jesus just because their stomachs were full. So when Jesus wasn’t going to give them any more fish and chips they said: “we’re out of here.” And there were others who were looking for a “sign”. People who liked the show Jesus was putting on but wanted something more impressive. Basically they were saying: “You put on a pretty good show Jesus. We liked the feeding of the 5k, however our prophet Moses brought down manna from heaven and fed close to a half a million. Can you top that that?”
And this is where Jesus begins his bread of life discourse and says in 6:32: “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
So the people ask for this bread, which is a very similar request as the request from the woman at the well when Jesus offered her living water. They were basically saying: “if you have access to this unending supply of bread from God, give it to us. If you have access to the bakery or the bread truck we would like to have access too.” And this is where Jesus begins to go deeper into his bread of life discourse and says in verse 35: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” About that time, we can assume that the people who came for the free lunch were gone, and now the people who came for the show are getting a little bored. Thinking that Jesus is not going to accommodate their request for another show, so they start going away too.
The only ones that appear to remain are the Jews and the more committed followers. Now the Jews probably don’t mind that Jesus had stopped giving out bread and fish, they probably also didn’t mind that Jesus was no longer accommodating the request for another show, because they knew that these were the things that were attracting large crowds to him. The Jews were likely annoyed with Jesus when he attracted large crowds, but what really annoyed them was the way that Jesus was speaking about himself. It annoyed them so much that they began to complain or “grumble” among themselves. And that is where we pick up today’s passage. [Read John 6:41-59]
Now I like food, but when I read this passage, my first response is: “Gross!” A person can’t help read this passage and get a little turned off by some of the images contained within it. When we began the book of John at the beginning of the year, I didn’t think about all the passages that I would have to preach through and this is one that I would have frankly liked to skip past. It is a tough section. I imagine that if someone picked up the Bible upon the suggestion of someone and they come across this section where Jesus begins to talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood they may think to themselves: “Wow, those Christians are really weird they follow a man who promotes cannibalism!” And as difficult it is for us to swallow those words imagine how difficult it was for the Jews who were hearing these words first hand. They are likely being grossed out.
But keep in mind that Jesus’ intent was not to “gross them out” but to “weed them out.” In other words to weed out the merely curious or the merely religious people from the truly committed disciples of Christ. And since the Jews were unlikely going anywhere, Jesus decided to use some very graphic imagery to get his point across. Unfortunately we don’t have time to go through all the scriptures contained in this section, but with a mere glossing through a few we can easily see why the Jews would have been annoyed by Jesus.
First of all they likely didn’t appreciate Jesus’ overuse of the phrase: “I am the bread of life that comes down from heaven.” I think he used that phrase about six times in this chapter. That would offend them because he is creating too close of a connection with the Father. So they began to grumble about this, saying in verse 42: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
And Jesus aware of this basically says: “Stop grumbling, get over it, you should be getting this. Your own prophets said that you would be taught by God, and so if indeed you had been taught by God you would understand what I am saying. So what happened, were you asleep in class or what? If you were truly taught by God you wouldn’t be grumbling at my words you would be sitting at my feet because you would know that I am the only One who provides you access to the Father. In other words the only way back to a true relationship with the Father is through me.”
And he goes on to talk about the difference between the bread that their prophet Moses called down and the bread that he now offers. He says in verses 49-51:
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.” (John 6:49–51)
So this is where Jesus is starting to push their buttons a bit. It is one thing to talk about being from heaven, but to compare that bread to his flesh is crossing the line. And the scripture goes on to say that the people began to argue sharply amongst each other. You get the sense that there was starting to be divisions among the people. Possibly that some were actually tracking with what Jesus was saying while others were thinking that he was a bit crazy.
And just to make sure that he gets his point across, and makes the division complete he comes out with his really direct yet somewhat unsettling statement:
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. 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. (John 6:53–55)
Now I suspect that about this time a good portion of the Jews were saying to themselves: “That’s it, I am out of here, Jesus has gone over the edge. I want nothing to do with cannibalism.” I suspect that some people were taking Jesus a little too literal. But as we know Jesus was not promoting some weird religious practice. He was simply using very graphic imagery to paint a picture of the deep spiritual union he expected of his disciples. When you think about it, eating and drinking is good imagery to use because when you eat or drink something it becomes part of you. So what he is basically telling the Jews is that their forefathers ate the manna in the dessert and in the same sense they need to gobble Jesus up also. The difference being that they ate the bread that Moses offered and died, yet the food he offers will allow them to live eternally.
And in some sense Jesus is possibly saying: “And by the way, in addition to eating my flesh, you need to wash it down with some of my blood.” In other words, that they need to look to the cross. I think what he is doing here is pointing the people towards his sacrifice for humanity. And that if they are going to have that deep spiritual union with him then they too must embrace the cross with him.
So that is what he is laying out for them. And he is also letting them know that this meal is really not an option. He says that if you don’t eat and drink of him, then there is no life in them. In other words they will be like walking corpses; spiritually dead. And this meal that he offers is not a meal that they can eat quickly. Unlike the Happy Meal that they are use to, it is a full sit down meal that takes time. In a sense it is like dining at a fancy restaurant for several hours and remaining there until the waiters are about to kick you out. In the same sense people who want to eat of Jesus flesh and blood must remain in him. John 6.56-57 spells out the necessity of this:
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. (John 6:56–57)
This underlying Greek word translated here as “remain” is seen in other passages including John 15.5:
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15.5)
So this verse helps confirm that Jesus is speaking not of some weird practice but a deep spiritual union between Him and his followers. And really about this time this dialog with the Jews is pretty much over. Next week we will look at the dialog between Jesus and his more committed followers where Jesus gets pretty direct with them also.
But this is pretty much all I had intended to cover today. But as always there is likely an application or two. As I have said before as we read the words of the Bible, God is over us reading our hearts to see how we are responding to his words. And if we look at Jesus’ entire bread of life discourse there is a good chance that we can connect to a lot of these people.
We know that there are a lot of people who come to church or other religious events simply to have a physical need met e.g., to get a free hotdog, request a loan to pay an overdue bill, to maybe get their hands on one of the free turkeys we give away at Thanksgiving, or possibly one of our free coats that we hand out in the winter. They come because they are looking to have a felt need met at the moment. And I would like to think that they would all hang around after their needs are met but unfortunately they don’t. If you have been around here when we hand out the 200 turkeys at Thanksgiving, very few of the people end up coming to a church service. Please don’t get me wrong because I firmly believe that the church needs to be the first responders to people in crisis. We need to be meeting the physical and emotional needs of the people in the community. Jesus saw the people as sheep without a shepherd and had compassion on them and so should we.
But you have to remember that Jesus did not leave them where they were at. He was always prodding people towards a deeper level of commitment. He was using the physical to attract them towards the real spiritual need in their lives. You can almost say that Jesus had an ulterior motive. And I will be honest to a certain extent so do I. Many of the things we do to meet the physical needs we do in order to be able to possibly meet the spiritual needs. Maybe to be able to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
Some of you may be asking: “Is that deceptive?” My answer is that I don’t think so. You see if we honestly feel that the Gospel of Jesus Christ provides the answers to man’s greatest needs, i.e., that it really is the best news out there, then why would we not want to do everything we can to get people exposed to it? And so I am all about doing what we can do to get people in church. I have said it before that I would be willing to serve steaks every Sunday if it would bring people in here, but the Elders didn’t seem to like that idea.
All joking aside, I do what I can to bring people in church. I believe in marketing, and finding opportunities to meet the felt needs of people. There are too many competing voices in the world to NOT market. People do not simply walk into churches because they are in a community.
But when they do come here they are not going to hear a watered down gospel or fluff, they are going to hear the meat of the gospel right out of the Word. My goal is to get people off the temporal physical food and onto the eternal meat of God’s Word. That is our job. Bring them in and feed them the real meal deal of Jesus Christ.
And so you have the people who are coming just to get their stomachs full. Then you have the people who are looking for entertainment. Looking for the great church shows. The videos, the contemporary music, the creative message, the good after service fellowship. There are people who actually go to church looking for some sort of emotional experience. They actually church hop because they are looking for the best worship “experience.” I will be honest; I suspect that some may even be here today because we are known to have one of the best worship experiences in the north boroughs of Pittsburgh.
I do think we do believe we have a good worship “experience.” We seek to bring people into the presence of God. Now don’t get me wrong again. Jesus was not against giving his followers a good experience now and then but once again, he didn’t leave them there. So I would be curious to see how many people would remain if we were to “pull the plug” on our worship experience some Sunday.
In other words, it would be interesting to come into church some Sunday and there would be no video, no creative message, no band or contemporary music, but rather just a group of people seating around reading God’s word, taking some notes, praying together, and singing a hymn or two. I have a feeling that maybe the crowds would thin out a bit. That some people may say to themselves: “I liked that show that Chuck, Chris, and Debbie use to put on, and since they no longer want to accommodate me maybe I will go down the street and see what kind of show they are offering.”
Yes, unfortunately there are people caught up in the worship “experience” that they may not be true followers of Jesus. I believe a measure of discipleship is the willingness to stick around in a Christ-centered church no matter what kind of “show” is put on.
Then there are the loyal or “religious” people. The people who are not going anywhere no matter what type of show you put on or whether you are giving away hot dogs or not. In fact they would prefer that the show remain low keyed and that you don’t give away too much because of all the weirdo’s those sorts of things tend to attract. They prefer their “old time religion.” In other words they prefer to not change up anything because they have managed to fit their religion into a Happy Meal sort of box.
They think to themselves: “I like my box, I put the religious things that I think I need e.g., my religious CD, my 7 minutes with God in the morning, my hour of service per month, my home group, Christian radio, etc in it. So don’t be messing with my box. In other words don’t add anything or try to expand it in any way. Just leave it alone. I don’t want you messing with it.”
So what do you do with people like that? I don’t know, but I suspect if Jesus were walking this earth today he would be trying to get those sorts of folks past the Happy Meal and onto the real meat. In other words, he would say: “You have been on the Happy Meal a little too long, it is time that you come over to Ruth Chris’ Steak House where I have a nice thick juicy steak waiting for you with potatoes and gravy.”
You see some people have gotten too comfortable with their “religion.” And this applies to young people and older people. There are young adults who say: “I have young children now and have to attend all their sporting events and school activities, or I have too busy of a career so I don’t have time to go deeper with Jesus. I will spend time with Jesus when I retire.”
And there are older people who are retired and basically say: “I did all the church stuff when I was younger, so it is my turn to sit back and spend time at my timeshare or golf course or whatever.” And what is Jesus’ answer? He says: “Eat my flesh and drink my blood. Embrace the cross and the life that comes through it.” And I suspect just as when you take a Happy Meal from a kid and he or she begins to complain, when you attempt to get a “religious” person beyond their Happy Meal mentality they too will begin to grumble a bit. But really what is the option? As we saw in verse 53 unless you drink the flesh and drink the blood there will be no life in you. It is a matter of life and death. You either eat and drink or you die spiritually.
As I was writing this sermon I thought about a story that came out around 1990 and was made into a movie called: “Alive”. It was the story about a Brazilian rugby team whose plane crashed into the middle of the Andes Mountains in the winter. They were stranded there for several months with very little food and freezing to death. Many of their teammates died or were in the process of dying.
So they were forced to make the decision; do I eat my dead teammates or do I die? And if you remember some chose not to eat their friends and they died also. And some said I will do it because they knew that their dead teammates would likely want them to. That they would be willing to give up their flesh for someone. So they ate it and lived.
As I thought about that I would pray that none of us would ever be in a situation where we would have to make such a decision. But when you think about it we really are in some sense in a life or death situation. We are not talking about physical life but spiritual life. And that is the life that Jesus came to give us. If you have been following the book of John, you know that if anything it the story of the LIFE God offers us through Jesus Christ. From the very beginning in verses like John 1.4, and John 3.16, and John 14.6 we are reminded of that. The book of John can be summed up in one word LIFE.
And keep in mind once again that John is not referring to biological life. He uses a different Greek word to describe life. It is called “Zoe”. It speaks of an abundant life that seeks to possess the life of God i.e., all the good gifts that God wants to give you. In other words all the things that we would have possessed if sin had not gotten in the way. And if it is our sinful fallen nature that has kept us from that Zoe life then it is only the sacrifice of Christ on the cross that is going to make us capable of getting it back. So that is why we must embrace the cross.
So in closing some may be thinking: “What does that mean to me?” I really don’t know because in some sense it is an individualistic thing. To some people they need to embrace that life for the first time. They need to come to a place where they realize that even though they don’t understand it they want it. That even though they may be a bit confused as to exactly what it means or how it works out in their lives, they need to take the leap of faith and receive it. They need to repent of their sins and accept the free gift that God offers through the cross. They need to follow Jesus and not look back.
Others need to get beyond the emotional high that they are seeking. They need to not simply go to church for the experience and then return to their jobs or homes with no noticeable effect on them. In other words they need to move beyond the show mentality and begin to seek out of the cross that they have not yet experienced. Maybe going deeper into God’s word whether the high is there or not.
And then there are the religious people who need to move beyond the Happy Meal mentality and start to go towards the steak. They need to not settle for a Christianity that is neatly packaged in a predicable box with low substance but rather to move onto a deeper encounter with God in whatever form it manifests itself.
And for all the people, once they begin to really “taste” the Lord for the first time hopefully they will see that it is good. Like it says in Psalm 34:
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. (Psalm 34:8–10)
Some still may be thinking: “Well Chuck you are not leaving me with very good imagery. I am about to go to lunch and I don’t want to be thinking about eating flesh and blood.” But my purpose today was not to gross you out but rather to weed you out. And to not to leave you with that imagery as you go into lunch but at least as we enter into communion.
In fact as we see in Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthian church that is exactly what he was attempting to do. As Paul met with his disciples he was not giving them words to gross them out, but simply to remind them of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the need for us to embrace it. Specifically he wanted all of us to be reminded each week that:
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body [flesh], which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23–25)
Let us pray.
