May 18, 2003
John 6:22-35
“The Bread of Life”
Jesus is under attack! Much as, due to the dastardly work of politically-correct revisionist historians, it can be said that “history sure ain’t what it used to be”, so it might be said, in the wake of similarly dastardly doings by certain revisionist theologians, that “Jesus sure ain’t what He used to be either!” In the eyes of such pseudo-theologians as Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan, the co-founders of the “Jesus Seminar”, Jesus needs to be “liberated” from the accretions of the Biblical writers; Christians need to be “liberated” from the unhelpful notion that Jesus is to be worshipped. Crossan denies every cardinal tenet of evangelical faith regarding Jesus, His virgin birth, deity, atoning death, and bodily resurrection, and he insists that the task of modern-day theological scholarship ought to be to sift through fragments and remnants and recover the “historical Jesus”. Crossan is certain that when we do that, we’ll find an amusing peasant who had some incisive insights into the human condition, but hardly a man worthy of our worship. Thanks for your “help”, Mr. Crossan, but we’ll take it from here—and from God!
Who is Jesus—and Who does He say He is? For the next seven weeks, we are going to look at the seven metaphors Jesus uses to describe Himself in the book of John. The first one we find in John 6; would you stand with me as we read that together?
You’ve heard me say before that I enjoy reading the controversial Christian author Tony Campolo. If you’ve ever read much of Tony’s work, you’ll probably agree with me that he is an author that makes you laugh, makes you mad (at least he does me!), but also one who makes you think. I like that in an author; I’d rather read someone who disagrees with me than someone who agrees, many times! Love him or…barely tolerate him, chances are you’d agree that one of the things Tony does well is to give his books intriguing titles. I’ve bought some of his books on the title alone, works like We Have Met the Enemy, and They are Partly Right; 20 Hot Potatoes Christians are Afraid to Touch (that one’ll get your blood boiling!); The Kingdom of God is a Party; Who Switched the Price Tags?, and others. Is Jesus a Republican or a Democrat? is a book that’ll make you think as well—and maybe throw things, if your sanctification isn’t percolating along too well that day! Well, he’s done it again, gone and written a book with another of my favorite authors, Brian McLaren, and given it a title that screams “read me, read me!” A critique of much of our contemporary American Christianity, I wince when I see the title describing their viewpoint that we often engage in
I. Adventures in Missing the Point
It might be said that this is an apt descriptive of the people we find in John 6. We begin the chapter by noting that Jesus the Entrepreneur becomes the original Inventor of fast-food; He opens a one-shot, free-for-all-comers, franchise on a hillside in Tiberias. Not only does He dish out the food, He does so in a most unusual fashion, feeding over ten thousand people with five barley loaves and a couple fish. Enough food is left over to supply us all for a nice after-church potluck dinner, and the Bible says that this miracle is a sign to the people. Hold that thought for later, if you would.
Sensing that the people fed there were about to grab Him by force and make Him an earthly king, Jesus excuses Himself and gets out of there, into the wilderness by Himself. The disciples don’t know where He has gone, and so when night time comes, they decide to take a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee in search of Him. As seemed to be the case often with them, as they got out into the sea, a storm arose, and caused them a lot of hard rowing. In the midst of all this, Jesus comes strolling by on the top of the water, as though nothing were unusual about that (of course, for Jesus, there was nothing unusual about that!). This freaks out the disciples, but Jesus tells them that everything is cool, He hops into the boat, and the Bible says that the little ship immediately at the place where the disciples were headed. By this time, the miracles are piling up in one chapter.
Next day, all of the folks who had enjoyed the sumptuous fish feast began to search for Jesus, and the Bible tells us that they hopped into their rowboats and dinghies and canoes and headed across the lake in search of Jesus. Finally, they found Him, and thus embarked on their adventures in missing the point!
People were
Hungry, but missed the point
They were moved to seek Jesus because their bellies were full, not because their hearts were. Jesus effectively tells them, “hey, you’re looking for Me because I fed you a nice big meal, but you missed the point, the sign. Don’t spend so much of your time worrying about your three squares a day, but instead, concern yourself with the food of eternal life, which I will give to you.” To which we can well imagine they responded with a long, collective, “huh?” They were hungry, but they missed the point about the bread, that it was a sign to them.
Working, but missed the point
“Well, duh, okay, what do we have to do to work for this eternal life food stuff?” And Jesus graciously answers that question, pointing them to the reality that working the work of God involves believing in Himself. This is vital for us, and answers an important question: what makes a work “good”? We read, for instance, in Ephesians 2 at one point Paul making remarks about “good works” in what might be called a disparaging way, but then two verses later, in verse ten, he says that God has created us in Christ Jesus to do good works—that is why we are here! Paul confused? Paul talking out of two sides of his mouth? No. Here is the difference in a nutshell: “good works” attempted in order to prove ourselves good enough to atone for our sins are not good and acceptable works before God at all. There is no amount of good that we can do to “make it up to God” for the bad we have done. If we’ve got 20 rotten eggs in a skillet, we can’t throw in 40 and make the massive omelet a good one! So a work done to attempt to curry favor with God is worthless. On the other hand, deeds that we do out of humble gratitude for what God has already done for us in Christ are what can rightly be called “good works”! Jesus points them to the fact that the initial “good work” that they can do is no work at all, but simple faith in Himself. But that doesn’t cut it for them, for they were
Looking, but missed the point
Jews were always looking for a sign. “Give us a sign, and we’ll believe you”, they said, while the miracle food was still in their digestive tracts! It wasn’t the want of evidence that kept them from Christ; it was the want of faith! “Seeing is believing” was their motto, as it is of many today. It was Thomas’ motto; “unless I see the nail prints in Jesus’ hands, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe that He is truly risen from the grave!” Well, Jesus gave him what He asked for, and then gave him a one-two combination that was both comforting and convicting at the same time: “you have seen and believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe!” Where the world says “seeing is believing”, Jesus says, “believing is seeing!” Without faith, it is not just highly unlikely that you will please God; it is impossible!
Moving further, we read the words of the crowd regarding the manna. It was popular among the Jews to credit Moses with the provision of the manna that had sustained the people of Israel wandering in the desert for forty years. In fact, it was a Jewish tradition that, when the Messiah came, He would renew the miracle of the manna. Did some wonder if Jesus was going to keep doing this, since He had already effectively done it once? But Jesus corrected their thinking. One, it was God, not Moses, Who deserved the credit for the manna; two, God was still in the bread-making business; three, the true bread wasn’t manna, but Jesus! Moses for forty years was instrumental in supplying manna from God; Jesus for all time is the true Manna, spiritual food
II. Jesus, the Bread that Satisfies!
Well, they still didn’t get it; they were thinking as we likely would have, on a physical plane; they were reminiscent of the woman at the well. She asked Jesus for living water, thinking that it’d be neat not to have to journey to the well everyday, at an off-time so as not to attract the scorn of the more proper people. These people wanted bread so that they’d be perpetually satisfied physically. But Jesus, in rebuking Satan, had once quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, which reminds us that “man shall not live by bread alone.” In other words, we can exist physically without really living! We can put in our fourscore and ten, so to speak, do our time, live our lives on this planet, and yet never experience what it means to have true life!
The life that transcends mere human existence is a life that is sustained by Jesus Christ. Hunger is an indication of a lack—of a need; so is thirst. We hunger and thirst physically, of course; about now, some of you are experiencing the first gastrointestinal rumblings indicative of the need for lunch! We need bread—food—in order to satisfy our lack of nourishment, and while few of us would be in serious danger if we skipped a meal or twelve, eventually, we could not live without it. But more importantly, we cannot live spiritually without Jesus; He is the Bread which satisfies the eternal hunger of our souls. And He gives us a wealth of theological insight in the next few verses; expect to hear our Calvinistic associate pastor let out a few hearty “Amens” in the next few moments! Jesus tells His hearers that
All whom God has given to Him will come to Him;
Jesus does the will of the Father Who sent Him;
He will not lose those given to Him by His Father;
All who believe are given eternal life by the Father;
All of these will experience the ultimate resurrection to life eternal.
Jesus will accomplish fully the work that God the Father sent Him to do, the eternal salvation of those who have been given to Him, those who believe! Jesus will get done everything we need done for us! He will save you, not because you are smart enough to choose Him, but because He has chosen to save us. For keeps. Jesus will not fumble any! Now the final point is so obvious as to be almost juvenile, but it is a key point for us, for I ask, what is it we do with bread?
III. What to Do with Bread: Consume!
Ever walk through a bakery and just look at all of the different kinds of bread? I love Panera Bread; walking through there, you can admire all of the bread. My favorite? Try the Cinnamon Crunch bagels. Yum. And the smell of fresh-baked bread? Wow. It’s fine to walk through a bakery and look at bread and smell bread and all of that—but that’s not ultimately what bread is for. Bread is not baked to be contemplated. Bread is not baked to be considered. Bread is baked in order to be consumed. You eat it. That’s what it’s for. And that is exactly what Jesus says to us in verses 53-58!
What Jesus is talking about is drawing our very life from Him. We cannot live without Jesus if we are truly followers of His. Question: can you make it just fine in life without Jesus? Perhaps if the answer to that question is “yes”, or even “maybe”, you need to take some time for inventory, folks! When Jesus talks about “believing in Him”, He is certainly, on the basis of this context, talking about more than making simply an intellectual decision and grabbing a little bit of eternal fire insurance. He is talking about the turning over of oneself to a lifestyle wherein the normal course of my life is to look to Jesus to meet the needs that only He can. It is to take Him into me, to take His Word as my food, His Spirit as the air that I breathe, His will as the determining factor of the course of my life. And this morning, if that is not true of you, then I invite you to do what the Bible tells us to do, “taste, and see, that the Lord is good!”
There is an old saying, spoken for the purpose of encouraging good nutrition: “you are what you eat!” That’s pretty good in this context, don’t you think? “You are what you eat”. With what are you nourishing yourself today? What are you feasting on in your life? Did you feast this past week more on Dr. Phil or Oprah than you did on Jesus, on worldly wisdom more than the Word, on the things God has given or on the Giver of all good things? Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life.” How’s your diet this morning?
