9th Sunday after Pentecost (Pr. 13) August 6, 2006 “Series B”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, you know that we suffer from many hungers in which we wish to be satisfied. We have the hunger for food, the hunger for a better standard of living, the hunger for a retirement that is able to sustain our way of life. Though the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to truly recognize the importance of the gifts that you give us, especially the Bread of Life, which is your Son, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Beginning with last Sunday, and continuing through the next few weeks, our Gospel lessons will focus on one of my favorite chapters in all of the New Testament – the sixth chapter of John. It has been dubbed by many Biblical scholars as the “Bread of Life Discourse,” which has inspired many Communion hymns, even though the author does not even mention Jesus establishing the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Even so, I believe that the author of John’s Gospel clearly understood the significance of the Eucharist to the worship and spiritual life of the church, and the faith life of every Christian. And as we progress through these lessons from the sixth chapter of John, it is my hope that they might help us grow in our appreciation and understanding, not only of the Eucharist, but also of God’s redeeming grace which we receive through Jesus the Christ.
Since our lessons comprise a continuous reading of this chapter in John’s Gospel, I would like to briefly recall last Sunday’s lesson. It began with the miracle of Jesus feeding some five thousand people with a young boy’s lunch, which consisted of five meager barley loaves, and two small fish. And after all of the people had eaten, the disciples gathered up twelve full baskets of leftovers.
It is a story that we should know well, for it is the only miracle that Jesus performed that is recorded in all four Gospels. But as I mentioned last week, the author of John’s Gospel is not content simply to tell us that Jesus was able to perform these miracles, he wants us to look beyond the miraculous event, to behold the significance of what the miracle reveals about Jesus. It is, for this reason, that John’s Gospel refers to these miraculous events as signs, events in the life of Jesus that reveal that he is the promised Messiah, the Christ, the very Son of God.
Then John tells us, that after Jesus had fed the multitude, the people began to recognize that Jesus “was indeed the prophet who was to come into the world,” that he was God’s promised Christ. But then John added this little phrase, that sets the stage for the rest of the chapter. John writes, “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”
That evening, the disciples got into a boat and departed for the other side of the Sea of Galilee. On their way, a storm enveloped, Jesus came to the rescue of his disciples, walking on water, and when they took him into the boat, they miraculously arrived at their destination, which brings us to our lesson for this morning. Seeing that Jesus and his disciples had gone, the crowd whom Jesus had fed get into boats and head across the sea to find him.
And when they did, Jesus told them, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perished, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
Now that’s a statement to ponder. It cuts right to the heart of the issue. It should make each and every one of us stop and think about why we are here this morning.
In the context of John’s Gospel, the people whom Jesus had miraculously fed that day by the Sea of Galilee, came to recognize that Jesus was God’s promised Christ, but they wanted to control him. They wanted to make him king, so that under his reign, they might be protected by his compassion for the people, and his ability to multiply the loaves. They were, in essence, thinking of themselves, and securing their own physical needs. They wanted Jesus to continue to perform his miracles, so that their life would be physically blessed.
And aren’t we often among that crowd? How often I have heard over the course of my ministry, persons express to me that they could not understand why they had to cope with a certain illness, or why they fell victim to a financial setback, or why a young Christian man or woman had to die so young. And I’m sure that we could add to this list a multitude of other questions that persons have asked.
Inherent in all of these questions is the basic, underlying assumption that since we are Christians, since we recognize that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and worship him on a regular basis, that we should somehow be protected from the setbacks and ills of this world. I’ve even heard some preachers in the media proclaim that if we truly worship Christ and have enough faith, we will profit and flourish in our earthly life.
So why are we here this morning? If we came to worship thinking that because Jesus was able to miraculously feed that hungry crowd that gathered on the hillside, satisfying their hunger, that he will, because of our devotion to him, continue to satisfy our hunger and the wants of our life, we have missed the point.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not trying to imply that Jesus wishes us to be hungry, or to suffer in any way. His entire ministry revealed that he was filled with compassion for those in need. And if his church is to carry on his ministry, to embody his presence to those around us, we must continue to express compassion for those in need.
However, if we really want to understand this sixth chapter of John, which uplifts Jesus as the Bread of Life, we cannot limit our thoughts by thinking in purely physical terms. We cannot simply be in awe of his ability to multiply the meager lunch of a young boy to feed over five thousand people. We have to begin to see this miraculous event as a sign that points us in another direction, to consider a different meaning.
As we progress through this chapter in John’s Gospel, it will become increasingly clear, that author wants us to move beyond the physical aspect of the miracle, beyond our Lord’s ability to physically feed the hungry, to physically multiply loaves of bread, to inspire us to encounter Jesus AS the “Bread of Life.” John wants us to recognize that Jesus is able to feed us with heavenly food, food that nourishes us in our relationship with God.
The truth is, this chapter in John’s Gospel is not about us, and our physical needs, as much as it is about Jesus – who he truly is, and his ability to feed us in faith. When Jesus said in the closing verse from our text, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” he was not speaking in terms of meeting our physical needs.
Rather, Jesus was speaking in terms of feeding us and nourishing us in our relationship with God. He was not saying, that if you believe in me and worship me on a regular basis, you will never experience physical hunger. He was not saying that we need not worry about our physical needs any longer. He was saying, however, that those of us who come to him, believe in him, will be satisfied in our hunger to know God, and to experience his forgiving grace.
Amen.
