Rev. Cary M. Richert

11^th Sunday after Pentecost (B)

August 20, 2006

True Bread from Heaven

John 6:24-35

Growing up in Frankenmuth, we lived only a few blocks from the Bavarian Inn.  When I was old enough – and, I suppose, trustworthy enough! – my mother would send me with a couple dollars to buy a loaf of bread from the bakery at the restaurant.  I’d hop on my wide-tired, red Schwinn bike and make the short ride past the Carling Brewery, over the muddy old Cass River, and just a stone’s throw north of the old Hubinger Lumber yard to the Bavarian Inn.  I’d go into the bakery, inhale a deep smell of freshly baked bread, squeeze a few loaves – as if I knew what I was doing! – pick one out, pay for it and ride back home.  Mom would always say, “This one’s just right!”

Six times in today’s Gospel Reading Jesus refers to bread.  Twice it refers to the “miracle bread” of manna that God graciously provided the children of Israel as they made their way through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land.  The other four times it refers to Jesus Himself ... His coming in the flesh and His saving work carried out in the flesh then and now.

We find Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum the day after He miraculously fed the 5,000.  The crowd of the day before was excited to find the Lord ... and engaged Him in a discussion that He used to teach an important lesson about true nourishment ... nourishment of the soul.

Jesus stuns, perhaps even angers, them by exposing their true reasons for following Him:  Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled, [v. 26].  The only-begotten Son of the Father knew their hearts even better than they knew themselves.  They weren’t interested in His being the in-the-flesh Son of God, the Messiah of whom their prophets spoke, the One who was for them the food which endures to eternal life, [v. 27].  They saw in Jesus an earthly “bread-king” ... someone who’d forever fill their bellies.

God forbid that we should see Jesus in the same way!  That our stomach is our god and our highest goals and desires are set in earthly things. That we see in Jesus a magical genie who fulfils all our wishes and makes our lives unfold as we want them to.  About this sinful tendency, Martin Luther wrote:

Even today this misconception (of Jesus as an earthly  “bread-king”) is so prevalent and pronounced that I have almost grown weary of preaching and teaching ... When people hear that Christ wants to direct them away from bread and money to the Gospel, from the field and the earth to heaven, they are displeased, and they desert Him.  For flesh and blood is interested only in bodily nourishment.  In fact, the entire world seeks nothing but money and goods, bread and beer. ⁽¹⁾

 

Earthly bread that perishes ... bread such as wealth, status, intelligence, popularity ... is no substitute for food that endures to eternal life, [v. 27].  And the food that endures to eternal life is Jesus Christ in the flesh, the true Bread from heaven, the Bread of life, [v. 35].  The heavenly food, for which we ought to be most grateful and for which we strive most earnestly to receive.  Yet, apart from faith all our striving to receive and remain close to Jesus ... to nourish our hungry and thirsty spirits ... to find identity, meaning and purpose in our living ... all of it is in vain.  As temporary as the ancient manna was to God’s people, [Joshua 5:10-12].

Faith, forgiveness and salvation are gifts, gracious works of God ... accomplished for us by the true Bread from heaven, as Jesus teaches us: This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent, [v. 29].  Lutherans have a unique understanding of this important article of faith!  Writing on Free Will  in the Formula of Concord, our Lutheran fathers noted:

Holy Scriptures ascribe conversion, faith in Christ, (spiritual) regeneration and renewal, and everything that belongs to its real beginning and completion in no way to the human powers of the natural free will, be it entirely or one-half or the least and tiniest part, but altogether and alone to the divine operation of the Holy Spirit. ⁽²⁾

The Jews of Jesus’ day seemed obsessed with Moses ... with the Law ... with human striving to obtain God’s favor and His salvation?  This, too, is “bread” that perishes ... food that doesn’t endure to eternal life, [v. 27].  Try as you might, you simply can’t earn – nor do any of us deserve – God’s favor and His salvation.  For, even our most earnest and pious attempts are, in the end, nothing better in the eyes of God than filthy rags, [Isaiah 64:6].  They merit nothing of His grace, His forgiveness, His salvation ... no matter how good they may seem to you and others!

Satan tempts us to ask the very same question of our Lord that the ancient Jews asked Him: What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God, [v. 28]?  They were thinking of the legalisms of the Law.  Remember the rich young man’s question to Jesus: What good thing must I do to get eternal life, [Matthew 19:16]?  This temptation appeals to our human idea of merit or payment for effort and achievement.  In our self-centered, sinful nature we want to create our own personal strategies for finding God and getting eternal life.  We want to bake our own spiritual bread with a recipe of our making.

Faith in Jesus Christ, the true Bread from heaven, is the work of God that leads to eternal life.  Jesus, the true Bread of Life from heaven, teaches of God’s grace, not sinful man’s works.  God’s grace ... demonstrated in sending His only-begotten Son, Jesus, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, [Galatians 4:4-5].  God’s grace ... demonstrated in calling you by the Gospel into His kingdom through Holy Baptism, where you received His gifts of faith, forgiveness, and salvation.  God’s grace ... demonstrated in His coming to you personally as the Bread of Life in Holy Communion, where your sins are forgiven and your faith is strengthened.

In one of the 7 great “I am” statements of John’s Gospel, Jesus says:  I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst, [v. 35].  To come to Christ ... to eat the Living Bread from Heaven ... is to believe in Him alone as your Savior from sin.  And so, today in faith, we cry out, as the ancient people surrounding Jesus did:  Sir, give us this bread always, [v. 34].  And, as Luther wrote, Jesus replies: