A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on August 8, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on John 6:35-51. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to John, the 6th chapter:
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Jesus last week revealed Himself to be the fulfillment of the promise of manna from heaven, that He is the bread of life, and that whoever comes to Him shall not hunger nor thirst. That coming isn’t a finding of Him out in the wilderness or inside your own feelings, but that coming to Him is a believing in Him, a gift of faith given by God Himself. You cannot come to Jesus on your own; you must be drawn, and drawn by His Word, drawn by His promises. And so it is that you have gathered here once more, drawn by our Lord, that you might receive Him by faith.
The people gathered around Jesus were not drawn by faith, but by the satisfaction of their bellies. They come because Jesus fed them in the wilderness. But you have come because He has fed you at a table set before your enemies. He satisfied their hunger, but He has given you that which satisfies forever. The feeding of the 5,000 wasn’t about some miraculous thing that Jesus could do, but rather that it pointed to Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise that the Father would feed His people on the bread from heaven, which is Jesus Himself. And so, Jesus gives the world Himself. Willingly He went to the cross. Willingly He laid His life down. Willingly, He gives for the entire world His flesh, that we might eat of Him and have life. He follows the will of the Father in all of this.
The Father has sent His Son just as He sent manna and quail into the Israelite camp. He sends what we need in order to be fed, in order that we might live, in order that we might give thanks to God for His provision. After all, it pleases God to receive our sacrifice of thanks and praise for all that He has done for us. It pleases God to hear us recognize His gifts. And He has given us so much, hasn’t He? Every material thing we have is from the hand of God, and still He gives us more.
Yet, the Lord is not satisfied in giving us the material things of this world. It is true that we shall inherit it all, but He doesn’t stop with the material. He gives us that which lasts forever. He gives us that which goes beyond the material. He gives us His Son, the divine Son of God who takes on human flesh that He might give us His divinity. Not that we become God if we are in Jesus, but that we become more and more like God. We look more and more like Christ. Because He has taken humanity into Himself, Christ has bound Himself to His creation forever, and thus, in His death, promises to redeem us all.
He hasn’t taken part of humanity, He’s taken it all. It’s not like He condemns people with certain ear shapes, or height, or nationality, or gender. He takes all of what it is to be human into Himself. When He then lays His life down, it is humanity that He is redeeming. He stands in for you and all creation in His death, because He is you, He is one of us. When He dies, it is enough to satisfy the payment for sin, and so He redeems you and all humanity. Of course, we know that only those who believe in Him will have eternal life, but the call to believe in Him is for every person. There is not one for whom Christ did not die; all belong to Him. Yet, for those who believe in Him, by the power of the Spirit, Christ will raise us up on the last day.
Interestingly, the Jews who heard Christ say this weren’t offended at His doing the Father’s will; they were offended that He called Himself the bread come down from heaven. They thought two things, first that He was lying as His father, Joseph, and mother, Mary, were well knows. The second is that Jesus was claiming that the manna wasn’t enough. For the Jews, they held the story of the manna in highest regard, that their God took care of them, their people, by this miraculous incursion into creation. That Jesus would say it was only a sign for what would come in Himself, it was an affront. It’s like if the Suns decided the NBA trophy was theirs because they are the ones the Bucks had to play against. It’s like if the Vikings claimed every Lombardi trophy was theirs because the Packers had to beat them every year. Jesus offended them by telling them that He was the fulfillment of the sign.
But it didn’t bother Jesus. Jesus knew they were rejecting Him. They had been warned for centuries in the Word of God what was to be. They should have known that the prophets had told them that the Messiah was coming, and when He did, He would teach them all things. What would the Messiah have to teach them if their history was enough? Instead, their Messiah would have to show them how all the law and the Prophets were about Him. And this was a great offense because Jesus was calling them ignorant unbelievers. And so they were.
These unbelievers wanted Jesus to feed them so they weren’t hungry. They wanted Him to feed them so they could live with no issues, with no work. But, they refused to see how Jesus would do that, by giving His flesh for the life of the world. They refused to understand Him. They refused to listen, and next week, we’ll hear how they walk away from Jesus, almost cursing His name.
But it is not so for you. Jesus has called you, He has drawn you to this place that you might believe in Him. And here, He feeds you with His Word and Sacrament. He gives you Himself through the hearing of His Word, through the forgiveness of sins, through listening to Him, through meditating upon Him and His work for you. And He gives you Himself by washing you in the waters of Baptism, that you might have a clean conscience before Him, that you might have faith in Him. And He gives you Himself by feeding you through His flesh and blood, that you might be forgiven of all your sins and that you would be strengthened until that day that He raises you from the dead.
The food He gave the Jews in the wilderness satisfied them for a time, but the food you receive here in your mouths and in your ears goes into your bones, and preserves you like salt, even though you rot away in the ground. He gives you something greater than food which lasts through the night. He gives you food that lasts through your death. The food you eat today ensures that you shall not die.
It is true that, unless Jesus returns first, you shall enter into your grave and await the day of resurrection. But, if you are in Christ, you have already died once and that is enough. In your Baptism, you are buried into His death. After all, the death He died is for you. In His humanity, His death was for you. And you are raised to new life in Him in the same sacrament. You have already died once. You will not die again. You have already died once to sin, just as Christ died for the world. You will not die in that punishment again. Instead, you shall sleep. You will fall asleep in Christ, waiting for Him to wake you at His return.
The image is a beautiful one, that we close our eyes in this life and open them in the next. It’s as easy as falling asleep in the dark and awaking with the morning light. And what joy we will have when our faith in Christ is vindicated that day. All that we trusted in has come true. All that we believed is true. All of God’s promises in Christ are yes and amen. We will find that He has preserved us forever, and that we shall die no more. We shall find that He has been with us always, and we will never be apart from Him.
And all this because He laid His life down for you. All of this because He took your humanity to Himself. All of this because He bore the punishment that brought you peace. All of this because He gives you Himself that you might be forgiven, that you might be strengthened, that you might believe in Him forever and ever. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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