The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
John 6:51 “‘I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world also is My flesh.’ 52 Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?’ 53 So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, the one who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread that came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died; the one who eats this bread will live forever. bread which I will give for the life of the world also is My flesh.’” (NASB)
This is the third consecutive Sunday in John 6. As I mention a couple of Sundays ago, John chapter six contains Jesus’s longest, most theologically packed, and controversial sermon. Scholars call it “The Bread of Life Discourse.”
Up until the reformation period, it was generally thought to be a sermon that is Eucharistic in nature. That is, Jesus was preaching about His bodily presence in the Lord’s Supper and eat and drinking Holy Communion in true Christian faith.
That understanding of the Bread of Life discourse is a source of lively debate, even between Lutherans. Some have come to the conclusion that Jesus is talking about faith, specificially about faith in His atoning death. Others see this as a sermon about partaking in the Sacrament of the Altar, eating and drinking His body and blood in faith.
In his commentary, Dr. William Weinrich notes that the Apostolic Fathers didn’t have an interest in debating the question. They were generally united in their understanding. For example Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrystotom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia “interpreted John 6 as Eucharistic discourse.” (William C. Weinrich, John 1:1–7:1 [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015], 740; see also 740–53).
Also know that of all Christ’s sermons, this one was the most offensive sermon He preached. It was so offensive on so many levels that everyone who heard it at the time was offended. Friends and foes alike. They were offended because of what Jesus said, the words and grammar He used, and the sermon’s concrete nature.
Generally speaking people don’t get offended by the abstract. For example they aren’t offended by appeals to wisdom. Enter the Old Testament reading for this morning, Proverbs 9. People don’t take use with wisdom or the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 9. Wisdom is a better than foolishness. There is general agreement on this point, as long as we don’t go about defining what is wisdom and what is foolishness. 1 “Wisdom has built her house . . . 3 She has sent out her attendants, she calls out From the tops of the heights of the city: 4 “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks understanding she says, 5 “Come, eat of my food And drink of the wine I have mixed. (1, 3, 4)
Just fill in the blanks as to what you think “wisdom” is. Wisdom is good judge of character. Wisdom is being wise in the ways of the world. Wisdom is being political savvy or possessing a business acumen. As long as we don’t vest wisdom with the doctrines, morality, and history of the Bible and turn it into something else than opinion, no one is really offended.
Most people will even give a nod to the beginning part of 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” as long as wisdom remains largely undefined and abstract.
So also with the word “life” or “live.” The crowd in John 6 certainly wanted to live, which is why they were glad to have all the free loaves. They wanted life, but they thought of only material and physical life.
But the live that wells up into eternal life, the life that Jesus came to give is something so much more than that. Do you remember Jesus’s reply to the devil in the first wilderness temptation. “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
When wisdom and life are concrete realities, like the words of God written in the Bible, spoken from the pulpit, taught in the classroom, shared between peoples, and especially when wisdom and life are in the Word that became flesh—a person!—then people take offense.
“Wisdom” in Proverbs 9—and elsewhere in the Book of Proverbs—has been seen by many as a reference to the eternal Son of God. In Proverbs 9, Wisdom is referred to in the feminine; her and she. This is thought to be the wisdom of the church and the wisdom of the church is Christ. The church is the bride of Christ. The Wisdom of the church is expressed in the Word of God and we know what our culture and the world things of the teachings of the Bible.
10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Christ alone has knowledge of the Holy One, as Jesus Himself said. (John 12:49-50) “For I did not speak on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. And I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”
Jesus then is the One who teaches us that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But the kind of fear Jesus gives and teaches is not terror, fear of God’s eternal judgment. “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” (John 12:47)
It is the kind of fear is synonymous with the word honor. It is the kind of fear that the Small Catechism teaches. “Thus shall have no other gods before Me. “What does this mean?” “We are fear, love, and trust God above all else.”
Jesus was and is the Wisdom that comes down from above. Jesus is also the
Author and Giver of life. He gives His Word. The Spirit, and His Life to all those who believe. John 6:63; “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh provides no benefit; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and are life.”
Nothing could be more offensive to the Hebrew ear than to hear Jesus tell friend and foe alike that He is the “living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world also is My flesh. . .‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.”
Even many of Jesus’s own disciples said, (60) “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (66) “After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.” The literal Greek construction is this, His disciples “went away to the things behind.” They returned to a life without the Christ. They could not bear His words. That happens a lot, especially these days.
People like the idea of Jesus. They like Jesus in the abstract, but they don’t like His words. They don’t like His religious teachings. They don’t like Christian doctrine or morality. When they actually learn accidently or otherwise what Jesus and the Bible actually teach about salvation, sin, morality, and theology, when they actually hear the Law and the Gospel they in one way or another go away to the things behind, to the former things, to a life without Real Life.
Think of the story of Lot and his wife as they fled Sodom and Gomorrah. She “turned back” the Old Testament tells us, in apostasy and was turned into a pillar of salt (Gen 19:23–29).
Jesus was using some very descriptive Greek words to describe what kind of eating was necessary. This type of eating directly implied that Jesus would have to be slain and that He was offering His body and blood as a necessary food.
The Jews did not misunderstand. They understood Him all too well. His admonition was scandalous. In the Gospel of John the explicit mention of “blood” only occurs here and in Jn 19:34 as the water and blood flow from Jesus’s side.
“In this way the evangelist makes evident that this passage on the ‘eating’ of Christ’s ‘flesh’ and the ‘drinking’ of his ‘blood’ is not to be interpreted apart from his death.” (Weinrich, 733).
In Luther’s day there was a Muslim scholar who wrote, “Christians are the most malicious, despicable, and blasphemous people on earth; for they eat their God as the way of showing honor. Luther replied to this criticism in His commentary on John. “This doctrine, [the doctrine that one must eat and drink Christ] sounds ridiculous to reason if one does not hold to God’s Word. But it is better for us to eat our God than for the devil to eat us… Before we can accept this, we must be convinced in our hearts that He is God and the life, yes, the food and bread of life; and we must not look for God outside this person.”
By God’s grace alone, you know this wisdom and the life, Christ Jesus. The Jews heard the words of Jesus and they were offended. They turned away. He had gone too far. Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69)
In John 14 Jesus told His disciples that He was going to “prepare a place for [them and that He], would come again and will take [them] to Himself that where He was they would be also. He added, 4 “‘And you know the way to where I am going.’5 Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
This is the Wisdom that comes down from above. By His Word that is preached to you have Spirit, truth, and life. By your Baptism into His death and resurrection you have eternal life. By His Supper feeding you on His flesh and blood you abide in Him and He in you.
“Wisdom has built her house,” the Holy Christian Church on earth (Prov 9:1a).
Christ has hewn out His seven pillars, the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the Church (Prov 9:1b; 1 Cor 12:4–10).
He has prepared his food for you by the slaughter of Himself (Prov 9:2a).
He has mixed His wine with the blood and water which flowed from His side (Prov 9:2b, 5; Jn 19:34; see 6:54–58).
He has prepared His table for you (Prov 9:2c).
In this sermon Jesus teaches five great doctrines of the Christian faith. First, Jesus is God, Immanuel–God is with us. He Wisdom came down out of heaven.
Second, Jesus gave His flesh on the cross for the sin of the world. “The bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
Third, that those who believe in Him receive the forgiveness of sin and life eternal. The forgiveness of sin is for them. (50) “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.”
Fourth, that all those who live and die in Christ will be raised up on the last day.
Fifth, all this comes to us not because we decided Jesus was worth our trust. Not because we chose Him. But all this is ours because God the Father have drawn us to Christ. That’s from last week’s Gospel lesson John 6:44: “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Jesus Christ is, was, and always has been the Holy One of God. He comes from the Father that way—always has and always will. And the reason He comes from the Father and descends to earth is to make you a holy one too, to conform you to His image, and to give you the title of a Holy One of God that makes you a son and heir of eternal life in the kingdom of heaven–the name of the Father, & of the + Son, & of the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus. Amen.