The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
“How can this be?” That’s essentially the question that the scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees, really the whole crowd, had been asking as they listened to Jesus preach the Bread of Life sermon. By the time they got done with that sermon, there was a controversy. They were asking the “how” question: How can this be? How can this man give us His flesh? It’s a good question. It’s probably the first question that would come to our mind if we were in that crowd. And the sermon itself was a rather controversial sermon, both when it was first preached and even unto this day, as scholars from every Christian denomination — I’m talking about conservative biblical scholars — debate what exactly Jesus was saying and doing in John chapter 6.
The Bread of Life sermon is controversial for at least three fundamental reasons. First, the Bread of Life sermon in John chapter 6 is a sermon that defies human reason. And 2,000 years later, after Jesus first preached that sermon, the sermon still sparks debate among the most conservative and faithful exegetes in the world. If you and I had been there and heard Jesus say what He said about the Bread of Life that came down from heaven, and if we had heard Him say that anyone who eats that bread will be given life forever, and then we heard Him, after 30-plus verses, saying that the Bread of Life that He gives, for the life of the world, is in fact His flesh — we’d probably be asking the very same thing: “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” As a matter of fact, that’s still a pretty big topic, as you go through an adult new members class, or even the Small Catechism: How can bread and wine be body and blood of Jesus? Historically speaking, the “how” question has led to a host of problems and conflicts. How can bread and wine also be the body and blood of the Son of God? How can the bread and wine become body and blood of the crucified and resurrected Christ, and impart life eternal to the one who eats and drinks of it?
There’s basically three different answers. The Reformed answered the question by asserting that the elements of bread and wine are merely symbols, simply symbols of Christ’s presence in the church — that it’s not literally, or figuratively, really in any way the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Roman Catholics argue with a philosophical idea, which is now called the doctrine, the teaching, of transubstantiation. There, the bread and wine, they argue, cease to be bread and wine in their essence, and become the body and blood of Jesus Christ in its essence, even though the elements of the bread and the wine still appear to be the bread and wine. Lutherans try to explain the “how” question: that, sort of, in, with, and under the body and blood of Jesus Christ are, in, with, and under the elements of bread and wine.
Jesus, though, by His response to the “how” question, shows that the “how” question is the entirely wrong question to be asking in regard to the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion. The crowds asked “how,” right? Verse 52: “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'” But Jesus answers that “how” question with a “why.” 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 you.” Jesus doesn’t answer the “how” question. He doesn’t explain how it is that this bread and wine become the body and blood of Himself, Jesus Christ, His flesh, for these people to eat. He doesn’t say how He goes about changing the one thing to the other thing. He answers the “why” question: Why does this man give us His flesh to eat? The reason, Jesus says, is simple. Why does He do it? Because without His flesh and blood to eat and drink, we do not have life in Christ, and Christ doesn’t have life in us. That’s the answer. That’s the “why” question. That’s the question that really matters: Why is He giving us this flesh and blood to eat and drink? In true Christian faith, it defies reason. The “how” is the wrong — how we go about getting it? No. It’s why it’s given to us. That’s what we ought to dwell on.
Second, the Bread of Life sermon seems to be irrational. To the crowd, it was also offensive, terribly offensive. When Jesus first preached the Bread of Life sermon, the only words the people knew about flesh and blood, eating and drinking, any kind of encouragement to, or prohibiting from, comes from the Law of Moses. Leviticus 7:26 and 27, there we read God telling the Israelites: “You are not to eat any blood, either of bird or animal, in any of your dwellings. And any person who eats any blood, even that person shall be cut off from his people.” It’s reiterated in a little more detail in Leviticus 17:10–12: “If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” Therefore I said to the people of Israel, “No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.” You see why? Because blood is life, and life is blood. The spilling of blood is the taking of life, and God wants to make it absolutely clear to all Christians, Old Testament and New Testament alike, that the shedding of blood, the taking of a life, is a very, very serious matter. Taking of life, taking or spilling the blood of a living being, was to be done only out of absolute necessity or true justice alone. God wanted to teach that each living thing has life because it has blood in it, and that that is the only suitable sacrifice for the atonement of sins. That’s what the word “atonement” means, by the way: it means a blood sacrifice to pay for sins. Eating flesh with blood in it could result in excommunication from the family of faith — from not only their genetic family, but from their friends and their communities, banishment from the synagogues and temple. Jesus said if people want to have life, they need to eat the flesh of His body. In fact, the Greek word used in John chapter 6 is kind of a unique word. Literally it means to chew on, or to gnaw on. It’s a very graphic and vivid picture that Jesus is painting for Jews who are offended at the mere idea that you eat flesh with blood in it. That language, and the message of the whole sermon, went against the religious doctrine, in their view, of the Old Testament and of conventional wisdom. It was downright offensive.
Third, the “how” question betrayed what they actually thought about Jesus the Nazarene. They asked, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” For them, that’s all Jesus was: He was an ordinary man. Earlier in John chapter 6, we got a little taste of their disbelief in verses 41 and 42: “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”?’ For them, Jesus was not the Son of God, the Holy One, the promised Messiah in the flesh. To them, Jesus was a man — a prophet, yes, and obviously a miracle worker, but still just another man. For them, Jesus’ words and doctrine were not words and doctrine of the Son of God. They were simply opinions and words from yet another itinerant preacher that was passing through their town. They did not believe that Jesus came from heaven, and they didn’t believe that He could give His body and blood, in the flesh, for anyone to eat and to drink.
But you see, you and I are here in this place because you and I have been given by God’s grace true Christian faith. And on understanding, shallow as it may be, we also know that on account of our sinful condition, we’re mortals, and we will die and depart this veil of tears. We know that we do not have eternal life in us, in ourselves, apart from that which is given to us in Christ. We know that the wages of sin is death, and that we are, in fact, sinners. But we also know that the gift of eternal life is a gift from God by faith in Jesus Christ. Even though we do not understand how our Lord gives us, in any kind of real depth and detail, His body and blood as our true food and drink, of faith, in faith, for the life of the world, we know and believe that He gives Himself to us as the Bread of Life who came down from heaven, because the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, said so Himself. And if God says it, so it is, regardless of whether we understand the “how” of how it’s done. At the same time, we live with temptation to doubt, and to be confused, over articles of faith that remain, to one degree or another, a mystery — which, by the way, the word “sacrament” ultimately means. Its heritage is a mystery. We can’t really explain “how.” You don’t explain a “how” in a mystery. You simply receive it by faith — in this case, true Christian faith in what God says He does there at the communion rail.
We all, to one degree or another, want to be wise. That’s the Old Testament lesson. But we constantly fall prey to the philosophies and thinking of our age, even though the Bible repeatedly cautions us, like the Epistle, not to be partners of the world, not to think like the world, not to act like the world, not to be children of darkness like the world, but rather to be different, children of light. Colossians 2:8 says it this way: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” Or my personal favorite: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Under the pretext of wisdom and understanding, Satan tempts us to believe that we’re entitled to know more about the “how” of God’s mysteries that He gives to us. We think that we’re entitled to understand, or that we in fact do understand, more than most others. Somehow we know better than God when it comes to His work in our lives and in the world. This is, of course, a lie, the exact opposite of wisdom, as the Old Testament text points out. It is, in fact, foolishness before God. Real wisdom, godly wisdom, begins — the Proverb says — with the fear of the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” Wisdom begins with fearing God: fear in the sense of being truly humble by the presence of God, fear in the sense of honoring Him, bowing down before Him as Lord and God, the One who exists before everything, and the One who brought everything that does exist into existence, the Giver of all that is good, the just Lawmaker, and the forgiver of all our sins. Wisdom begins with understanding and accepting that God’s ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts. Wisdom, then, is really simply an act of faith. It’s trusting God’s Word, and trusting God to fulfill all the promises He has given to His children in both the Old and New Testament texts.
Thus verse 54: “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” That’s the “why.” “And I will raise him up on the last day.” Doesn’t tell us how He’s going to go about doing that, just that He does. “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” In the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus, the real wisdom of God, is setting the table for you, and inviting you to come, sit, and eat. Partake of His holy meal, which consists of His body and blood, and His promises in His words. He offers to fill you with goodness and love and forgiveness. He offers His life to you, so that you will live eternally. He offers you freely everything that He’s won in His perfect life, in His sacrificial, atoning death on the cross, in His resurrection, and even in His ascension.
The Bread of Life was so offensive and irrational to the people, many walked away from the source of true wisdom, God Himself in human flesh. Verse 64: “But there are some of you who do not believe.” “For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe.” “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father.” And “after this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.” In their own wisdom, and their own self-righteousness, and their own outrage, they walked away from Christ and all His gifts. Look at what they left on, literally, the table, as they walked away from Christ. They left the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, a heavenly mansion, the resurrection on the last day, abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in them, living for Him in true peace and joy and love, and the wisdom that comes down from above, which has taken on human flesh. Faith, on the other hand, it clings to Christ’s words, to His doctrines, to His work, to His life, to His person, the Son of God, to His flesh, Son of God, Son of Man. As people began to walk away from Jesus, He turned to His own disciples and asked them the “what” question: “Do you want to go away as well?” In other words, what do you want to do now? And Peter, he answers on behalf of the other eleven: “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.” Throughout their time, the disciples, as you know, struggled to believe. Peter sank in the waters because belief fled from his heart and his mind. They struggled to understand: “These are hard words. How can we possibly understand?” They struggled to believe His doctrine, that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. More often than not, their faith failed. But in this moment, by God’s grace, they trusted Christ’s doctrine and His words. They believed what He said about eating and drinking His body and blood. And so it is with us. We often struggle to understand. We struggle to believe. We struggle against doubt, and we question: what does this mean? But thanks be to God, we, by His grace and the working of the Holy Spirit, like Peter and the other disciples, have come to believe and know that Jesus Christ is the Holy One of God, who gives us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. Why? Because that is for the life of the world. And for us, there is no life apart from Christ. But with Him, and in Him, we have the life that lasts forever, for our sins are forgiven, and particularly in the holy meal, Holy Communion. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.