Come, Taste the Living Bread from Heaven
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

John 6:41-51
(August 31, 2003 Sermon Transcript)

Click here to listen to sermon audio recording

        Dear friends in Christ, dining out in a good restaurant is one of life’s pleasures. You get to eat food that you would normally not eat, and you it would be cooked in ways which you would normally not cook it. One of the great joys of being in a restaurant is to realize that you do not have to clean up the mess that had been made, either with the preparation or with the eating of the meal.

        And then there is gourmet dining! Now gourmet dining is fantastic because there you get to enjoy savory sauces that so enhance the meal that it is just an incredible experience. And to sip on wine which brings out and complements the food which you are about to eat. Yes, dining out is great fun! And greatly satisfying.

        But in this gospel reading which I just shared with you in part, Jesus offers food but not food that will satisfy for a while. Not food that will please our taste buds, even in a passing, if not exquisite way, but food that will make that which is prepared by the best gourmet chef in world seem utterly plain by design. For here He offers not merely for that will nourish the body, but rather He offers the bread of heaven that leads to eternal life.

        Then, having proclaimed that, He astounds people even more by telling them that He, Jesus, is that bread of life, whose flesh is given for the life of the world.

        To be sure, people throughout the world look for such spiritual food. The scriptures tell us that all men recognize the need for higher meaning in their lives. And there is a hunt on for God. And so we look at the scriptures and read that witness is given of that. In Romans 2(:14) we read,   (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show (listen carefully) that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

        People know, they know intrinsically, they know naturally, that there is a law. That there is something that has been established universally. It is written on our hearts. And then, little earlier in the same letter, St. Paul writes, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20) We might add, the scriptures also declare that it is only, The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." (Psalm 14:1), for it is known by everyone.

        In fact, scripture informs us that we human beings have been created in such a way that even in our fallen estate, having fallen into sin through the actions of our first parents in the garden of Eden, that we have what is left of the image of God in us. And a part of that is this sort of God-shaped hole that only God is able to fill. And so, what do we see, in culture after culture and nation and nation, in every corner of the world, altars are being built to this god or that, and the hunt for God continues.

        As a result we find this. Nature reveals, (how shall we say it), an incomplete but accurate picture of God. What it shows is the God who is incredibly powerful. What it shows is a God who is amazingly intelligent, beyond all measure and beyond all understanding. But also, it is inaccurate in that it oftentimes produces a mistaken notion, of an angry and vengeful god, who at his whim will crush and destroy through natural disasters, and who will crush and destroy through disease, and who will not intervene in the evil acts of men, at least the conclusion is so drawn.

        Well, we do not believe in a vengeful angry God. We do not believe in natural disasters which are caused by the actions of a divine hand. Because, and only because, the scriptures have informed us otherwise. You see, this inaccuracy of understanding who God is, is caused because people do not know the God beyond the natural revelation. They understand the God of nature, but what they need to know, to clarify the misunderstandings, is the God as He reveals Himself to be through His holy, inerrant, and infallible word, the scriptures, what we call, "The Bible". For only in the scriptures can it known of the terrible consequences of sin, which include, of course, the destruction of the relationship between God and His creation itself, which in turn brings upon us natural disasters and disease.

        It can only be known from the scriptures that if man wishes to engage in sin, then God, respecting the free will of man to walk another way, will not intervene, and will let man perpetrate evil if he so chooses. And only through the scriptures can it be known that as a result of mankind’s fall into sin that all of this has occurred. And only can it be known through the scriptures that disease, which was never God’s intent for human existence, also a result of that twisted creation, ruined by sin’s fall.

        And of course, only through God’s scriptures can we know salvation is ours! That God’s remedy has been sent for man’s sent. That His name is Jesus Christ! That truly He is, without any shadow of a doubt, the bread of life from heaven who brings eternal life.

        The scriptures, therefore, are absolutely essential for knowing the fullness of God!

        And so, the hunt for God, apart from the scriptures, is made from incomplete information, therefore spawning incomplete solutions. The desperate hunt for God then brings men to self-invented gods of their own design and engineering. And so God is reinvented in the image of human expectations. And people pick and choose what attributes of God they like, and discard those which they find distasteful.

        And so we enjoy thinking about the God who is love, and who is gracious, and who is compassionate. But many people in the world get squeamish at the God who is just, and the God who is holy, and the God who is righteous, and so they choose simply to believe that He has not those attributes.

        Still others dismiss any existence of God as being real, opting instead then, without even realizing it, to make themselves that which is divine. And to see themselves as the fount of all truth, and to understand human reason to be the proper arbiter of all understanding.

        Whether worshipping an idol or worshipping himself then, or even worshipping a self-invented god of some kind or another, the hunt for God apart from God’s word is a futile and self-destructive enterprise. Make no mistake about that.

        In stark contrast to the conjectures of men, hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ as He tells the Jews (and us) that He alone is the one true living bread that came down from heaven for the life of the world. Christ makes it crystal clear that no one will taste this bread leading to eternal life unless the Father brings them to Himself. He says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, (John 6:44) And with that simple, yet profound statement, our Lord turns on its head the attempted hunt for God.

        It turns out, after all, that man is not the hunter after all. Rather, it is God who engages in the hunt.

        C.S. Lewis, in his book, "Mere Christianity", wrote these words. He said, of his own conversion, "I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way around. He was the hunter and I was a deer. He stalked me like a redskin, took unerring aim and fired, and I am very grateful that is how the first meeting occurred. It forearms one against the subsequent fears that the whole thing was only wish-fulfillment. Something one didn’t wish for can hardly be that!", he wrote.

        Dear friends in Christ, may we say that it is true that every last human being, man, woman, and child, past, present and future, were it not for the divine intervention of God, His hunting of us, would have only lived and died and spent eternity in hell!

        "But", come the voices of protest, "We aren’t such bad people that we should be sent all to hell!" But such a comment belies the terrible reality of the nature of sin. It fails to understand that sin is not an occasional lapse of judgment here and there. But rather, sin is the condition into which humanity is born and conceived. We are, as we confessed, by nature sinful and unclean. And that this condition, this state of being, let alone our individual acts, completely destroys our relationship with God we otherwise might have had. Holiness, and righteousness will have no part of sin! Therefore, it was essential, it was absolutely necessary, it was critical, that God did what He did in the sending of His own son to hunt us down and to call us His own.

        And so He did. He did not stand far away, and aloof and removed from our terrible and lost condition. But rather, He became one of us. Taking on human flesh, the divine one walks in human shoes, and experiences human life, understands the nature of betrayal and the reality of hunger and thirst. Betrayed into the hands of those who would destroy Him, He is subjected to lashings and mockery and beatings, and yes, finally crucifixion. And as He undergoes all of these sufferings, all of them, He takes on His shoulders the terrible and unforgivable burden of our sin. And in a mystery which is so profound we cannot even begin to understand the depth of it, our sins are taken away from us and transplanted into our Lord Jesus Christ, who becomes sin for us. And through His death, we are redeemed. Our sin washed away. And God says its name about us no more.

        And then there is that grave. That God could even be dead, in a stone-cold tomb, is beyond our human functioning, beyond our ability to grasp. We’d say, "God can’t die!", and yet on the cross of calvary that is exactly what He did. But that tomb could not hold Him. That tomb could not embrace Him for more than three short days. And when He rises to life, we too know that in our end we too shall rise. And we too shall have the life that He died to give to us. And that we have it now! And that we shall have it forever. He is the bread of life that comes down from heaven, that if we eat of it we shall never die. For we shall live forever!

        When Jesus rose from the dead, He didn’t simply close the book and walk away and say, "See, it’s done now, I’ll see you later, at the end". Rather, He continues to feed us Himself. Every single time we gather for worship on a day like this, or on any other Sunday, or perhaps during Advent on Wednesdays, or during Lent on Wednesdays, any time we gather, we hear God speak His words of life. We hear God speak to us gathered around the devotional table at home. We hear Him speak when we come together for Bible study and grow in our understanding of the height and depth and breadth of His love for us. The more we eat of it, the more we taste of it, it only increases our hunger for more.

        God came to us. He hunted us down at the fount of Holy Baptism. Wherein the benefits of all that Jesus did were applied to us through that gracious water connected with God’s word, and we were given the gift of life, and established in the family of God.

        In just a few moments we will come to this table. This table prepared by Christ Himself.

        And as though you were receiving it from Christ’s hand itself, we will gather at the altar. Standing there, if you will, with all those who have preceded us and all the company of heaven. And we will taste, and we will receive, not a picture of Christ, not a symbol of Christ, we will receive Christ. And we will eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. And as one body we will know that we are the church. And that our sins once again are forgiven, and that that gracious giving of strength to live another day has been provided.

        How could it be that we could even begin to think that Christ has left town? And won’t come back until the end? No, He is with us. He speaks to us. He touches us. He is immanent. He is our Lord, today and forever. There is no sustenance which is more satisfying. There is no banquet which is better. There is absolutely no way in which we could possibly go to God in such a way that by our going we would create closeness with Him, but rather, He comes to us to embrace us with His grace. And to cleanse us with His forgiveness. And to let us feed on Him, now and forever. In Jesus’ name, Amen.