No Other Words But His
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

John 6:60-69
(September 14, 2003 sermon transcript)

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        This is the text. Please be seated.

        As we journey through life, there are certain words that tend to bring frustration, sometimes anxiety, perhaps even anger from time to time. You know some of them by heart! For instance, "How much further is it, Daddy?", or perhaps, "May I see your driver’s license please?" Or maybe, "We’ve never done it that way before!" gets your dander up and gets you frustrated. Or perhaps, if you are a student in school, or have been, you’ll remember these dreaded and awful words, "Please take out a piece of paper for a pop quiz."

        There are words that do get us where we live, and do get our attention, and do create frustration.

        In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus speaks about words that He had just spoken, that we heard last week. That He is the bread of life who comes down out of heaven. And if you will know the Father you will eat my flesh and drink my blood. And these words were offensive and caused anger and frustration for many of those who heard Him say them.

        In fact, many are incredulous. And many are so offended that they leave, and do not follow Him any longer.

        Many, then and now, are frustrated at these words of Jesus. To be sure, Jesus had many followers during His early ministry. We are told time and time again in the scriptures that great were the numbers of people who came out. And many people followed Him, not just the Twelve. But many, many disciples. They had high hopes for this man who was known as Jesus of Nazareth.

        Indeed, here was a man, they reasoned, who had real power! Here was a man who could lift the heel of Roman oppression off the necks of the Israelites at last. Here was a man, they thought, who could heal diseases with a word, and feed the multitudes with a few loaves and even fewer fish. Here was a man, they thought, that they had hoped for, and longed for, and who could meet every last one of their felt needs.

        But regardless of how impressed they had been, these words of Jesus were puzzling and offensive to them. Instead of pointing to earthly solutions, Jesus had this nasty habit of always pointing to Himself. Instead of dealing with people’s felt needs, He pointed them instead to God’s exclusive answer to man’s alienation from the Father. In other words, He said, "I am the bread of life that came down out of heaven." We read it throughout all of John chapter 6. We read, For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. (38) For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (40) I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." (51)

        People wanted an earthly provider, but He wanted them to see the one true source of eternal life. People wanted to have Him meet their earthly expectations, but that didn’t seem to be on Jesus’ agenda. And frustrated, well, they simply turned away and voted with their feet and left.

        Things, I would submit to you, haven’t changed much. Indeed, today many are eagerly wanting to follow Jesus, but end up frustrated and offended by who He is and what He has said.

        Sometimes we just want God not to be too terribly close to us! We prefer to think of Him, at times, the "big man upstairs". Someone harmlessly at arm’s length. Someone not terribly involved with our lives. But, of course, when time of need arises, we want Him johnny-on-the-spot! We want Him to come down and make sure that He can fix it, and make everything all right. We want someone who will provide earthly solutions for our very real earthly problems, and someone who will help us fulfill all our dreams and hopes.

        Some would think that their relationship with Christ is, I suppose, like that old quiz show "Let’s Make a Deal!" "Lord, if I could just have what’s behind door number two, then I assure you I will believe in you and serve you!" And so, our faithfulness becomes conditional on how well our felt needs are met.

        As a result of this perceived failure on Jesus’ part, when difficulties come, and trials and traumas knock the socks off people in their daily lives, many people still vote with their feet, and head out the doors of the church never to return again.

        Well, I would suggest that we listen to the words of Jesus. For He is providing for us more than we could ever hope for or expect. For instance, first know that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the words that He provides, are utterly unique. And they are utterly unique precisely because of who He is. They are unique because of who it is who speaks them. They are the words of the one who is the Holy One of God. They are the words of the one who is the Bread of Life from Heaven. They are the words of the one who is the Christ, who is the Son of the Living God! They are not your run-of-the-mill words!

        For indeed, when Jesus speaks, it is the voice of God that we hear.

        He is not merely a prophet. He is not merely one who is a great teacher. Those accolades have been given Him. But in giving them, perhaps with the best of intentions, people have denigrated Him and discounted Him, and made His words less, far less, than they are.

        It might be pointed out too that Jesus is always pointing out the fact that the Who that speaks the words, the Who that heals the sick, the Who whose hands feed the multitudes, is in fact, more important than the miracles that are done. For the miracles are only those things which point out who it is that does them! (As well as to alleviate human need.)

        We might also think of the words being unique because of the life that they bring! What other words can bring life, I would ask! His words tell us of His sinless life. They tell us that He is pleased to give sinners His own righteousness, even though we have neither earned it nor deserve it.

        God gives us the righteousness of His Son as our own possession, even though we have no have righteousness of our own. For the scriptures clearly tell us that we are nothing but poor, miserable sinners. Yet we possess, as a free gift, the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

        And what’s more, His words tell us of that great and inestimable payment which He has rendered for the sins of the world. For your sins, and for mine. Even though we didn’t deserve such a payment either, let alone the righteousness He gives.

        And His words tell us of God in human flesh, laid into a stone-cold tomb. And as we consider God with rigor mortis, lying in that tomb dead, we begin to understand the nature and gravity, the true essence, of how awful sin really is, and the payment demanded for its recompense. And these words tell us of the glorious light that shines from a tomb that was not occupied for very long! For indeed, the sins of the world could not hold the sinless Christ. And the words that we hear in the scriptures that Jesus speaks to us are those words which assure us that His victory over death and the grave is also our own victory over death and the grave.

        You see, His words are for believing. God does not either expect, nor can it even be true, that we can understand exactly how God does everything, or why He does what He does. There is always in the Christian faith, of course, exactly that. Faith.

        I’ve told some of you before that I have a topical Bible in my library. And if you look up "faith", it says, "See trust". Faith is trust precisely in things we do not fully comprehend. Faith is precisely trust in things that we cannot adequately see or understand.

        And so, God comes to us, and He says, "Have faith in my words." Have faith in the promises that God tells us are connected with our baptisms. That we will receive the forgiveness of sins, and indeed have the presence of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling presence as part of who we are, by God’s great power and mercy.

        To have faith in the words that the preacher speaks that are in harmony with His word. When He says to you what God says, then have faith that God’s word is being preached, and it is powerful and enriching to your life, as well as to my own.

        And we are to have faith when God tells us through His words that mere bread and wine is indeed also the very body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and brings with it all that His body and blood has purchased and won for us at great and terrible cost.

        Listen to the words. Listen to the words, for His words are both a reflection of Himself, and a reflection of His uniqueness. For both who He is and what He says are utterly true and utterly dependable.

        I would ask, what other words would you depend on, if not the word of God? Would you prefer to let the basis and foundation of your life be the words of Plato, or Aristotle? How about John Locke, or Descartes? Carl Sagan perhaps? Take your pick! Is that where you want to let your life depend? Is that the bedrock upon which your foundation is laid? Well, how about the words of Buddha? Or Mohammed? Or Joseph Smith? Or Mary Baker Eddy? Or any of a number of people who have not pointed people toward Christ, but rather, point away from Him and point instead to one’s own performance and good works for hope and life, rather than to Christ.

        Let me tell you. They do not have the words of eternal life. They have words that lead only to eternal death. They and many others.

        No, St. Peter got it right. He said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You (and I might add, parenthetically, "you alone") have the words of eternal life (68)

        We need not be offended by this truth. We need not be skeptical about it. We need not have doubt about it. For this truth about who Jesus is, and why He has come, is a God-given demonstration of all that we hoped our God would be! That He would be a God who exhibits His love ever so clearly on the cross and in the empty tomb. He is a God whose words exhibit compassion and love. And He is the God who gives Himself, self-sacrificially, for us.

        These are the words of eternal life. And you will find them spoken by no one else.

        Perhaps you’ve been angry, and frustrated with God. Perhaps the frustrations of life have crowded in around you, and you find yourself at this particular moment (or some other moment in time that will most assuredly come) feeling as though God had abandoned you. If that is the case, my friends, please understand. God is faithful. And He will speak His word of eternal life to you now, and at any time of trial in the future. And that that word, even in the midst of trial, will strengthen us for the facing of such an hour.

        And His strength, when our own is inadequate, will be sufficient for you, as it is for me.

        Perhaps you have listened hard to voices. Voices which speak words that are not the words of God. And have thought they perhaps have contained truth, only to discover later on that it was not so. Then all I can say is, "There is one who is the Bread of Life who comes down from heaven who will feed you with eternal truth, with words that give eternal life, and with words that are inevitably, and invariably true. Therefore, listen to the One who is the bread of life from heaven. Hear His words and eat them. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. For there is no other bread from heaven, other than that of Christ." In Jesus’ name, Amen.