The 11th Sunday after Pentecost | 4 August 2024 | John 6:22-35 | Richard O. Johnson |

 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not gotten into the boat with his disciples but that his disciples had gone away alone. But some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6.24-35 NRSV)

Several years ago, my wife and I attended the wedding celebration of our son and his wife in China. “What is a Chinese wedding like?” was a question we often heard in the weeks after our return, and my answer usually included the phrase, “It’s mostly about food.” Every meal presented an abundance of food—familiar and unfamiliar (at least to me). The evening before the wedding there was a dinner which, if I counted correctly, included ten appetizers and then twelve courses! The evening after the wedding, we were treated to dinner in a restaurant that was a buffet—but what a buffet! The food stretched over three huge rooms, and there was everything you could imagine—Chinese food, of course, but also many other cuisines from hot dogs to pasta to ice cream. It was almost too much to take in—either visually or gastronomically!

We are working our way through John 6, where on the surface the buffet offered is a lot more meager. We heard about it last week: five loaves and two fish. Not much at all. And yet as it turns out, this is grandest feast imaginable. Those five loaves and two fish suddenly lead into the astonishing claim of Jesus: I am the Bread of Life!

Jesus, Bread of Life

This sixth chapter of John has been interpreted in different ways, but one of the most common approaches is to say that this is John’s discussion of the Eucharist, Holy Communion. John does not give us the story of the last supper—or to be more precise, he doesn’t include the institution of the Eucharist as part of what happens in the upper room. But as usual, John is more interested in the meaning of things than in simple events. And here, according to the most common Christian tradition, John is explaining the meaning of the sacrament. He is telling us what it means that Jesus is the Bread of Life, the true bread from heaven, the bread that leads those who have witnessed this miracle to say, “Give us this bread always.”

When we prepare the feast each Lord’s Day, the buffet consists of bread of wine—on the surface not much of a meal. But beneath the outward signs, it is a feast of incredible content. Let’s go back to what the catechism says: Here, in this meal, we receive three things: forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Let’s take a minute to consider each of those benefits.

Forgiveness

First, forgiveness of sins. This is for some a difficult place to start. Often I hear it said that the church—and perhaps particularly the Lutheran Church—talks too much about sin, that the emphasis on sin is a downer. Some years ago, I read a memoir by a woman who was formerly a Lutheran pastor, but who later claimed not to be a Christian, not even a believer in God. It was a sad tale, but as she told it, one of the primary things that drove her away from faith was her inability to believe that human beings are in bondage to sin. She had a rather more cheerful view of humanity, and this, she said, was at the foundation of what drove her away from the Christian faith. Too much talk about sin.

And that, of course, is what so many want to believe—really, it’s what we all want to believe. We want to believe that we are good people, that we love and serve God—if not perfectly, at least adequately. We do not want to think of ourselves as sinners. It is a real downer.

And in this we are not so different from any human beings throughout the history of humankind. But the Bible has a different opinion. There’s a great passage in Luther’s Large Catechism where he ponders those who do not feel the weight and seriousness of their own sin. “Believe the Scriptures!” he says. The Scriptures make our sinful nature abundantly clear. “They will not lie to you, and they know you better than you know yourself.” “In short,” Luther writes, “the less you feel your sins and infirmities, the more reason you have to go to the sacrament and seek a remedy.”

The problem is that so many of us can’t get past the acknowledgement of sin, and this can sometimes give to the Eucharist a rather somber cast. If you are of a certain age and grew up Lutheran, you remember confessing that you are sinful and unclean. If you grew up Episcopalian or Methodist, you likely remember admitting that you are not worthy to gather up the crumbs under his table. Yes, that can be heard in a burdensome way.

But for Luther, you see, it has just the opposite effect. We acknowledge that we are unworthy, that we are sinful and unclean—and then we come to the Table knowing that here, we are cleansed. Here we are forgiven. I love Brian Wren’s wonderful communion hymn, which begins, “I come with joy to meet my Lord, forgiven, loved and free!” That’s the source of our joy, you see, as we come to this table! We come with joy, first and foremost, because we are being forgiven! We are being set free from our bondage to sin! We are being wrapped in God’s merciful love!—a love that welcomes and forgives us, not because we are so good, but because God is so good.

Life

And then, the catechism says, here in this feast we receive life! That is an incredible concept! It grows out the image of food, of course. We require food to live. When we go without food, we begin to feel weak. We know the physical signs of that. We know that when we eat, we are strengthened, fortified. We feel better.

When our son Luke was just a little guy, he was prone to tonsillitis, and finally the doctor suggested that even though he was younger than the norm, it would be a good idea to remove his tonsils. So he had the surgery, and we took him home, and followed the usual post-tonsillectomy regimen of liquids and Jello. As the day wore on, he became more and more distressed. Thinking something was wrong, we were about to call the doctor when Luke finally cried out, “I’m so hungry!” We fed him some real food, he didn’t complain one bit about the sore throat, and everything was soon back to normal.

Of course, the life that we receive in the sacrament is not primarily physical, but spiritual. Still the image is a powerful one. We are so often spiritually weak. We waver in our trust, we are tossed by doubts, we struggle with temptation. What the Bible says is that these things are like a longing for food.

We’re so hungry! And that spiritual hunger is one that causes us great distress. Sometimes we can’t quite put our finger on what’s the matter. We just know that what we’re experiencing isn’t really life as it ought to be. But here, at this table, is the promise: Life! The Bread of Life! The food, Jesus says, “that endures for eternal life!” That’s what we receive here, and it strengthens us.

Salvation

And there’s one more thing on this buffet: We receive salvation. Now that’s a word that we often don’t understand very clearly, a churchy-sounding word. We need to understand the root of it. The Biblical concept of salvation is health, wholeness. The English word comes from the same root as “salve”—a soothing balm, in other words, that takes away the pain of an injury, the ache of a muscle. “Salvation” means, in the first place, the soothing of all that grieves us. Luther describes it this way: the Lord’s Supper is a “pure, wholesome, soothing medicine which aids and quickens us in both soul and body.”

Of course, salvation has an eternal dimension as well. We believe that salvation means life in heaven with Christ forever. But for the Bible, salvation is not simply something to which we look forward, but it begins now. The peace of heaven, the joy of heaven, begins now. In Christ we already begin—despite our frailty, our failures, our faults, our weakness—we already begin to know this peace. And we know it most profoundly when we come here to receive it. “If you are heavy-laden and feel your weakness,” Luther writes, “go joyfully to the sacrament and receive refreshment, comfort and strength.”

And so this buffet turns out to be just about the most lavish feast you can possibly imagine. Merely bread and wine, to be sure, on the surface; but underneath, forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation! And a promise: “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty!”

—

©The Rev. Richard O. Johnson (retired)

Webster, NY

roj@nccn.net