35<\/sup>Jesus said to [the crowd,] \u201cI am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41<\/sup>Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, \u201cI am the bread that came down from heaven.\u201d 42<\/sup>They were saying, \u201cIs not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, \u2018I have come down from heaven\u2019?\u201d 43<\/sup>Jesus answered them, \u201cDo not complain among yourselves. 44<\/sup>No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45<\/sup>It is written in the prophets, \u2018And they shall all be taught by God.\u2019 Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46<\/sup>Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47<\/sup>Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48<\/sup>I am the bread of life. 49<\/sup>Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50<\/sup>This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51<\/sup>I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.\u201d (NRSV).<\/p>\n In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n Well several years ago a friend and I drove down to New York City together, and our time in the car on the Merritt Parkway quickly turned into a time to talk and share.\u00a0 On the outside this friend had everything going for him, it seems like he was succeeding at life– but soon he began to share the self-doubt and failure he was experiencing, the relationships broken, the bills unpaid, his good future uncertain and seeming to disappear right in front of him, leaving only despair behind.\u00a0 And who among us can\u2019t relate to that struggle?\u00a0 Who among us hasn\u2019t wondered if we\u2019d make it through, hasn\u2019t wondered if we could keep body and soul together one more week, who hasn\u2019t despaired of ourselves, of our future, and even of God?\u00a0 Who among us hasn\u2019t ever wanted to just give up, and lay down, and die?<\/p>\n I wish that I could say that I was a great pastor for my friend, and had the right word for him, I wish that I would have prayed out loud for him there, or that I knew what to say or how to best comfort him.\u00a0 Instead I looked at the exit and said, \u201cLet\u2019s stop and get something to eat.\u201d\u00a0 Score one for emotional eating!\u00a0 And so we found one of those old New York pizza places, tucked away, oven blazing, that smell of the crust baking and crisping and even charring underneath, the cheese bubbling, a slice hot and on your paper plate, ready to go, \u201cCome Lord Jesus be our guest, let these gifts to us be blessed.\u201d Today, here, to those who are ready to give up comes the Word, \u201chave something to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n Today the Prophet Elijah is in the wilderness, on the run, and comes to rest under a broom tree.\u00a0 He\u2019s taken on the royal false prophets of Baal, that ancient false god of power and fertility that people gladly sacrificed their children to. He\u2019s beaten the false prophets, he\u2019s shown he\u2019s faithful to the one True God, but now he\u2019s a wanted man, a dead man, so he sits under the tree in the desert and asks that he might die: \u201cO Lord, take away my life, I\u2019m no better than my long-gone ancestors now.\u201d\u00a0 Sometimes we pay for our faith.\u00a0 Sometimes life just seems to catch up with us.\u00a0 Sometimes, even when everything should be going great, it seems we\u2019ve completely failed and cannot see a way into tomorrow.\u00a0 And so Elijah fell asleep, the sleep of the grieving, of the exhausted, hoping to never wake up again.<\/p>\n But into his sleep, an angel appeared to him, touched him, roused him awake. \u201cElijah, get up and eat!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And there in this desert of sorrows is all of a sudden a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of cool water.\u00a0 Elijah ate and drank and lay down again to die, this time with a full belly.\u00a0 So again the angel of the Lord came a second time, \u201cElijah, Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you!\u201d\u00a0 So he got up and ate and drank, and on the strength of that food, we\u2019re told, he went for 40 days and 40 nights.<\/p>\n Have something to eat, have something to drink, otherwise the journey will be too much for you!\u00a0 God knows what we go through, God knows we can\u2019t get to where we need to be on our own, God knows sometimes we just want to lay down and die, so \u201cGet up, have something to eat, drink something,\u201d he says.\u00a0 There in the desert, under a tree, God provides, God lays a feast, God not only revives but also strengthens us, because in the desert of our failure and despair is where God does his best work. Right when we\u2019re done, he begins; right where we\u2019ve failed, he brings his victory; right when we\u2019re empty, he fills; right where we cannot see a way through, God makes a way through; for he is the way, and he promises that he\u2019ll give you what you need so that you too can go 40 days and 40 nights in the strength that he will give!<\/p>\n Today Jesus is promising the crowds, \u201cI AM the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.\u201d\u00a0 But the people complain, \u201cWho does he think he is? How can he be bread come down from heaven?\u201d\u00a0 They don\u2019t believe him, and why should they?\u00a0 Like them, like Elijah, our default setting is also unbelief.\u00a0 We resist him, we object to him, we reject him.\u00a0 \u201cWell,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cNo one can come to me unless the Father draws them.\u201d\u00a0 None of us can come to Christ, unless drawn by the Father, none of us can come unless he brings us, none of us can come until all of Jesus\u2019 good and gracious promises overwhelm us, and bring us out of ourselves and into his arms.\u00a0 One of our members who came to faith as an adult once told me, \u201cIt was like I was running away from God all those years, but at the same time God was pulling me towards him like a powerful magnet, and finally against my objections he just drew me straight into his arms.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am the living bread that came down from heaven,\u201d Jesus promises you and me this morning, \u201cwhoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus is that living bread for us, the bread that supplies everything we need for body and soul, for this life and for the life to come. Everything else is just stale, day-old, moldy Wonder Bread compared to him! For he is the good stuff, the real deal, and whoever eats of this bread will live forever!\u00a0 Jesus knows that our basic problem, beneath the grumbling, beneath the unbelief, beneath our despair, is the problem of death.\u00a0 We\u2019re gonna die, and we know it! Our time is short, and then it\u2019s gone.\u00a0 So Jesus promises you this morning, \u201cwhoever eats of this bread will live forever, you will live forever–in fact whoever believes, you who believe, have<\/u> eternal life!\u201d\u00a0 Eternal life that goes on forever with him, Eternal life that begins already and never stops, it\u2019s for you, you have it, here!\u00a0 Yesterday we had the funeral here at church for Joe Fox, one of our oldest members.\u00a0 Two weeks before he died I was visiting him and his wife, and Joe\u2019s body was getting weaker, he was fading away.\u00a0 But when it came time for Communion, he focused with total clarity and ate the host right up!\u00a0 And what a promise to hold onto as we let go of this life, what a thing to be filled with as our bodies empty away, \u201cWhoever eats this bread will live forever!\u201d\u00a0 You will live forever!\u00a0 Whoever believes, whoever trusts in me, already has eternal life!\u00a0 You have eternal life!\u00a0 Life with a capital L that lasts forever, for he loves you, he loves me, he loves Joe with a love that cannot die, with a love that broke open the grave, and so you and I will live forever!<\/p>\n \u201cThe bread that I will give,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cis my flesh for the life of the world!\u201d\u00a0 He gave his flesh, once upon the Cross, for you!\u00a0 There in his flesh on the tree of the Cross he died for you, which means he bore and carried your sins, your failures, your despair, your death, he died your death there, trampling over death by death, but on the 3rd<\/sup> day he rose again and now lives and reigns eternal, he is your Lord, and because he lives you will live also!<\/p>\n But he also still gives, keeps on giving his flesh for the life of the world.\u00a0 He gives his flesh, for you, to eat and to drink, \u201cThis is my body, given for you, this is my blood, shed for you, Do this!\u201d he says!\u00a0 So that in your sorrow, in your despair, in your death, Jesus has prepared something for you to fill to fill you up– the bread that comes down from heaven so that you will not die!\u00a0 \u201cGet up,\u201d he says to you this morning, \u201chave something to eat.\u00a0 Get up, have something to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am the living Bread that comes down from Heaven,\u201d Jesus promises us this morning.\u00a0 We gather now, with angels and archangels, with apostles and saints, with our brothers and sisters here, with all our loved ones gone one before us who because they believed have eternal life.\u00a0 We gather to be fed with the bread that He gives, his flesh for the life of the world.\u00a0 Get up, have something to eat.\u00a0 Get up, have something to drink.<\/p>\n And the Peace of God which passes understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n New Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, 8\/8\/21 | Sermon on John 6:35, 41-51 | by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills | 35Jesus said to [the crowd,] \u201cI am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41Then the Jews began to complain about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,157,108,110,250,3,109,212],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-5578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-06-chapter-06","category-nt","category-predigten","category-ryan-mills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5579,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5578\/revisions\/5579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5578"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=5578"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=5578"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=5578"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=5578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}