John 6:56-69 / Pentecost 13

Pentecost Thirteen (Revised Common Lectionary) | 08.22.21 | John 6:56-69 | by Carl A. Voges |

The Passage

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died.  Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.  Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?”  But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?  Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But there are some of you who do not believe.”  (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.). And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.  So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”  Simon Peter answered him, “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.”   [English Standard Version]

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might…For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.“                                                   [Ephesians 6.10,12]

In the Name of Christ + Jesus our Lord

Today, it is exhilarating, although challenging, to conclude our journey through John’s sixth chapter, a journey that began the last Sunday of July.  When we consider the excellent sections of the Scriptures available to us – the Four Servant Songs of Isaiah, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus’ Farewell Conversation in John, the Letters to the seven parishes in Revelation – this sixth chapter ranks with all of them!   Because of its excellence, this chapter was used in the early Church during the Lenten season for those persons preparing to be baptized in the Easter Vigil and to take part in the Eucharist that evening.

Last Sunday we heard how Jesus’ teaching was creating a tumult among the Jewish authorities; today it creates havoc among many of Jesus’ followers.  This morning Jesus floods our lives with his teaching and offers us his flesh so we can live through the world’s life while being imbedded in the Life that comes to us from eternity through his crucifixion and resurrection!

While we may be tempted to concentrate on the wrapping-up of the Tokyo Olympics or the “what-comes-next” commentary after the resignation of a New York governor or the heightened tussles between vaccinations and masks in our school districts, thankfully this Gospel reminds us again of the Life given us by the Holy Trinity at Baptism, THE Life that seriously pushes past anything going on in the life of this world.

However, such pushing and reminding is not easily done and, as we make our way through this Gospel, we’ll find out why Jesus’ teaching and flesh not only created tumult and havoc among the people who were surrounding him, but also was rescuing those individuals who are being choked by the realities of sin, Satan and death.

This passage opens with the last three verses of last Sunday’s Gospel.  These verses all tumble out of the Life given us when we are baptized.  Jesus states that the person who eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal Life and will be raised up at the last day (the Greek word used for “eats” actually means to “feed, gnaw or munch,” thus emphasizing the realism of Jesus’ flesh and blood!).

Jesus notes that his flesh is true food, and his blood is true drink, insisting on the genuine value of his flesh and blood as food and drink for the baptized.  This means that the person who eats Jesus’ flesh and drinks his blood “abides” or “remains” in Jesus, along with Jesus being in that person.  Jesus reminds us it is the living Father who sent him, and that Jesus lives because of the Father.  Consequently, those who eat him will live because of Jesus (he is THE Source of our new Life because it has been given him from the Father!).

Jesus then concludes these three verses with this comment:

This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers and ancestors ate and died (this references the bread that was eaten during the forty years of the Lord’s people wandering in the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan); he who eats this bread will live forever!

John notes that Jesus is saying these things in the Capernaum synagogue, he is teaching the realities of the Life he is bringing to this world.  In such teaching Jesus is contrasting physical death with spiritual Life, revealing the stark differences between the life offered by the world and the Life that flows from the Lord’s Baptism of us.

John tells us that when many of Jesus’ disciples hear these words, they react by noting that his teaching is difficult and they question who is able to accept it.  John also states that Jesus is aware his disciples are complaining about his words so he says to them:

Does this offend you?  Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  (Implying that a demonstration like that may change their attitude?  We know from the realities of human nature it would not!)

Jesus goes on (in language like that of chapter three when he is speaking with Nicodemus), it is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.  In this verse our Lord is pointing out the difference between flesh and Spirit, that is, between the life of birth and the new Life given at Baptism.  In chapter three as well as here in chapter six, flesh is man’s inability to give eternal Life while the Spirit alone has the ability to give it to us.

Two Sundays ago we noted there are five senses in a human body – hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching.   It was pointed out that the Life into which we are baptized reaches beyond these senses.  At the same time, though, the Lord uses those same senses to serve as pointers to his Life!  The problem is that the world’s life is so attractive and magnetic we get hung up on the five senses and never get beyond them to the real Life our Lord offers us through his teaching and his flesh.

In this verse, then, Jesus is stating that people cannot gain Life on their own, only those who accept his words will receive his Life-giving Spirit.  Such accepting and receiving occurs when people are drawn to the Father by him (it is at this point, however, that many of his disciples draw back and no longer go on with him).  When Jesus asks the remaining disciples if they also wish to go away, Simon Peter responds,

Lord, to whom can we go?  You have words of eternal Life!  We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!

Simon’s response is describing a maturation that occurs in the life of every baptized person.  As our lives stretch out from Baptism to death, we all come under the magnetism of the gods that the world offers.  Hopefully we find such gods to be empty, bringing us then to the realization that, honestly, there is only one, real LORD God!

As John’s sixth chapter closes off today, it is deeply exhilarating and challenging because it shows the Lord’s people actually participating in his crucified and resurrected Life as his teaching floods their lives and as his flesh is offered for eating.  Such participation in his crucifixion and resurrection occurs as his Scriptures cross our lives through the hearing, reading and studying of them; and as his Supper enables us to eat his Body and drink his Blood.

Gratefully, there are a number of the baptized who recognize this.  They are the ones who will work to get to a parish community where the Scriptures are being proclaimed and taught, where sins can be confessed and Forgiveness received, where the Eucharist is served weekly, and where we are reminded that the most important day of our lives is the one on which we were baptized.

Tragically, though, there are also a number of the baptized who do not see this participation.  They are satisfied with the stuff radiating from the world’s senses and they are not dismayed by their growing distance from the holy realities of the Lord’s Life.  We do not react with anger or haughtiness (trying to be the new Pharisees!), we stay close to such individuals, we keep them in our prayers, we ask the Holy Trinity to push into their trapped situations and free them for full participation in the Lord’s Life.

Accustomed to the world’s way of living for one’s self, people can pull away from the Life given them at Baptism; they become inclined to measure everything by what they think and what they want, a thinking and wanting that is shaped and directed by the body’s five senses.  Then, when they realize the Lord is calling them to let go of such attitudes and actions, they beg to differ.  They reason that the Lord’s teaching and the Lord’s flesh are much too difficult.  So they draw back from the only, real Life there is, mistakenly yet stubbornly thinking that the life given them by birth is the only one that counts!

This drawing back always surprises many people, inside and outside the Church, but it should not.  The unholy trio of sin, Satan and death is constantly attempting to manipulate and discourage us, persuading us to return to the birth from which we came, a birth that has us focusing exclusively on ourselves.

Are our lives today jagged and splintered by the unholy trio working through the gods of this world?  Are such lives empty and lacking direction?  Are they frantic and dispirited?  Then let those lives be exposed to the Lord’s teachings and the Lord’s flesh!  He will graciously break such lives down, freeing them from their tumult and havoc, imbedding them firmly in the Life that streams from his crucifixion and resurrection!

Thus, even though we are baptized so we can be drawn into the Lord’s eternal Life, there will always be the pull by the unholy trio to stay with their attractive, magnetic and destructive life.  Still, we continue to participate in the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection as a confession, a witness, to what he is doing in our lives and what he would do in the lives of all the world’s people.  Today Jesus floods our lives with his teaching and offers us his flesh so we can live through the life of this world while being immersed in THE Life that comes to us from eternity!

Now may the peace of the Lord God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our

hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus our Lord

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Pr. Carl A. Voges, Columbia, SC; carl.voges4@icloud.com