Jesus, the Bread of Life

When Jesus describes Himself as the living bread from heaven, He isn't speaking metaphorically.

[This sermon was shared today with the people of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Greenville, Ohio. The text was John 6:35-51.]

Our Gospel lesson for today begins with Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35) Later in our lesson, He says, “I am the bread of life…If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:48-51)

Jesus first spoke these words to the crowd of 5000 men and many more women and children He had fed a short time before on the opposite shore of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd had run after Jesus. But they hadn’t really come to Jesus to get what He was offering to them or what He’s offering to you and me this morning. They failed to see that the miraculous feeding was a sign of what Jesus came into the world to give to us. “You are seeking me,” Jesus tells them, “not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” (John 6:26) Jesus has come to give us much more than a meal when we’re hungry.

We should quickly point out one thing that Jesus doesn’t say to us today. He doesn’t say, “I am like the bread of life.” Jesus isn’t speaking metaphorically. Jesus wants us to know that He is the bread of life that comes down from heaven.

Jesus, the Word of God, God the Son, has come from heaven to us sin-sick and condemned people to give us God’s forgiveness and ever-new eternal life. And Jesus promises that whoever comes to Him has these gifts, now and eternally.

So, who is it that comes to Jesus and how do they come to Jesus?

You might think that the people who come to Jesus and receive Him as the bread of eternal life are those who know that Jesus is God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity composed of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that the spiritually well-informed are the insiders of Jesus’ kingdom. But, folks, the demons of hell knew Who Jesus was. Far from coming to Him when they encountered Jesus, they begged Jesus to go away. “You believe that there is one God. Good! ,” James writes in the New Testament, “Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” To know about God or Jesus’ resurrection won’t save you or me.

You might think that the people who come to Jesus and receive Jesus as the bread of eternal life are the ones who know the Bible and the confessions of the Church, including the creeds. Now, it’s good to know the Bible; it’s the Word of God. It’s good to know the confessions that give witness to the Word of God. But the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day knew the Word of God inside out. Yet when it came to taking up their crosses–acknowledging their sin, that is, their failure to love God and love neighbor and when it came to following Jesus, they chose, instead, to cry out for Jesus’ crucifixion.

You might think that the people who come to Jesus and receive the bread of everlasting life from God are those who have encountered a miracle from Jesus. “If Jesus would only do something for me,” some think, “then I would come to Him.” Of course, you and I know that Jesus already has done something for us: He died on a cross to destroy the power of sin and death over our lives and He rose again to open eternity with God to us. Yet, it seems, we’re always wanting God to do one more thing to make us believe in Him. Jesus tells the crowd He had just miraculously fed, “You have seen me and yet do not believe…” Here’s the truth: Seeing is not believing.

Finally, it isn’t people who decide to follow Jesus in some grand act of surrender that come to Him and receive life from God. Each Sunday, we confess that “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” I become more convinced that these words speak about me well. The Bible repeatedly warns us against putting trust in our own hearts, reasoning, character, or decisions. It’s either self-righteousness or delusion that causes a human being born in sin like you and me to think that their “decision” is something they can keep by their own resolve. Like Adam and Eve, we want to “be like God” and our impulse is always to say no to God. We will never come to Jesus by our own decision.

So, how does a person come to Jesus and who are the people who come to Jesus, the bread of life?

Jesus tells us today.

He hints at the answer when He says, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40) It’s those who look to Jesus, turning away from sin, death, and self-absorption, that will receive His life.

But then Jesus tells us how you and I and anybody are empowered to come  to Jesus. He says–listen closely because this is the second-most important thing you’ll hear today: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me…” (John 6:44-45)

The word translated there as draws is, in the Greek in which John and the other New Testament authors wrote their books, ἑλκύσῃ (elkuse,) which literally means drags, pulls.

It is God and His Word that drag us to the baptismal font, often using our parents to do the dragging, so that our inborn sinful selves can be drowned and that by the name of the Triune God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we can be raised to new life.

It’s God Who speaks His Word with the bread and the wine–This is My body, This is My blood–and drags us to an intimacy with Jesus by which we are crucified and raised with our Lord again and again during our time on earth.

It is God Who speaks His Word to us in the Word proclaimed and Who, against our sinful wills and our sinful impulses, brings us to Jesus to receive Him as the Savior Who sets us free from the power of sin and the condemnation of death for life with Him.

And it is God Who makes it possible for us to believe that Jesus has saved us for all eternity, that when He declared from the cross, “It is finished!,” He meant it and He meant it for you.

It is God Who draws, drags, pulls, persuades, and woos sinners like us to Jesus so we are able to believe.

The Bible tells us, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in [God] the Holy Spirit.” If you believe in Jesus, it isn’t your doing or decision; it is God Who has drawn you to Christ and drawn you here this very day.

Pray that God will keep dragging you–drawing you–to Jesus so that you can keep hearing His Word and come to believe more deeply the Word that Jesus, the bread of life that comes down from heaven, speaks to you today and that I happily repeat now: “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:50-51)

And now for the most important thing you will hear today. God has dragged you here this morning so that you may hear the Word that gives you saving faith and renews you in saving faith in Jesus, the bread of life that never gives out, and that you might know you belong to God forever. After you’ve been told this, there will be nothing more to say: In Jesus Christ, all your sins, every single one, is totally and eternally forgiven, and life with God is yours, now and forever. Amen