Bread From Heaven?!

Series: Say What?! The Hard Saying of Jesus

 “Bread from Heaven?”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Sept 20, 2020

Text: John 6:22-58 // Series: Say What?! The Hard Sayings of Jesus    

 

Hello.  Welcome, friends into this space together, whether you are watching us online or you are gathered in-person for a watch party at Jericho Centre!  My name is Brad and I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho and I’m so glad you’re participating in our community in this way.

 

I want to begin our time together with a little story.  It’s the story of Christopher McCandless.  He grew up in suburban Virginia. After graduating in 1990 from Emory University, McCandless ceased communicating with his family, gave away his college fund of almost $25,000 to Oxfam, and began traveling across the Western United States. 

 

On April 28, 1992, McCandless hitchhiked to the Stampede Trail in Alaska. There he headed down the snow-covered trail to begin an odyssey of self-discovery with only 10 pounds of rice, a .22 caliber rifle, several boxes of ammunition, a camera, his journal, and a small selection of reading material.  It’s here where the story takes a tragic turn because McCandless perished sometime around the week of August 18, 1992, after surviving for 113 days.  

 

Author Jon Krakauer wrote a best selling book based on his journal entries and Sean Penn turned his life into a feature length movie in 2007. 

 

While there are various theories about what happened, what became evident was that McCandless died because he wasn’t eating enough to sustain himself.  Amount of calories he was expending every day hiking and hinting and foraging was greater than the number of calories he was putting into his body.  And so he went into a sever caloric deficit and his body weakened to the point where he effectively starved to death.

 

One of the things this story teaches us is that what you put into your body matters.  How much your put into your body matters.  This is true whether it is physically, emotionally, intellectually, relationally and spiritually.  We’re going to talk today about what a healthy diet looks like and what place the communion table plays in that, especially in the time of COVID-19. 

We are just into a new series here at Jericho entitled “Say What?!’ where we explore the hard or difficult sayings of Jesus.  We’re going to see as we move through September & October that some of the things that Jesus said are “hard” because they are difficult to understand. Others are “hard” because the demands they make on our lives are only too clear but we may or may not be in a space to listen and obey.

 

Turn with me in your Bibles or on your device to today’s text in John 6.  This is a chapter about bread.  John 6 begins with a feeding miracle – Jesus taking a few fish and 5 loaves of barley bread and multiplying them to provide sustenance for a massive crowd – the men alone numbered 5,000.  Then Jesus and his disciples head over to the other side of the lake and the crowd gets into their boats and goes to find this Rabbi. 

 

Look with me at verse 26

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. 27 But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man[f] can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”

They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?” Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” 

Things are becoming increasingly clear, aren’t they?  The crowd is really not interesting in focusing in what Jesus is inviting them to focus on.  Jesus is pointing them to spiritual realities – eternal life, belief.  But the crowd really came for the show: “do another one of those party tricks for us, Jesus.  Feed us!”  They are concerned with the temporal, not the eternal.

 

Now, it can be easy for us to judge the crowd and think of them as shallow and fickle but how many times have we also been tempted to fall into the same way of thinking?  I know there was a time in my high school life when I went to the largest charismatic church in the country.  And so there were always lots of signs and wonders conferences and healing ministry happening regularly.  I attended the Toronto Blessing a few times as well.   

 

And for a season, I found myself so focused on the sensationalism of the miracles that I almost forgot about the Triune God who was moving in power and might.  I found myself getting caught up in the spectacle of things and completely missing the spiritual element behind things.  And this is what Jesus is saying here.  I was interested in what God was doing, but I was not as deeply interested in relating personally to God.

 

But friends, a miraculous sign is just that – it’s a sign.  It is designed to point you to something beyond itself.  Jesus says “you want to be with be because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs.  But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food.  Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son Man can give you.” 

 

So let me ask: “What are you spending your time seeking” this fall? Seeking takes time and it takes energy.  So what are you seeking these days?  Some of you are spending your time seeking stability in a season of chaos.  And that’s understandable. But where are you hoping to acquire that from?  Jesus says “if you are going to spend energy on something, spend it on something that is eternally worthwhile and not merely temporary or temporal.” 

 

If you have spare energy and time this fall, you would be wise to spend that seeking after God and investing in your spiritual development and not simply spending another 90 minutes swiping up on social media or trying to burry your exhaustion by planning another holiday time away.  Sit with the question “what do my actions indicate that I am seeking after?”  

 

Seek the Lord while God may be found.  We spend time seeking God by doing things like prayer or Scripture intake.  If you want to try this out, Jenna has a group for women and Joel Schacter has a group for men on Wed morning that is meeting on Zoom at 6 AM.  You might want to join one of those groups this season.  Register online.   We encourage a simple structure called Life Journaling that helps you seek the Lord – I do it every day - immediately following my seeking of coffee. I would be happy to meet with you and show you how to do that.   

 

Let’s jump back into our text.  Here’s again when Jesus’ hearers miss the point.  Look with me at John 6:30-41 “They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? 31 After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

 

32 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. 33 The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”

 

35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me. 37 However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.

 

38 For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. 39 And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. 40 For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”

 

The crowd wants a sign and they settle on another food miracle, this one from the Old Testament experience of the ancient people of Israel.  After their miraculous deliverance from Egypt, the over 1 million women, men and children began a 40 year season of wandering in the wilderness and the desert.  And the wilderness, as Chris McCandless found out, is not a great place for food sources. 

 

So God did a miracle for the ancient Hebrew people.  Every day.  God provided bread, little round tiny pieces of wafers that appeared on the ground with the dew each morning, 6 days a week for 40 years. This mana literally sustained the nation during that season of wilderness wandering.  And so the people say “yeah – that would do, Jesus.  Bread from heaven.  Make it happen. Then. We will believe in you.” 

 

And Jesus says “Oh you want bread from heaven? Done.  I AM the bread of life.  I am true bread and I have come to give life to the world.’ 

 

But lest people miss the point, which we all have a tendency to do, Jesus presses even further and deeper with his illustration about bread!! Look with me at John 6:48

 

“48 Yes, I am the bread of life! 49 Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. 50 Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

 

52 Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked. 53 So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. 54 But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. 5

 

5 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but will live forever.”

 

59 He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 60 Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?”

 

It is confusing, gang.  All the talk of eat my flesh, drink my blood.  It starts to make sense why in the first century, some of the ancient Roman looking in at the church accused the new Christians of cannibalism.  They heard whispers that people were feasting on the body of a deceased man.  They heard rumors that at their gatherings, they drank blood.  But what they were missing was that Jesus was using himself as a sign.  He was pointing, not to something literal, but to something deeply spiritual. 

 

In this discussion of bread, Jesus is picking up on the crowd’s request and linking himself into the Old Testament narrative not just of the wilderness manna but also the exodus event.  The Exodus was that great moment of deliverance that the Jewish people still celebrate to this day through the Passover meal. 

 

Our Confession of Faith notes that “God instituted the Passover meal to remind Israel that salvation from bondage in Egypt was at a great cost.  The lamb which was slain and eaten on Passover night, and whose blood was applied to the door posts of homes of the covenant people was to be an eternal witness to the salvation which God would miraculously provide in Jesus”

 

Jesus uses the Passover to re-imagine for his followers what his sacrifice of his life on the cross means.  Jesus is saying to his followers: just like you bread a loaf of bread, and it provide nourishment, “I am the living bread… and this bread, that I offer so the world may live, is my flesh (51). 

 

And Just like bread gives life and sustenance to your physical body, so too Jesus gives up his body to provide sustenance for your soul.  You participate in this you feast on Jesus by responding in faith to the invitation that Jesus offers: “Come to me, you’ll never be hungry again.  You’ll still have to eat physical food but your soul will be satiated at the deepest of levels.  Believing in me will quench Your spiritual thirst in a way that nothing else can satisfy.”   Anyone who feeds on me will live because of me (6:57).

 

And I get that the people were confused and perhaps a little grossed out.  Who in the world talks like this?  Jesus did, and part of it was because of what we talked about last weekend.  He wanted to make people who had only come to him for a free lunch work harder and think more deeply about their lives.

 

But remember, Jesus isn’t being literal.  He isn’t saying and we as Anabaptists do not belief that the bread in the communion moment is trans-substantiated, or literally becomes the body of Christ.  And we don’t believe in consubstantiation, that once the bread is prayed over, the presence of Christ himself indwells the elements in a unique way. 

 

We are not part of the sacramental wing of the Church.  But we are also not saying that “oh, it’s just a symbol”.  We live in a weird place that this bread is more than a symbol but less than a sacrament.  So as Mennonite Brethren, we prefer to talk about the bread in terms of it being a SIGN.  It represents God’s saving action in the past, and it does something unique to link us together with Christ and with one another in the present. 

 

That is why this is often called “communion” because of the element of community that occurs around the table of the Lord.  This is also why it is sometimes called “eucharist” which simply means “Thanksgiving”.  This is also why is feels hard in the season of COVID.  Because that sense of communal spiritual nourishment is a bit diminished.  That’s also why we wanted to begin doing watch parties – so we could begin to experience, even in a limited way, some of that together again.   

 

When we take the bread and the cup together, the linking of the Lord’s supper and Passover then begins to make even move sense.  Both events center around salvation though the sacrifice.   They both declare to us and remind us that freedom from bondage is p0isslbe.  Not just for the ancient people of Israel but for you and me today. 

 

So friend, where do you need to experience freedom today?  Maybe it’s rea of addiction that has gripped you even tighter during this time of isolation.  You feel you are slipping.  Reach out for help.  For prayer.  And as you prepare for common, tell God “I need you to save me and sustain me.”  Maybe for you, you need freedom from self-reliance.  You’ve been tricking along and feeling like “we just need to get through summer. We just need to get back to school.” And now those have occurred and you are starting to realize how spiritual and emotionally depleted you really are.  Come to the table friend, find mercy and grace to help in time of need.  Simple say to Jesus “I need to be nourished in the deepest parts of me.  Come, Holy Spirit.  I need you.” 

 

When we eat this bread, we are standing in long lineage of people who have said “I am identifying with the life of Christ given for the redemption of humanity.”  My redemption.  The forgiveness of my sins.   

 

This is why the cross is a place of beauty and wonder for the Christian.  It is the place where our freedom from the captivity of sin was won.  And it is why we return here again and again in the communion moment.  This is also why it isn’t about what you use or don’t use for the bread… This is about what, or more importantly, WHO, the bread points to and signifies…. This little wafer points us again to Jesus, the bread of life.

 

So friends, would you join with me as we ready ourselves to partake in communion together?  I’m going to lead us in a prayer and then we will partake together.  This is a prayer for world communion Sunday, which is usually the first Sunday in October.  It is by author and theologian Leonard Sweet. 

 

Wondrous God of infinite love and boundless compassion

Mark our hearts with the seal of your handiwork

Create within us the joy of being in your presence.

Stitch into our souls the desire to serve,

the power to heal,

and the capacity to love deeply and genuinely.

Mold us into reservoirs of hope,

that we might pour out your bountiful blessings

upon all of your people.

 

May this time we partake of the body and blood of Jesus

unite us in the community of saints who know your love

and proclaim your Son with fervor and grace

to a broken and hurting world.

 

May your healing hands be the salve

for ending hurt and violence in this world,

even as we prepare for the next.

In the holy Name of Jesus. Amen. 

 

 

COMMUNION

Jesus said ‘I am the bread of life –anyone who ears my flesh remains in me and I in them. Take, eat in faith and with joy as a sign of your connection with the broken body of Christ and the global family of Christ.

 

Jesus said, “it is the father’s will that all see the Son and believe in Him should have eternal life.”  This life was bought at a great cost, the sacrifice of the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  So as we take this cup, we remember that life that was poured out so that you and I might live. 

 

Part of the communion response is also thanksgiving, so the team is going to lead us in worship in song that expresses this.  I invite you to stand or sit or kneel as you feel led.

 

  

Benediction


Leader: We gather around the Table in places far and near
         Eating Sourdough, Rye, Tortillas      

Crackers, Wafers, or Wonderbread–

All:              The body of Christ.



Leader: Drinking the wine or the juice

from handmade chalices and silver goblets, golden spoons or little mini cups–

All:       The blood of Christ.



Leader: The bread and the cup unite us with all who would follow Jesus.


This meal reaches back through the centuries.
This table reaches around the world.

All:       As we go into our week, let us eat and drink with joy.  

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things that Jesus said that really confused people was that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you." (John 6:53). What in the world did He mean and why does it matter for you and I today?

Speaker: Brad Sumner

September 20, 2020
John 6:22-60

Brad Sumner

Lead Pastor

Previous Page