05 July 09
(Not for the Faint Hearted)
John 6:53 – 69

As much as people loved Jesus he wasn’t always comfortable to be with.

1. Jesus’ Message

He was a man on a mission and his message wasn’t always good news because it challenged the self-centredness and short sightedness of people who lived only for this life.

He was definitely exciting to be with – things happened around Jesus – he would heal the sick and perform miracles that where astounding and in the first part of John chapter six we find a story of how Jesus fed the great crowd that followed him.

If only he hadn’t got so personal and started talking about sin and judgement and about peoples need to change!

People have always wanted Jesus on their own terms and they have always tried to manipulate Jesus and shape him in their own image. The latest example is the Da Vinci Code;

“Let’s make Jesus like us, give him a wife and family and then we don’t have to take the Gospel seriously. After all he is just a man”

If you don’t like the message, minimise the messenger.

So what was Jesus message?

Actually it has never changed;

‘Before we can accept the good news of God’s forgiving grace we have to accept the bad news that our own righteousness, our efforts to be good, our token spirituality, will not save us.

Salvation is not a quick fix. It’s not something that we tack onto everything else in a busy life in the hope that God will be satisfied.

2. Jesus’ Example.

Salvation is the process of becoming like Jesus, which brings us today’s lesson from Scripture.

‘Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, you have no life in you.” vs. 53.

At least no life that will last; no eternal life with God.

Q. What does this mean? – It sounds rather ghoulish doesn’t it? At least it does until you understand it.

The disciples called it ‘a hard teaching, and even questioned among themselves ‘who can accept it?’ vs. 60.

But they called it hard, not because they found it confusing or nauseating but because they understood it all too well and it challenged their commitment to Jesus greatly.

Sayings like, ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’ were a part of their everyday language just like we might call a miserly person, ‘a blood sucker’.

Or we might say to someone who is envious of our success (all in good humour) ‘eat your heart our’.

Q So what was Jesus saying?

He is explaining how to have a real relationship with God – through him.

In John 15:4 Jesus said,

“I am the vine; you are the branches if a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”

We are to live in him and he will live in us.

Jesus also said things like, ‘Because I live, you also shall live.’ (Jn.14:19).
Our very existence depends on him.

To put it another way, it isn’t enough just to find Jesus, we also have to follow him.
We must absorb his teaching, his character and his life. We must seek his mind until it becomes our mind and study his ways until they become our ways.
And we can do it because of the strength Christ supplies through the Holy Spirit.

Now the context of this hard saying of Jesus is very important.

Jesus had just fed a great crowd of 5000 men and their families on a boy’s lunch of 5 small barley loaves and 2 fishes – see vs. 9.
And the people continued to follow him not because they were hungry for food but for more miracles.

3. Jesus’ Sustenance.

Jesus response was to say, “I am the bread of life”. Jn. 6:48.

i. “What bread is to the body I am to the soul”.

Jesus isn’t just another wise teacher and what he came to give was not principally his teaching but himself.

But there is something else about bread that we should know.

Not only did the people need bread for their existence. They needed the bread of his life for their salvation.

ii. The sacramental importance of Bread.

Breaking bread with your enemy was a sacramental act for people who live in the Middle East –perhaps like a Kava ceremony is to a Pacific Islander and the passing a ‘peace pipe’ is to the American Indian.’

To eat bread with your enemy was a sign of reconciliation. It was an act of hospitality, which required that the host would even defend his guest at the cost of his life if necessary,

“You prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies”. Ps.23

This is all part of the significance of Holy Communion.

4. Jesus’ Reconciliation.

God is the host,
We are the guests
Jesus is the bread that is broken – his death is in our defence against our enemy the devil.

When Jesus spoke of himself as the ‘bread of life’ he implied not only that he was food for our soul but that by his death we would reconciled to God.
The breaking of his body (the bread of life), which happened on the cross would bring God and sinner together in an act of Spiritual reconciliation.
But for us to be fully reconciled we must participate in Jesus life i.e.

“Jesus said; “you must eat my flesh”.

Celebrating Holy Communion is an out ward sign of our commitment to live in Christ and allow him to live in us”

Many people think that Christianity is about following Jesus example.

But it soon becomes obvious that that just doesn’t work. We can’t maintain a Christian lifestyle in our own strength – it’s just too difficult.

What we need, is to allow Christ to live in us. (Constable painting)

In this way it is the Spirit of Christ reproduces Christ through us.

As we celebrate Holy Communion the bread and wine, the symbols of the broken body and shed blood of Christ, are offered to us.

We don’t literally ‘eat his flesh and drink his blood’ as at Roman Catholics maintain, rather we receive him by faith.

We accept the offer of reconciliation with God, that he has won for us by paying for our sins and we take his essential life – his will and purpose to ourselves.

God pledges His grace and power to us – we pledge our love and respect for each other to Him and in the same way we commit ourselves back to Christ.

Now what made these words so hard for the crowd, causing many of them to turn away from him, was because they understood exactly what Jesus was saying.

As Hebrews they understood the imagery better than we do.

They saw what his ministry cost him; the demands of people, the misunderstanding and abuse of others.
They sensed the gathering clouds and felt the first earth tremors of Calvery.

They wanted his wisdom and miracles but were fearful about getting involved in an unpopular cause.

They were being invited, out of the comfort of their spectator seats, to become participants in the greatest story ever told and they pulled away.
Just like the rich young ruler, they weren’t prepared to pay the price.

Jesus refuses to make it easy by toning down his message and over night the ranks of his followers thinned and the crowds shrunk.
He was no longer entertaining but challenging.

PQ – What would you have done? What are you doing with Jesus? Are you really any different?

We want Christ for what he can do for us – we have become a generation of Christian consumers.
But we balk and pull back when the cost becomes a high level of involvement and doing what Jesus did becomes too big a price for us to pay.
And Jesus turns to us and says, just what he said to his first disciples.

5. Jesus’ Grief.

“”You don’t want to leave too, do you? Jn. 6:67

Will you also turn away?

And some of us and I pray all of us will respond in the same profound way as the disciples,

“Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” vs. 68

Let’s pause for a minute here.

I invite you to ask yourselves the question, ‘Are the disciples words really my words, is their response my response to Jesus?’

You have heard the cost of following him, is this how you wish to answer his call? (Pause)

Holy Communion is an offer made by God to affirm our response to Jesus question, with the disciple’s words;

“Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’.

As we eat of the bread of Christ’s body and drink of the wine of Christ’s blood let’s remember what God has done for our salvation.

To those who know their need, the words of this ‘hard saying’ are like the arrival of food to a starving man.

“I am the bread of Life – my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink and this is my body and this is my blood”,
“Don’t be afraid”, ‘Come to me and I will give you rest,’ “I will make my home with you.”

Paul sums it all up with the a great note of triumph,
“Christ in you is the hope of glory”
“For me to live is Christ”

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.

Jesus promise is not a hard saying if you have a passion to share in what God is doing.

Holy Communion is Christ’s gracious promise, an offer of himself to us and an invitation to us to be a part of his plan to save the world.

He is simply saying, “There is no Communion without me and no Communion without a commitment to be involved in what I am doing in the world.”

“If this is what you want, even if you are just a beginner then, Jesus says;

“I will live in you – by my Spirit, in your minds, hearts, emotions, wills – every part of you. I’ll feed you with my life and we will work together to change the world”.

My friends we will never get a better offer than this- there is certainly no better way to live.
Living for yourself will leave you with only yourself. Living for Christ will leave you with God forever.

Prayer
Lord forgive us forever thinking that we could come to you in any other way than by confessing and giving up our self sufficiency and self-centredness and following you.
We confess that there are many times when we have lost sight of you and been alienated from you.
Today we seek reconciliation, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ, as we eat the Bread of Life broken for us and drink from the Communion Cup reminding us of our Savours life blood shed for us.
Help us to meet with you, Lord, in this sacred union with all of the humility and solemnity that such a meeting requires. Amen