John 6: 35, 41-51
35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44 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 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 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.”
Last week we saw how Jesus says, whoever comes to me will never go hungry, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. I spoke about it all being about Jesus, how he feeds us both physically and spiritually, how all we need is him. I suggested that the encounter that we have with Jesus will satisfy us more than anything else in all of creation. I spoke about those who had encountered Jesus and have had their lives changed forever for the better.
Why is this? we already know that Jesus is the bread of life, whoever comes to him will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But again… why? Jesus says it in verse 47, ‘Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.’
Eternal life…
What does this mean? It’s a strange word certainly, and we do use it in church, in some churches anyway, when the bread is given in communion the priest says, ‘the body of Christ, keep you in eternal life.’ But what does that mean… really? Let’s start by comparing the eternal with the mundane (or the temporal if you like). When I say mundane what I mean is, the physical world, our planet, and everything on it, the solar system, the stars the planets and the galaxies and everything else in all of creation. That, glorious as it may be, is all mundane, it is created and not the creator. The mundane is subject to time, to the limits of physicality, to the laws of the universe, and everything else that exists.
But not God.
God is of a different order of being entirely, he is ‘eternal.’ Even talking about this stretches language to it’s limit, as we can’t really conceive of God’s being, the closest thing we have to it is that word, eternal. It means without end, without beginning, the forever now; never aging, never struggling, never suffering, never dying. In fact if you are speaking about something eternal then by definition you are speaking about God, as nothing else is eternal but him.
So, when Jesus says ‘whoever believes in my has eternal life’ what he is literally saying is that we, the mundane, the creation that is subject to death and decay, will share in the eternal life that belongs to God. God, through his son Jesus, will share his life with us, his eternal life, a life that never ends, a life that passes through death and beyond.
Verse 47 and following:
47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
Much of what I am about to say is not from me but my spiritual elders who have taught me, and I pass these on to you.
Have a look at all of the spiritual works in bookstores and online. Look at them and see what they offer, attainment, fulfilment, be the better you. Use this and that technique and your life will be sorted. And I confess, I myself have read quite a few of these kinds of books. They’re pretty much all about attaining something, they are all about ‘I’d better get myself in order, in order to be fulfilled. I’d better strive to find the divine, to find God, and then I will be satisfied. Many of the other religions of the world are similar. They are about attaining salvation, or in some cases, just coping with the finality of existence, by our own efforts.
But Christianity is truly unique, and this isn’t an arrogant claim on my part, it’s the truth revealed in the scriptures, Jesus says that he is the bread the comes down from heaven. He says, ‘[w]hoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’
I encourage you, to have a look at the narrative of scripture, about what it’s all about, and more importantly, what it says about the character of God. We have a God who pursues us, a God that we don’t ‘choose to believe in as such’ but who has chosen us to be his people. We have a God who will not stop looking for us, until we know the truth, that in him we are found. We don’t have to strive to find God, he’s looking for us, desperate to share his eternity with us, because he loves us.
The end of the gospel passage is telling, I say it again, ‘[w]hoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ Jesus here speaks of his body that will be broken on the cross for the sins of the world. The sacrifice that God himself makes, so that he can bring us back to him, so that we can share in his eternal life.
And that is the gospel, it is God, the Lord of the universe seeking to share his life, his eternity, his very essence with us his creatures. And he offers it to us freely, we don’t have to pay for it, for the price has been paid, by the shedding of the blood of Jesus on the cross.
We have the greatest image of this when we share in communion, the Eucharist. In a few minutes time you hold out your hand, and have placed into it the body of Christ, as a free gift. You don’t come up to give, you come up to receive. And all we have to say is ‘thank you’ that’s what the word Eucharist means, thanksgiving. We give thanks to the Lord our for ‘it is meet and right so to do’, or in more modern parlance, ‘it is right to give thanks and praise.’ All that Jesus asks, is that we live a life of gratitude for what he has sone for us.
My message today is this, allow yourself to be pursued, allow yourself to be found, allow him, to give you the free gift of eternal life, and receive that gift gladly. The gift of eternal life, which, though our aging bodies are subject to decay disease and death, promises through faith and perseverance that our lives will go beyond death itself, into a glorious resurrection with Jesus.
With Jesus, life never runs out. This reminds of the final verse of that wonderful hymn, ‘before the throne of God above;’
Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness
The great unchangeable I am
The King of glory and of grace!
One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ, my Saviour and my God
Come to Jesus today, receive him, the bread of life; and live eternally, live forever.
Amen.
