God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. My sermon is entitled Brother, Bread and Belief
and my focus is our Gospel (John 6:51-69). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the
psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house
of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we
rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds
and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most
Holy Trinity. Amen.
My late brother,
Ed, and I attended the Pittsburgh Home Show in the spring of 2007. After
gathering some ideas for updating the house, we stopped at The Church Brew
Works to nourish and refresh our bodies and minds. As I gazed at the charts
posted to the walls, I asked Ed, “Do you know what those mean?” He
explained, as only a chemist could, exactly what they meant: the chemical
composition of each beverage on the menu.
Ed then asked a
question. “Do you know what the second most complex liquid on the planet
is?” “No,” I replied, “What is it?” “Wine,” Ed simply stated. Of
course, that begged my question, “What’s the most complex?” His answer
came quickly, “Blood.” It was then that an epiphany overcame me.
“Isn’t
it fascinating that Jesus took the second most complex liquid to symbolize his
blood, and one of the simplest foods to symbolize his body?”
I mused. Then, we toasted and ate.
My brother had a
way of simplifying the complex. He also had a knack for complicating the
simple. And, that, folks, leads me from my first point, Brother, to my second,
Bread.
With apologies to
those who cannot eat bread or stomach wine, I love both. There are so many
varieties of each. My stories about wine, I will save for another occasion.
Unlike my brother who made and bottled his own wine, I have not. I have,
however, successfully baked my own bread.
Bread has been an
important staple food product to many cultures over the centuries. Referred to
as the “staff of life” in the Bible, people have eaten some form of bread since
the Neolithic era, when cereals were crushed and mixed with water to form a
thick paste that could be cooked over the fire.
Bread making
techniques date back as far as 3000BC. Egyptians experimented with different
types of grains to produce a variety of bread products with different textures
and flavors. Successful bread making was considered an important life skill for
Egyptians, and paintings in pyramids show that the dead were buried with loaves
of bread to provide sustenance in the afterlife.[1] There are also many
benefits in this life to eating bread: choices, tastes, convenience as well as
iron, vitamins and fiber.[2]
That said, why did
Jesus choose bread and not the calf, lamb or fish as a symbol for his body? We
read how the Prodigal Father lavished his lost son with a banquet that included
the fatted calf. On Passover Jews ate lamb as the main course of their meal,
and Jesus is referred to as Lamb of God. He fed the crowd fish. Why not fish?
It’s healthier than bread.
Well, for some
help, we turn to the Bible. In the third chapter of Genesis, Adam and Eve were
chased out of paradise. God condemned Adam to work and earn his bread by the
sweat of his brow.[3]
Bread was used in the worship of God, through tabernacle and temple services to
symbolize the His presence. We read in Exodus, “You shall set the bread
of the Presence on the table before me regularly.”[4]
In Leviticus, God
commanded Moses to bake twelve flat loaves of bread using four quarts of
flour for each loaf. Moses placed the bread before the Lord on the pure
gold table, arranged in two stacks of six loaves. He then put frankincense near
each stack to serve as a representative offering, a special gift presented to
the Lord. Every Sabbath this bread was laid out before the Lord as a gift
from the Israelites. It was an ongoing expression of the eternal covenant. The
loaves of bread belonged to Aaron and his descendants, who were to eat them in
a sacred place, for they are most holy. This was the permanent right of the
priests to claim this portion of the special gifts presented to the Lord.[5]
Several weeks ago,
we heard how the people of Israel were miraculously fed with bread from heaven
as they wandered for forty years before entering the Promised Land.[6] This bread initially
symbolized God's love and care for his people, in spite of their sins, and two
quarts of it were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant as a reminder that
God was with them.
We know that Jesus
broke bread, distributed bread and ate bread. The Evangelists wrote of the many
times Jesus spoke of bread in this chapter (John 6) and elsewhere. When tempted
in the wilderness, He silenced Satan when He answered, “It is written,
‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth
of God.’”[7]
When teaching, He illustrated that, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven
that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all
leavened.”[8]
Finally, we should not overlook that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a town whose
name means “House of Bread.” His mother laid him in a manger, a feeding trough,
a hint that someday he would be bread for the world.
During the
Passover meal, Jesus “took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke
it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do
this in remembrance of me.’”[9] The earliest believers
incorporated the breaking and eating of Christ’s Body into their worship. We
read in Acts, “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”[10] Paul wrote extensively of
this practice in 1st Corinthians. We read: “The cup of
blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The
bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because
there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one
bread.”[11]
Yet, a believing Christian may not eat this Bread so casually. Paul reminded
them, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and
drink of the cup.”[12]
So, why did Jesus
use bread to symbolize His true Body? Not only is it religiously symbolic in
the Old Testament, but it is also easy for believers to bake, share, eat and
reserve. As a friend of mine often said, “Anywhere you go in this world,
people bake bread.”
Let’s move on to
my third point, belief. Going back to the Church Fathers, many believed that
this entire Bread of Life section is eucharistic, identifying the “bread from
heaven” not only with Jesus, but also with Jesus present in the bread and wine
of the Lord’s Supper. On the other hand, there are some scholars who believe
that this is non-sacramental. I’ll side with the Fathers and our Lutheran
practice.
When Jesus says
that “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink,” it is a
contrast to what we read in Isaiah 55:2, “Why do you spend your money for
that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen
diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.”
In other words, the theme of eating is equivalent to coming to Jesus
and believing in Jesus. We would not eat His flesh and drink His
blood if we did not believe in Him.
Flesh is a
reminder of the real humanity of Jesus, which is vulnerable to violence and
death. And when Jesus speaks of eating flesh, it is clear that His violent
death is on the horizon, for blood must be shed before it may be drunk.[13] We find reference to this
throughout the Old and New Testaments. Flesh and blood remind us that Jesus was
incarnate and crucified.
Eating this flesh
is an act of believing that Jesus is the one who died a violent death for the
life of the world. He stated this in verse 51: “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 stressed that faith that leads to eternal life
is faith in Jesus who gave himself over to violence for the world. Now, because
Jesus is speaking of the need for faith in Him as the one who sacrificed
himself in death for the life of the world, we must understand that the
language of verses 47-51 is a deliberate riddle. Many listening to Jesus,
including his own disciples, could not penetrate this riddle. In verse 60, we
read, “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard
saying; who can listen to it?’” They lacked the Spirit-given insight that
was available only after the Resurrection.
We have the
advantage over Jesus’ original hearers of His words and believing … and
participating. As believers we participate in Jesus’ own life. When we hear His
words, we participate in His life. When we eat His flesh and drink His blood in
the Lord’s Supper, we participate in His life. And as believers, we know deep
in our hearts that John’s Gospel is about understanding that the Eucharist, the
act of eating and drinking is an expression of faith in the crucified Jesus and
a strong, living symbol of participation in His life.[14]
Lastly, what does
this participation in the life of Jesus look like? Well, because Matthew, Mark
and Luke provided us with the narrative of the Last Supper and its relationship
to Christ’s Crucifixion, John chose to offer a different symbolic act of love.
Participation in the life of Jesus looks like a human washing the feet of other
humans, like the Master serving the students, the sinless One cleansing the
dirty feet on sinners.
What does it look
like for you? For you, it’s not writing sermons and preaching. It’s not
conducting baptismal ceremonies or funerals. For some, it is teaching children
or typing church bulletins. For others, it’s your work among the elderly or the
ill. It’s dealing with the public or public servants. It’s babysitting
grandchildren or baking dinner for an elderly neighbor. It may be the call to
mission work or music ministry. Whatever it is that involves you participating in
the life of others and lifting them up in prayer to our Triune God is your
participation in the Crucified and Risen Lord. And if there is a mystery in
your life, it’s seeing how our incarnate and crucified Lord is present in your
participation. Ponder that this week, and when you do, may the peace of God
which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
[1]
The Importance of Bread, http://patthebaker.com
[2]
The Top Ten Benefits of Bread, https://fabflour.co.uk
[3]
Genesis 3:18-19. See also Bread and Christianity, https://www.alimentarium.org
[4]
Exodus 25:30. See also Bread in the Bible, https://www.biblestudy.org
[5]
Leviticus 24:5-9.
[6]
Exodus 16.
[7]
Matthew 4:4.
[8]
Matthew 13:33.
[9]
Luke 22:19 and parallels.
[10]
Acts 2:42.
[11] 1
Corinthians 10:16-17.
[12] 1
Corinthians 11:28.
[13]
Bauckham, Richard. Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology. Baker
Academic Grand Rapids MI 2015, p. 97.
[14]
Bauckham, 103.
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