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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you both for allowing me the time two weeks ago to complete the Continuing Education course taught in northeastern Montana and for reimbursing many of my expenses related to the course. As some of you know, more than one decade ago circumstances kept me from completing the same basic course taught by the Rev. Dr. William Weinrich on the Holy Gospel according to St. John. This year, circumstances not only permitted my completing the course, but the course also was particularly timely, as for three weeks in a row now the Gospel Readings have been excerpts from Jesus’s teaching that He is the living bread that came down from heaven (John 6:22-35, 35-51). The Gospel Readings have each overlapped one verse, somewhat helping us keep the flow of thought. And, today we heard and now consider essentially three different groups of listeners and their reactions to the reality of eating Jesus’s flesh and drinking His blood. Thus, our theme is “Eating Jesus’s Flesh and Drinking His Blood”.
As St. John tells of Jesus’s teaching, after Jesus miraculously fed some five‑thousand men with five barley loaves and two fish (John 6:1-15), Jesus is in Capernaum, either in a synagogue or with people from a synagogue. There were Jews, a larger group of His own disciples, and the smaller group of the Twelve specifically named disciples. Jesus told them all that He Himself, Who had come down from heaven, would sacrificially give His flesh for the life of the world, and that whoever ate His flesh and drank His blood would live forever. The Jews were divided and began to dispute and quarrel passionately among themselves, battling with words, saying, “How can this One give us His flesh to eat?” After Jesus further addressed the Jews, even many of His disciples said, “This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?” And, because they could not tolerate listening to Him make such unheard of and to them blasphemous claims, even as He warned them about their grumbling and taking offense, many of those disciples turned back and no longer walked with Jesus. But, Peter, speaking for the Twelve, confessed that Jesus had the words of eternal life and was the Holy One of God.
With which of those essentially three different groups of listeners and their reactions do you and I identify? Do we identify with the Jews and their asking how Jesus can give us His flesh to eat? Do we identify with the disciples and their grumbling over and intolerance of what Jesus said? Or, do we identify with the Twelve and their belief in and knowledge of what Jesus offered and Who He was? Maybe at times we identify with all three! To be sure, some in the world do not believe, but, as we heard Jesus say, no one can come to Him unless it is granted by the Father. By nature, we are not able to hear Jesus’s word. Because of humankind’s fall into sin, before coming to faith we all are children of the devil and will to do what the devil does (John 8:43-44). As Jesus earlier had said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Similarly, St. Paul wrote to the Romans, that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7). And, to the Corinthians St. Paul wrote, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). On our own we have no life in ourselves; on account of all our sin and our sinful nature we all deserve death now in time and the torment of hell for eternity.
As the Lord Jesus in the Gospel Reading dealt with both the Jews and the larger group of His own disciples, He certainly did not want them to dispute or grumble but to repent and believe. The Lord Jesus wants the same thing for you and for me: for us to repent and believe. He calls us to turn from our sin of wondering how He does what He does. He calls us to turn from our sin of grumbling about what we might consider intolerable teaching. He calls us to turn from our sin of not believing in Him and knowing what He offers. In short, Jesus calls us to turn in sorrow from all our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin and our sinful nature. God forgives all our sin, whatever it might be, for the sake of His Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who became flesh in the man Jesus.
Jesus is God Who came down from heaven to do the will of Him Who sent Him (John 6:38). So, He took on human flesh in order to give Himself, flesh and blood, to a violent death on the cross, as the substitute for all the people of the world, including you and me. Jesus rose from the dead, showing that the Father accepted Jesus’s sacrifice on your and my behalf. Later Jesus ascended to where He was before, and now, surpassing the Old Testament manna, He gives heavenly gifts of His flesh and His blood, which flowed from His side (John 19:34), for us to eat and drink and so have eternal life and ourselves be raised up on the last day. The Father gives for us to come to Jesus, drawing us to Him (John 6:44), creating faith in Him, through His Means of Grace (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration XI:76‑77), namely, His Word in all its forms, including the Sacraments.
In the Gospel Reading Jesus said both that the Spirit gives life and that the Words that He speaks are spirit and life, and God’s Word read, preached, and effected through individual Holy Absolution truly does accomplish that which He purposes and succeeds in the things for which He sends it (Isaiah 55:11). Yet, as Jesus told Nicodemus, unless one is born from above by water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism, one cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5). Similarly Holy Communion is in some sense necessary, as we heard Jesus say in the Gospel Reading: unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood we have no life in us. To be sure, faith is also necessary, as the gifts of Baptism and Holy Communion are rightly received in repentance and faith. While some think the last three Gospel Readings speak only of faith and nothing of Holy Communion, our Lutheran Confessions rightly understand Jesus to be speaking of both the spiritual eating of faith and an oral eating in the Sacrament of the Altar (Formula of Concord Solid Declaration VII:61). That oral eating is done in a supernatural and heavenly manner (Formula of Concord Epitome VII:15), a manner that is also beyond our ability to understand (SD VII:64), yet we do understand John chapter six in light of Jesus’s institution of the Sacrament reported elsewhere (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25), and we understand John chapter six as it has been understood and used in faithful Christian devotions and hymns down through the nearly two millennia of Christian history. (Incidentally, as the Rev. Dr. Weinrich reminded our Continuing Education class a week ago, for the first millennium, the Church took the necessity of the Sacrament seriously enough to commune all who were baptized, regardless of their age!)
Jesus’s flesh with bread is true food, and His blood with wine is true drink. As with the many disciples in the Gospel Reading who turned back and no longer walked with Jesus, one can hardly consistently deny His real, physical presence in the Sacrament of the Altar and be regarded as a Christian! As we also heard in the Gospel Reading, those who feed on Jesus’s flesh and drink His blood abide in Jesus and Jesus in them. They do not hunger or thirst (John 6:35) but partake of His heavenly being and nature and so live for all eternity.
As we so abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us, we bear much fruit (John 15:5), including the fruit of lips that acknowledge His Name (Hebrews 13:15). We heard in the Gospel Reading how Peter confessed that Jesus had the words of eternal life and was the Holy One of God. Peter said back to Jesus what Jesus first had said to him. There were other places to go, but no one else offered what Jesus did. The Twelve had come to believe and continued believing in Jesus, they recognized the truth and held it. But, they did not only hold it, they did as they were told to do and also told others (Acts 5:20). So, even we today likewise believe and know, and we in turn tell still others. Together, daily repenting and believing, we continue to walk with Jesus, not to the death we deserve on account of our sins but, as we prayed in the Collect of the Day, we steadfastly follow His steps in the way that leads to life eternal, which eternal life He graciously gives us through His Word and Sacraments.
Today’s Old Testament Reading included Wisdom’s invitation to walk in the Lord’s ways (Proverbs 9:1-10), and today’s Epistle Reading further detailed that walk (Ephesians 5:6-21). Sadly, not all people so hear the invitations as to walk in the Lord’s way, but His teaching remains true, regardless. The Rev. Dr. Weinrich highlighted well for us in the Continuing Education class how St. John’s Gospel account teaches about Jesus’s and the Church’s way, truth, and life. Some of the things the professor said were “hard sayings” and some maybe should not be heeded, but his teaching about “Eating Jesus’s Flesh and Drinking His Blood” was the same as our Lord’s teaching and so was sure and certain and worthy of the Twelve’s reaction of faith unto life eternal.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +