1.
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word today comes from
our Gospel lesson today from John 6:22-35.
Today, Jesus tells us that, Enduring Food Is Ours,
through the bread of life that comes from him.
But, so often we human beings try to earn our way into heaven. Even, with our own superhuman efforts we
can’t attain eternal life. Only Jesus’
efforts on our behalf through His perfect life, His cross, and empty tomb can
provide for us this enduring food that’s
ours. Dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2.
What
makes a wedding ring a lot better symbolic gift to begin married life than an
ice sculpture of a heart? The ring is fitting because it’s more enduring, as
one hopes the marriage will be.
3.
Jesus
urges his hearers in today’s sermon text: “Do
not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal
life, which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:27). Jesus uses a
picture of food because he had fed over 5000 people a short while earlier, and
now he was being approached by men who wanted him to provide them with more
meals. These men were focused on the result
of Jesus’ miracle: their bellies were full. Sadly, they missed the real point
of Jesus’ sign. They stood before one who was eager to provide them with things
far more valuable than a happy meal. Their attention was fixed on food that
perishes instead of on that which would bless them eternally. This is why Jesus tells us to look for enduring food that is ours found in Him
through His Word and Sacraments.
4.
Perishable
things won’t satisfy our deepest needs and longings (vv 25–27). John 6:25-27 says, “25When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to
him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate
your fill of the loaves. 27Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the
food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For
on him God the Father has set his seal.”
But, we have upped the ante on things that
don’t last. Simple bread won’t do for
us. We need not a meal out but an
upscale meal out, not McDonalds but Ruth’s Chris Steak House. We’re not satisfied with a roof over our
heads; we need a house that’s in the right part of town with the right kind of
neighbors. We need all A’s on our report
card, a date with the most beautiful girl in school, a greener lawn, a retirement
place on the Chain O Lakes , a retirement that provides a big chair, and of
course, the NFL Network.
5.
These
things that don’t last can satisfy a need and many a want for a brief time, but
they wear off, wear out, go out of style, get lost, get stale, break, or
otherwise fail to maintain satisfaction.
St. Augustine said to God, “You
have created us for yourself; our heart knows no rest except that it finds its
rest in You” (Confessions, book 1, ch 1). Remember Jesus’ parable of the rich fool from
Luke chapter 12? The man’s fields had brought enough crops to set him up for
many years, and they did give him pleasure for a while. But, then God came to
him and said, “Fool, this night your soul
is required of you!” You can’t take
any such perishable things with you when you die. Have you ever seen a U-Haul following behind
a hearse? 1 Tim 6:7 says: “We brought nothing into the world, and we
cannot take anything out of the world.” And,
Job 1:21 says: “Naked I came from my
mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.”
6.
The
Bible tells us that God the Father has designed us human beings for two kinds
of life, bodily and spiritual, a human being needs two kinds of bread, or food,
bodily food and spiritual food. Today we hear Jesus tell us this truth: Jesus,
the Bread of Life, Is the Enduring Food that is Ours.
7.
We
need the bread that gives eternal spiritual life. To be sure, we need the daily bread that
gives bodily life. This is shown to us
from the account of the feeding of the 5000 before our text. This is shown from the Old Testament Reading
for this Sunday: God’s gift of manna and quail to the Israelites in the
wilderness. This is shown to us from the
Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give
us this day our daily bread.”
8.
But,
as Jesus himself reminds us, we can’t live by that bread alone (Mt 4:4). Why not? Because we have another mouth to
feed, another life to sustain. Call it our spiritual life. When God created the first people of the human
race, he gave them both kinds of life, bodily and spiritual. When Adam and Eve sinned by eating the
forbidden fruit, they immediately lost their spiritual life, the life of God. As
God had warned them, they died that very day—and eventually they would lose
their bodily life as well.
9.
By
committing spiritual suicide, our first parents spiritually murdered the whole
human race. Every person born into this world since is alive in the body, but
dead in the soul, “dead in . . .
transgressions and sins” (Eph 2:1). That’s why every person born into this
world is in desperate need of being born again if he or she is to enter the
kingdom of heaven.
10.
God’s
Son Jesus came to our world as a human being to give us this spiritual life
again (Jn 3:16; 10:10). He achieved this
goal by dying on the cross, both physically and spiritually, and by rising
again from the grave. God’s kind of life is once again available for everyone.
11.
This
is why we’re unable on our own to acquire the bread that gives eternal
spiritual life. Even though Jesus has
made available the bread that gives the life of God, we’re still “dead in . . . transgressions and sins.”
Just as a dead person can’t raise himself from the dead and come to the table
for a meal, so we’re unable to raise ourselves and acquire the bread for
spiritual life.
12.
Yet
we still think we can. The telltale sign of our death in transgressions and
sins is our persistent thinking we can acquire God’s kind of life by our own
efforts. Look at the question of the
people in our text: “What must we do to
do the works God requires?” (v 28). Look at the question of the rich
young ruler to Jesus: “What must I do to
inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17).
Look at the question
of the jailer to Paul and Silas at the prison in Philippi: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts
16:30).
13.
So
both the Bible and Luther’s Small Catechism remind us that we can’t get God’s
kind of life—or even the food for that life—by our own efforts. The Bible says, “No one will be declared righteous in [God’s] sight by observing the
law” (Rom 3:20). Luther tells us in
the meaning of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ . . . or
come to Him” (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, p. 17).
14.
Only
Jesus can provide the bread that gives eternal spiritual life. Jesus warns us in our text, “Don’t work for food that spoils”
(materialism, worldliness, pursuit only of the bread of this life) but rather “for food that endures to eternal life”
(v 27). In a sense, Jesus warns us not
to work even for this food but to let God do the work (vv 28–29). God the Father will give us the bread from
heaven (v 32). He will give us the bread
from heaven through Jesus (v 27). In
fact, Jesus himself is the bread from heaven (vv 33, 35). The Giver and gift
are one and the same. We eat this bread
from heaven when we use the means of grace: Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the
Gospel in words. Whoever eats this bread
from heaven receives the “food that
endures to eternal life” (v 27). He or she “will never go hungry” (v 35). That’s why Jesus says in John 6:35, “35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never
thirst.”
15.
Since
Jesus is the bread of life and since he assures us that whoever eats this bread
will never go hungry, what shall we say to these things? What better response
than the cry of our text (v 34): “Sir, .
. . from now on give us this bread”? Or to paraphrase the Fourth Petition
of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Give us
this day—the bread of life!” Jesus
is the enduring food that is ours, thanks be to God!!! Amen.
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