1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality. The message from God’s Word this 11th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from John 6:35-41 and is entitled, “The Bread of Life Raises,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. We are in the midst of a three-part series of sermons which highlight three of Jesus’ promises in the Bread of Life discourse in John 6. The theme for the first sermon was, “The Bread of Life Satisfies,” based on John 6:35. This week we are looking to Jesus’ promise at the end of John 6:40. There Jesus says, “This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
3. A major theme in John’s Gospel is how Jesus came to give life, especially eternal life. You see this promise throughout the book, including in chapter 6. But, in the Bread of Life discourse Jesus says more. Four different times here in John 6 (verses 39, 40, 44, 54) He explicitly promises to raise (ἀναστήσω) His people on the Last Day. This promise of resurrection is central to the Christian faith. As we confess in the Nicene Creed, the goal of the Christian life is, “the resurrection of the dead and life in the world to come.” This reading from John 6:35-41 invites us to address a few foundational questions about the nature of this resurrection.
4. First, Jesus will raise us from what? The short answer is death. But this is more than the moment our hearts stop beating. Ever since the Fall of man into sin, death has cast its shadow over every aspect of life in this world. Our relationships, our intellects, our communities, our bodies, our emotions, our wills—nothing is exempt. The entire human existence has been darkened by self-inflicted death and despair. Poet-theologian Martin Franzmann captures this in his rich hymn, “O God, O Lord of Heaven and Earth.” On a “deathward drift” since birth, we have, “...housed us in this house of doom, where death had royal scope and room.” (Lutheran Service Book (St. Louis, CPH), #834.)
5. The people in our text from John 6 experienced this in their hunger pains, but also in their grumbling and refusal to believe in Jesus. Remember that many disciples walked away from Jesus after His teaching in this chapter (John 6:66). Like the dwarfs in C.S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle,” they were imprisoned in their own minds and couldn’t accept Jesus’ hard saying.
6. The Bible is brutally honest about our sinful human condition. While God kindly allows seasons of human flourishing and joy, life on this side of Jesus’ return is always burdened by death and decay. We are victims, to be sure. But, we are also guilty of turning away from God in toward ourselves (incurvatus in se). Romans 3:10-18 says, “10 There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 6 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” In this sense, Jesus promises to raise us from ourselves.
7. Second, Jesus will raise us to what? A full, physical, bodily resurrection. Jesus is not explicit in these verses, but the Scriptures are clear that Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:51–57, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
8. There are two Christian views of hope in the afterlife. The first view is simply the hope of “dying and going to heaven.” Many American Christians hold this view. When they think what the promises of God in Christ ultimately entail, they think of: “dying and going to heaven, leaving this corrupt creation behind, leaving their bodies behind, and going to be with Christ.” This view of hope contains an element of truth while being non-creedal. The element of truth is the promise of the interim state of the soul. That is, if we die (and Christ might return in glory before we do), then even though death rips our human nature apart, nevertheless our souls do experience a blessed rest and awareness of Jesus “in paradise,” as Jesus said to the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43). This is true. But, if this is one’s entire view of “Christian hope,” then it stands in contrast to the other view of the hope of afterlife the Bible teaches us.
9. The second view of hope in the afterlife is centered in the promise that Jesus the Lord will return in glory to this creation, and that He will set the creation free from its bondage to decay to enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8). This is the view promoted by many Christian writers and thinkers today. N. T. Wright, one of the most prolific New Testament scholars of our time, has emphasized this second view of hope, centered in the return of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and— you know the Creed—the life of the world to come. What remains a remarkable reality is that this second view is “radically different” from the common Christian understanding. It is the view of the Lord Jesus in teaching after teaching, parable after parable. It is the view of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. This is the hope of the ecumenical Creeds, and of the Small Catechism, that proclaims that “Christ will raise up me and all the dead, and give unto me and all believers eternal life; this is most certainly true.” The Bible emphasizes the bodily resurrection as the object of Christian hope.
10. Third, Jesus will raise whom? The message here in John 6 is that Jesus will raise us from the dead. But, the text gives us more. Jesus answers this question three different times in three different ways. First, in John 6:40, Jesus promises to raise all who come to Him and believe in Him. Resurrection by faith, you might say. But, lest we think of faith as our responsibility, Jesus gives us a second answer in John 6:44. “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” The theology here is important. All are called to come to Jesus. All are commanded to believe in Him. But when we do, it is always the work of the Father. This leads to His third answer. In John 6:54, Jesus puts it like this: “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Those who believe in Jesus also believe what He says about His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper in, with, and under the bread and wine. It is hard to miss the connection for Christians who have witnessed Jesus’ passion and resurrection. All who eat and drink the Lord’s Supper in Christian faith trusting that Jesus’ body and blood are truly present with the bread and wine will be raised on the Last Day for the full and final feast.
11. Jesus will raise us from the dead when? Each time Jesus mentions raising in John 6, He is clear about when this will happen—"on the last day” (ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ). Jesus wants us to look towards and anticipate the day of His return. That is when He will, “...raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life” (Martin Luther’s explanation of the Third Article). Christians always live with the end in view. But this changes how we live now, too.
12. We live as “people ahead of time,” which Richard John Neuhaus writes in, “Freedom for Ministry”). Raised already in our baptism (Romans 6:1-4), we walk in newness of life here and now. Romans 6:1-4 says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Which means part of our work as Christians is to live ahead of time as those already raised with Christ even as we await the promised resurrection on the Last Day. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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