Sermon / Pr. Ted Giese / August 2nd / John 6:22-35 / The Bread of Life

Bread You Didn't Make - The Bread of Life: Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Rev. Ted A. Giese / John Chapter 6 Part 1. (John 6:22-35)

On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?” Jesus 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. Do not work 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.” Then they said to Him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” So they said to Him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the True Bread from heaven. For the Bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to Him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst."

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends. Where does bread come from? In the Lord's prayer we pray to our heavenly Father, "give us this day our daily bread," and we know that when we do this we are praying, and giving thanks, for more than simple bread, and yet bread is such an important part of so many people's daily lives. Perhaps you remember being knee-high-to-a-grasshopper and helping grandma make bread in the kitchen on the farm, or maybe you did it every other day as part of your daily chores. Maybe you've only ever picked it up at the grocery store. Here's a simple recipe, some instructions, on making bread; listen and think about how it's made:

"Pile the flour on to a clean surface and make a large well in the centre. Pour half your water into the well, then add your yeast, sugar and salt and stir with a fork. Slowly, but confidently, bring in the flour from the inside of the well. (You don't want to break the walls of the well, or the water will go everywhere.) Continue to bring the flour in to the centre until you [start to] get a [heavy], porridge consistency – then add the remaining water. Continue to mix until it's [heavy] again, then you can be more aggressive, bringing in all the flour, making the mix less sticky. Flour your hands and pat and push the dough together with all the remaining flour.

[Now comes the ] kneading! ... With a bit of elbow grease, simply push, fold, slap and roll the dough around, over and over, for 4 or 5 minutes until you have a silky and elastic dough. Flour the top of your dough. Put it in a bowl, cover [it], and allow it to [rise] for about half an hour until doubled in size – ideally [this is done] in a warm, moist, draught-free place. This will improve the flavour and texture of your dough and it's always exciting to know that the old yeast has kicked into action.

Once the dough has doubled in size, knock the air out for 30 seconds by bashing it and squashing it. You can now shape it, or flavour it, as required – folded, filled, tray-baked, whatever – and leave it to [rise] for a second time, for 30 minutes to an hour, until it has doubled in size once more. This is the most important part, as the second [rise] will give it the air that finally ends up being cooked into your bread, giving you the really light, soft texture that we all love in fresh bread. So remember – don't fiddle with it, just let it do its thing.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Very gently place your bread dough on to a flour-dusted baking tray and into the preheated oven. Don't slam the door or you'll lose the air that you need. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked and golden brown. You can tell if it's cooked by tapping its bottom – if it sounds hollow it's done, if it doesn't then pop it back in for a little longer. Once cooked, place on a rack and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes [that's the hard part because fresh out of the oven bread is so tasty - as a kid I remember putting peanut butter on it, it was a great treat ]![1]

What do you notice? It's a surprisingly involved process, with many steps (once you've been doing it a while it comes as second nature - but for someone new to it it's more work than you'd think). The other thing, the obvious thing I guess, is that someone has to make it, it doesn't just fall out of heaven into your lap ... oh ... today in our Old Testament lesson that's what happened with the manna in the wilderness that the Children of Israel received, in fact, "the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not."[2] And then in our Gospel lesson Jesus mentions that manna in the wilderness and calls Himself, "the True Bread from heaven," saying of Himself, "I am the Bread of Life."

When He says this to those who followed Him across the sea of Galilee after the feeding of the 5,000,[3] they along with His own disciples find it difficult to comprehend what Jesus means by these words. They have earthly bread on their mind. Because they had not understood about the gift given in the manna that had rained down from heaven, because they didn't understand the loaves and fish divided miraculously and given as a gift out of compassion to the 5,000 at the hand of Jesus in the desolate place, because they didn't understand the gift and what these gifts pointed to they then didn't understand these words of Christ when He says, "I am the Bread of Life," to them such words were meaningless. "They thought only so far: Moses gave us bread to fill our bellies now Christ says, 'here there is another kind of bread.' Then [Christ Jesus] proceeds to describe and picture this as a bread which gives eternal life to those who eat of it. [Jesus] declares that this must be a bread different from that of Moses or any other food [and this confuses things for them]. In fact, [Jesus is saying that the True Bread from heaven] is just that [it is a different food], for it nourishes not only the body but especially the soul. [This confounds them]. ... It sounded like a strange speech to them when Christ declared: "My Father now gives you other bread from heaven, a real food of God, a bread from heaven, and of heaven, which gives eternal life to the world."

[As I said Jesus] did not have oven-baked bread in mind, nor Moses' bread, nor the bread of angels or of man, but the bread of God which they had not sought, produced, or baked. This [Jesus] says is not the product of your toil and industry; it comes to you from heaven. God gives and sends it to you that you might live on it, not only [here on earth, in this life,] but also eternally. This bread gives life to the world."[4] And unlike that recipe I gave to you earlier you have not made this bread for yourself and you cannot make it, neither can you pay for it with your money or the good you do for others, not even with good works done for, or in the church: No, this Bread is a gift.

(Today and in the next two weeks we will be looking at the Gospel of St. John chapter 6 and we will dig into what Jesus means when He says, "I am the Bread of Life whoever comes to Me shall not hunger and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst." There is a lot going on in this chapter of the Gospel of St. John.) 

The giving of something as a gift can be hard for people to fully comprehend because often when we receive a gift we want to pay back the giver so that we are even. What stand behind this is a sense of equality and equal-ness between peers, but as St. Peter says the gift you receive in Jesus was not purchased "with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ."[5] For this reason you can't square things up with God. This is the essence of what grace is, grace is the giving of a gift that can't be repaid, your silver or gold can't buy the blood of Jesus, your good works are not as good as His good works, even should you shed your blood for Him in thanks, giving your life up for His name, your blood would not be counted as innocent - like the Blood of Jesus is counted as innocent - for, as St Paul says, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."[6] This is because Jesus is God and it is His glory that we have fallen short of. When the Father gives you this Heavenly Bread, this Jesus, when Jesus gives to you Himself saying, "I Am the Bread of Life," it is pure gift, and as the receiver we are to simply receive it as such. No bartering, no haggling, no purchasing, no debt settling - just receiving. Even giving thanks and praise isn't about settling a debt or squaring things up, gratitude is just that, an acknowledging of grace.

Jesus says to them, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life," He said this to them because the Jews, like many people even today, were working to gain God's favour. And because they thought that they had to work for God's favour the logical question then is the one that the people gathered around Jesus that day asked, 'Ok then, if You're the Bread of Life, the food that somehow endures to eternal life, how do I receive this bread?' They ask Jesus, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” Believe in the giver of the gift. Believe in God the Father who sent you His Son Jesus. Believe in Jesus. That's it. All it requires is faith to believe. And St. Paul says that, "by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."[7]

As a project around the house we removed a hedge that had run along the one side of our front yard; we then bought a yard of dirt and prepared the ground for grass seed, we were left with extra top soil - I don't know if this has ever happened to you. It was left in a pile on the driveway. I put a sign up that said "FREE DIRT" and for days and days and days it sat there untouched, one day a couple little shovel-fulls were tentatively taken away when I wasn't looking, eventually it went but not to a stranger, to someone I personally offered it to. I jokingly told Michelle that it would be all gone in a day if the sign had read, "DIRT 10 Dollars," because someone would have stolen it. One of our troubles today, in a commercialized world, is that something that is given freely is often looked at with suspicion, there is a thought that it might not be worth anything if it's free. While Jesus gives Himself freely to you, while the Father gives Jesus freely to you, that doesn't mean it didn't cost God anything. The eternal and everlasting God tasted the bread of death, ate the whole loaf, died a death that was yours, so that you would have the Bread of life, so that you would have His eternal life as your own. And this is given as a gift.  

You cannot steal what Jesus gives you, before you think to take it for your own it's all ready been given, the nature of the gift is that it is given to the weak and to the strong, to the poor and to the rich, to those we think are good and to those we know are evil, it is given to the unborn and to the dying, to those who have great thoughts and mighty intellects and to those who struggle to think, and cannot remember what happened this morning. You cannot steal the gift of Jesus from the cross any more than you can steal Him from my hand in Holy Communion. For God sees into your heart and knows if the gift is received in faith or not. 

My faith is the pits, you say, I don't think I can rely on my faith, my heart is all over the place. Fear not, St. John - the same St. John who wrote today's Gospel lesson, writes, "whenever our heart condemns us, [remember] God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything."[8] "God is love."[9] And God loves you. He is the gracious giver of the gift of Eternal Life.

I leave you with this thought, and in the weeks to come we will think about how all this relates to things like Holy Communion and the preached Word of God, but for now think on this, You've heard it before but I will tell you again, there were these the words written down on a scrap of paper, that Dr. Martin Luther had in his pocket on his deathbed,  “We are beggars; this is true.” We are the ones, the beggars, who know where to get the Bread of life, where it get Jesus, that is why we are here today. Everything we are, everything we have, everything that will last to eternal life is Christ alone. Jesus said to them, “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst." Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

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[1] A Jamie Oliver bread recipe from his website: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/basic-bread-recipe/#okctGebKWshXUSF5.97
[2] Exodus 16:4
[3] Mark 6:30-44, "The apostles returned to Jesus and told Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When He went ashore He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things. And when it grew late, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But He answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” And He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then He commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish He looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And He divided the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish."
[4] "Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 6-8," Luther's Works AE, Volume 23, Concordia Publishing House, 1959, Pg 32-33.
[5] 1 Peter 1:18-19  
[6] Romans 3:23  
[7] Ephesians 2:8  
[8] 1 John 3:20     
[9] 1 John 4:8