"The Bread of Life" John 6: 22-35 (The Food we need - 3) Sermon Pr. Lucas Albrecht Sunday August 5th 2018 Season of Pentecost

Sermon OUTLINE

Text: John 6:22-35
Theme:  The Bread of Life
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Intr – A research showed that a human being eats about 16 times its own weight in one year. A horse takes in only 8 times its weight. So if you want to loose wight you have to eat like a horse.

_Speaking of weight loss, is this the case today for many people to say in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us not this day our daily bread”. Food is so plentifully available in our reality here that we can afford to not to eat, even when there’s so much food available.

_That brings us also to eating disorders like Anorexia, or Bulimia. And one is left wondering: what leads a human being to be afraid to eat, and avoiding it altogether? Can this type of disorder reach also the spiritual life?

          Food. We’ve been talking about it, the food we need, for the last 3 Sundays. In the Gospel today, this subject surfaces again, now when we hear about the Bread of Life. The bread which is “He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

          A bread that comes down from Heaven? What is it connected to?

1 – The text

_The text implies the multiplication of the loaves.
It is a talk about bread. Jesus people food for the body. Now He bridges it to the food for the soul.

_Jesus turns their attention from the loaf of bread to the bread of life.
                    *He knew they were after an earthly king which, among many things, could make food appear. Talk about a perfect fit for the throne!

_Jesus says he is the bread of life that came down from heaven.

_”I am”. One of the 7 I am that Jesus says. He is the Bread of Life, but He gives the Water of life.[1]

_He is the food that literally came from heaven to sustain us  not only for 40 years, but for eternity
“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for lthe food that endures to eternal life, which mthe Son of Man will give to you.”
Which works?
“That you believe in him whom he has sent”.

_The problem here was Jesus didn't meet their expectations, so they wouldn't recognize Him as the promised Messiah.

_And then they ask for a sign.
The Manna was the food sent literally from heaven that sustained the People of God in the desert for 40 years.

_Jesus is the Bread of life that sustains us not only for 40 days or 40 years, but for eternity.

_What are the signs we demand from God in order to Work for the food that endures, that is, in order to with more confidence take Jesus seriously and believe in Him?

_Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Jesus is not taken seriously is because  of that saying “there is no such thing as free meal”. “Things falling from heaven from free? That’s a scam someone is trying to play on you. Nothing is for free. You have to do your part if you want to please God, have his blessings and deserve somehow to be with Him”. But that’s exactly what the Father did. He sent His Son, the Bread of life.

Why “Bread of life”? Perhaps because there’s a bread of death surrounding our meal tables.

*The devil and the World;
*Challenges to our faith;
*Fast spiritual food.        

2 – Feast of Food
_What’s the adequate way to feed our souls? What types of “drive-throughs” we’ve been going to trying to satisfy our pain, and our spiritual wants?
_Fast food – It has been around for quite a long time now, and it is a type of food that may feed you. You can get by somehow by only eating it.  But we have been learning that this is not the adeaquate way to feed our bodies.
*Perhaps we too resort to "fast food" to trying to satisfy our hearts;

_Christ doesn’t offers us fast food. He offers a feast of Food. From the Gospel of John, we learn though that this feast has one main dish: BREAD. The Bread of Life, that saciates, relieves, strengthens and sustains. He doesn't meet our expectations - rather, our expectations are shaped according to His Word.

_As we heard previsouly: Life is short. But it can be shorter if you eat unhealthy food. Spiritual life is short as well if you eat the wrong food.[2]

_When you EAT the bread of life, CHRIST then YOU KNOW your soul is being fed, your life is being nurtured. Even your emotional health is being noursished, because you know you can latch your feelings on to what you KNOW and have LEARNED from the word of God. He came down from Heaven to be our Bread of life.
_Quote:
“Every boy wants to be a man.
Every man wants to be a king.
Every king wants to be a God.
Only God wanted to be a boy.”

He came down from Heaven to come to us. Not only in Word and Sacraments here in the Divine Service, but every sngle day of our lives giving meaning to our life and direction to our steps.

Cc - We’ve been talking about the food we need, Now perhaps a last question could be: “How much of it should I have and eat, or take with me?”

A couple of friends visited with us earlier this week coming back form a big, huge trip. On their motorhome they set to travel the Americas from bottom to top, from South to North. They started their trip off in Ushuaia, the Argentina, the southernmost point in the Americas, and finished it in Northern Alaska. Almost 15,000 km, or 9,000 miles. Now, how much food did they have take to with them for that road trip? 5 loves and 2 fish? Well, unless Jesus literally travelled with them to multiply it, I don’t think that would be enough. They had to have a full pantry right off the bat. But, you would add, they surely had also many pit stops along the road to refuel and to relaoad the pantry,.. And that’s correct.

Now think of your life? You’ve been travelling from the deep end of sin, brought into God’s Faith home and is travelling to the up north figuratively speaking  - Heaven. How does that trip look like? Do we think we can make it without a full pantry? Or even without Sunday and daily pit stops for refuel and nourishment? I don’t think so. We need food for the long travel. We need constantly to be nourished by the one who is actually present with us in that trip, multiplying our food for faith, bringing the Braead of life taht actually will make us not to be hungry anymore.

Yes, we can eat like a horse, the Word of God is a never ending source of energy and noursihment for our life. We should never be afraid of eating, that is, we can avoid to develop a sort of Bible Anorexia or Bulimia. The Bread of life feeds our hearts abundantly, wsustaining us in our road trip to Heaven. The Bread of life. The food we need.

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Resources:

* Esv.org
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=775QSLTAmNc   
* http://www.rvdreamtrip.com/