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Sunday, September 07, 2008
I Am the Bread of Life
14th in a series on The Uniqueness of the Gospel of John
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: John 6:35
35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
We are near the end of our study of the Gospel of John and we see in today’s passage one of the things that is different about Jesus in this gospel. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus does not want people to tell others that he is the messiah, the savior from God. In John, he is boldly announcing it in seven statements that begin with “I am”.
That statement is important for his listeners because it is the same statement that God answers with in the book of Exodus when Moses is finally convinced to go to the pharaoh and tell the pharaoh in Egypt to let the Hebrews go. Moses says to God, “Alright, I’ll do it – now who shall I tell has sent me?” And God says, “Tell him, I Am sent you.”
You remember Jesus’ statements because we have used them several times in a call to worship: I am the light of the world, I am the good shepherd, I am the vine and you are the branches, I am the door, I am the lamb of God, I am the resurrection and the life. And now today – I am the bread of life.
Jesus gives us a kind of food, a spiritual sustenance and nourishment that will last us and sustain us in all the times of life. It is the sustenance that Senator John McCain experienced as a POW when his captors gave him and others only enough physical food to barely survive – they still had their faith that pulled them through.
God is a source of nourishment and strength – God gives us food for our souls. There is a recent book that has become a best seller by stealth. It follows some spiritual themes of forgiveness and healing and reconciliation. We will do a book group on it in the next few weeks. It contains some very unorthodox theology and has been criticized and even called heresy by some church leaders on the right. The novel is called The Shack and is about a weekend retreat with God – the three persona of God: Creator, Christ and Spirit. God the creator is portrayed as a black woman who loves to cook and is always fixing something great to eat.
That God who feeds us is very Biblical! When the Israelites are wandering in the desert after leaving slavery and they are hungry and complaining, God gives them something to eat – manna. When Jesus sees the people who have come to hear him teach, he is concerned that they are hungry and says the disciples are to give them something to eat!
Jesus is concerned that we be nourished and fed – not only fed in our bellies but that our hearts and souls be fed as well.
We were with some friends this week who are part of this congregation and the fellow told us about a couple whom they know. The couple has been part of another church and our church member had invited them to worship here at St Andrew because – here is how he said it – because the folks had said “they were not getting nourishment where they had been.”
They were not being nourished where they were. Do you feel your spirit nourished when you gather here for worship? What is it that nourishes and feeds your heart and soul? Will you think with me for a moment? What is it that feeds and nourishes your heart and soul? Being with old friends? Sharing a meal? Being in a small group for your Disciple Bible study and growing together and learning together? So many people tell us that, and that is why we encourage people to study and learn and make that commitment: we see the enormous benefit.
What nourishes your soul? I hope that worship every Sunday does that. It does for me. The music, the prayers, the silence, being with people I love and care for, meeting new people – that feeds my heart and soul. We have been contacting some church members who have not been around for a while and inviting them back to church because we believe and hope that what happens when we gather is very important and that it feeds our hearts and nourishes our soul. It keeps us from doing what the prophet Isaiah warns us about in our call to worship – from trying to stuff our lives with spiritual junk food, when what we really need is a close relationship with God. Every person needs that, and St. Augustine said that our hearts are restless until we find our home in God. Do you find that true in your life?
Food and faith go together. One of my memories of growing up in the Greek Orthodox Church is the wonderful bread they used to hand out after the church service. This was not the communion bread, it was different – it was a basket full of chunks of good French bread that was freshly baked. I can still smell it and taste it. Can you think of that kind of bread or of the smell of baking bread when you walk into a bakery or if you bake bread yourself? It is very purposeful that when someone comes to worship here for the first time and signs the friendship pad that we try to take a loaf of bread to them in 24 hours. And maybe what we need to do in the new building is arrange things so that when we enter the building on Sunday morning the first thing we notice is the aroma of bread baking in our expanded kitchen!
Jesus makes this astounding promise: I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE – AND WHOEVER TRUSTS IN ME AND FOLLOWS ME WILL NEVER BE HUNGRY.
We will receive communion together today. We will do this to remember that Christ is with us whenever we break bread together. We will do this because Jesus told us to do this to remember him. We will eat together because that is what the followers of Christ have been doing for 2000 years. When the first Christians were baptized, they started doing what we have always done – they studied with the leaders, they prayed and worshiped, they had fellowship, and they ate together.
What are you hungry for? What is it that has been missing for you that can be satisfied as you make your relationship with God central in your life and as you find time to spend time with Christ and with other Christians in worship each Sunday? The first Sunday of September, the start of a new program year, is a great time to make a new commitment to be here each week so that our hearts and souls can be nourished with the food that lasts.