Text: John 6:51-58 Theme: Digest the Bread of Life

We have been making our way through Jesus’ “Bread of Life Discourse” here in John chapter 6 the last couple of weeks. In the event that you have found some of it difficult to understand or difficult to follow, it might make you feel a little better to know that you aren’t alone. While some of your difficulty can certainly be attributed to my limitations as a preacher, even those who heard these verses first hand from Jesus own lips had difficulty, including even Jesus’ disciples who were found grumbling afterwards, “This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?” Still, it is not our goal, nor is it Jesus’ goal for us, to simply walk away from our look at these verses scratching our heads in frustration. Instead it is our goal to strive for understanding of what Jesus says here, to take these words to heart that they may truly feed our souls. It is our goal to Digest the Bread of Life, that He may live in us, and that we may live through Him. It is clear from our text that there were many in the crowd who did not understand what Jesus was saying. They ask the question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They may as well have simply said, “I don’t get it!” So it is important for our understanding that we answer this question. In order to understand what Jesus is saying, we must take His words in context. I had a seminary professor who told us, “Context is everything that has come before. If you are studying Romans chapter 8, the context is Romans chapters 1 through 7.” Well, we’re not studying Romans chapter 8, we’re studying John chapter 6, which would mean the context would include John chapters 1 through 5. If we take Jesus’ words here in context, we understand that He gives Himself to us through the Word. In fact, He is the Word. As John began all the way back in chapter one of His Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the Word, and so He reveals Himself to us through the Word. Don’t go looking for Him anywhere else. He does not come to you through your own efforts to please God. He does not come to you as you “commune with nature.” He does not come to you as you ponder deep thoughts. Jesus is the Word, and He gives you His flesh to eat and His blood to drink only through the Word. As the prophet Jeremiah said, “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God almighty.” When you are in the Word, then Jesus gives Himself to you as the Bread of Life. But we want to digest the Bread of Life, to truly understand it that Jesus might live in us. This Jesus does by faith. Two questions arise when the word “faith” is mentioned. The first is “Where does faith come from?” The answer to that question takes us right back to the Word. The faith that is necessary to digest the Bread of Life is a gift from God, and He bestows that faith by the power of His Holy Spirit working through the Word. It does not come by your own thinking or choosing or desiring, but by God’s grace alone as He works that faith in you through the very same Word by which Jesus gives Himself to you as the Bread of Life. The second question that arises where faith is concerned might best be expressed, “Faith in what?” That Jesus makes clear to us. God-given saving faith bestowed by the power of the gospel is faith which grasps and holds as its object one thing and one thing only – Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To truly understand, to truly apprehend what Jesus has to say to us, to truly digest His words, is to understand by faith that you and I are sinners by birth, spiritually dead and deserving of eternal punishment, but Jesus Christ came from the Father in heaven and offered Himself up for our sins, sacrificed Himself on the cross and shed His blood, gave up His own life in order that you and I might be cleansed of our sins and receive life for His sake. And more than understanding this truth, to digest the Bread of Life is to trust this truth and rest our entire being on it, all by the faith created in us through this Bread of Life. How wonderful this news is for you and me. Not by our own doing, but entirely by God’s grace, you and I receive the Bread of Life through the Word, and by that Word the Spirit creates in us the very faith we need to trust in Jesus’ sacrifice and receive forgiveness and life through Him. It is God’s gift to you through His Son, and in this way Jesus Himself does live in you. But the news gets even better! As Jesus lives and remains in you through faith, created and fed through the Word, you also then live through Him. Here in these verses Jesus reveals a glorious and mysterious truth, one that is incomprehensible except when apprehended by faith. Jesus is life. That is not to say that Jesus is alive, which He is, but that He Himself is life. He is the One sent from the living Father in heaven, yet, He and the Father are One God together with the Holy Spirit. As such, Jesus Himself is God. God is eternal. He has no beginning and no ending. There was never a time when God was not, nor will there ever be a time when God is not. God Himself is life, and therefore also the source of all life, both physical and eternal. Since Jesus is true God, one with the Father and the Spirit, Jesus Himself is life and the source of all life, and He was sent from the Father in heaven that He might give life to all who feed on Him, in other words, all who by faith trust in His sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection. Jesus came that you might have life, but apart from Him you have no life. This is a truth that Jesus would expand on later in the upper room on Maundy Thursday as He explained to His disciples, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Without being connected to Jesus, you and I have no life in us. But when you are connected by faith to Jesus, the source of life, then He remains in you and you have life through Him. Through that connection of faith spiritual life has been created in you and by that life, life that is yours as long as Jesus remains in you, you are able to produce works that are pleasing to the Father in heaven. Not only that, but the life that is yours because the source of life Himself lives and remains in you is life that endures for eternity, even as the source of that life is eternal. As Jesus told the crowd, “Your forefathers at manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” This truth as well Jesus will spend much time repeating and explaining, even as He did to Martha at the death of her brother Lazarus, when He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will life, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” We have been encouraged by Jesus to seek the bread of life, and to eat only the true bread of life, which is Jesus Himself. Jesus doesn’t intend that we should be frustrated by His picture language, nor does He intend that we simply walk away scratching our heads and throwing up our hands. He intends that we digest the bread of life, that we take to heart what He has to tell us. How? Once more we turn to Jesus words in the upper room, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you.” Jesus gives Himself to you in the Word. By that Word the Holy Spirit creates faith by which you are able to understand and apprehend what Jesus has to say. By that faith you are able to grasp and hold tightly to Jesus sacrifice on the cross for you. By that faith you are connected to Jesus who is the source of life and so through Him you possess life that is eternal. And through the Word that faith is nourished and strengthened, enabling you to remain in Him for eternity. In the old hymnal, the prayer at the close of the service read: “Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of Thy Holy Word we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life.” Through these verses, that prayer is once more this morning our prayer. Remain in the Word, hear it, read it, learn it, and inwardly digest it, that you may digest the Bread of Life.