John 6:56-69

Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”…

 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (Read the whole passage)

In the last 5 weeks we have been given our five loaves. For the last five weeks we have been slowly making our way through the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John. 5 weeks that started with 5 loaves and 2 fish, followed by ongoing argument between Jesus and the crowds. Arguments over what is the true bread, about who can receive the power of God, about trying to be God in God’s place, about where we abide and in whom we abide. 

But today Jesus has ramped up his argument, and Jesus has challenged the crowds and they do not like it. Instead of backing down, Jesus has pushed back. Pushed back so hard that the crowds give in and walk away. The crowds were impressed with the miracles, but were not impressed with Christ’s teaching. But the crowds aren’t the only ones who walk away in disgust, some of the disciples walk away too. Not the 12, but some of the larger group of followers that had been with Jesus. The same ones who had collected the excess of the five loaves and two fish, they too turn and walk away.

So what is the fuss about? What has caused not only the crowds, but some of the disciples to walk away? Jesus said to the crowds,

 “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me” 

Or in other words Jesus has said to the crowds:

Come and meet me, 
come and be a part of me, 
and you will see God, 
you will meet God, 
you will be a part of God. 

Jesus has offered God in flesh to a Jewish audience. An audience who does not understand Yahweh to be a God that suffers the unclean, Yahweh does not get dirty, Yahweh does not forgive the unrighteous. And Yahweh would become a lowly human being. But still here is Jesus offering himself, offering God the Father as bread. 

And for five weeks we have been hearing how Jesus offers bread to us too. Bread for the Hebrew people 2000 years ago, and bread for the Church today. Bread for the Church and bread for the world. The body of Christ for the world. As the Body of Christ, as the Church and as Lutherans, we are defined by the presence of that bread, that body. In the Augsburg Confession, Martin Luther and the Reformers defined the Church as, 

“…the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly.” 

The Church is place where the grace and forgiveness of God is preached. The Church is the place where we are washed and forgiven of our sin by Holy Baths. The Church is the place where we share with each other Holy Meals. Bread and life for all that are hungry. The body of Christ found in bread, and the body of Christ that is this community, one in the same, given to us by God. 

It is these three things, the preaching of the Gospel, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper that make us the Church, the body of Christ. And yet, like those disciples who walked away from this radical gift we walk away from it as well. We walk away from the promise and the gift that we are given by Christ. We walk away because its too free. We walk away like the crowds and disciples because we cannot imagine that such an amazing and radical gift could be given to us at no cost, that it could be given completely freely out of God’s love for us. 

We live in a world that tells us “you get what you pay for”, that “there is no such thing as a free lunch”, that “you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”. We are so conditioned to believe that nothing is free, that when something free is given to us, we cannot accept it. It almost as it we need to pay a price for God’s love, for God’s bread. We want to have to know enough, understand enough, pray enough, feel it enough, come to church enough, be good enough, believe it enough. If we only do enough, God just might love us.  

And somewhere in the midst of all that. In midst of arguing about bread, in the midst of walking away because the promise is too radical, in the midst of trying to be enough, we find our selves asking, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

 Where do we go God? We do not know the way! Who will do it for us? We cannot do it on our own!

We ask with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” And somehow, not by ourselves, not as individuals, but as a community of faith, somehow by the Holy Spirit we then say. “You have the words of eternal life”. 

In fact the same spirit in us proclaims it every Sunday, the same spirit draws us to the Father and we are given Christ the Word, Christ the Bread of Life.

And by these words of eternal life, Jesus leads us to the cross. The Gospel, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, these three signs of the Church, they all lead us to the cross. 

They all lead us to the cross of promise and new life. 

70 years ago, an expressionist painter and poet by the name of Oskar Kokoschka, sketched a drawing. The inscription on the drawing reads “In memory of all the children of have to die of cold and hunger this Christmas”. The picture is of a cross. A cross on which Jesus hangs, surround by children. Poor grubby children. Cold and Hungry Children. And with one hand ripped free of its nail on the cross, Jesus reaches out to a child below him. Jesus reaches out and puts his hand into the child’s mouth. Jesus, while dying on the cross, is still offering himself, offering the Bread of Life to the cold and hungry child who stand before him. 

Today, Jesus reaches down from the cross for us. Jesus reaches down with word, water and bread.

We the cold and hungry before the cross, we the Church, we the beggars who stand before the cross, we who are defined by the Gospel, by Holy Baptism, and by the Lord’s Supper, we are shown the cross week after week, year after year, because on the cross we find hanging the Word and Body of God. There in the unlikeliest of places, we are given bread, we are given New Life. 

It is, of course, too radical to accept, too much to believe, it does make sense to walk away from craziness of this gift. But this is the radicalness of God. This is who God is, showing us the most radical love of all, by becoming bread, and by giving Godself up on the cross. 

And so here are. Five loaves. Fives small of loaves bread and five weeks of one conversation in the Gospel of John. And yet in five loaves we discover that God is doing so much more than we can imagine. God is giving us more than we can accept. And no matter if we walk away from it all, or whether we find ourselves asking “Lord, to whom shall we go?” or both… God continues to give us this the gift of forgiveness, of grace and of love, Gifts of the Gospel, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 

“Lord to whom shall we go? You have ARE the Word of Eternal Life. You are the Bread of Life given on a cross, for the sake of the world. 

Amen.