John 6:51-69 Pentecost 14
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ August 25, 2024
Are you familiar with Ancient Grains? If not, you can get familiar with them on your next Costco trip. Costco will take $10.49 in exchange for 35.3 ounces of them. Then you can fill your belly with grains like spelt and kamut and amaranth. Whether you like them or not, your dog might. Costco will sell you Kirkland brand Ancient Grain dog food too, so they can get their barley and chia and quinoa. So, is your bread made from Ancient Grains better for you than other breads? Some say yes. Is the term simply a marketing ploy to sell supposedly healthier food? Maybe more that. It’s worked so well that they’re even able to market it for your Golden Retriever! For a few weeks we’ve been hearing Jesus refer to himself as the Bread of Life. Perhaps when we hear what Jesus said about being sent from heaven by his living Father and bringing eternal life, we might think of Jesus as the Bread of Life made of truly ancient grain—the stuff of eternity! You can argue about the value of Ancient Grains, but Jesus says that there is no debate about the necessity of the eternal Bread of Life. Like paparazzi chasing after a rock star, a crowd from the 5,000-plus of Jesus’s followers, who had listened to him teach and eaten miracle-produced food, chased him around the Sea of Galilee, finding him in Capernaum. The last two Sundays we’ve heard some of what he taught them as he called himself the Bread of Life. Today we hear him continue that imagery to explain that it is necessary to believe in him—that he is the only “food,” so to speak, that is needed in order to have eternal life. So, he says… EAT THE BREAD OF LIFE 1. Sent by the Father 2. To Bring Eternal Life Still today people ask, “Why Jesus?” Why is he the one to listen to when it comes to what happens after we die? People are as confused about Jesus now as they were then—and maybe we can be too. We’ll talk about what might sound super weird to you as it did to those who first heard Jesus say it—eating his flesh and drinking his blood—but first let’s notice something he said about who he was and where he came from. This is key to understanding why anyone would listen to him. As you scan these words of Jesus, there are some things about them that stand out. Like we’ve seen the last couple weeks, Jesus says something then circles back to it—and maybe even a few times. That he was sent by the Father and is God himself—is one of those things. He said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven. A little later: Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. And then later: What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? He is God. That’s what Jesus was saying about himself. Yes, the part about eating and drinking raised questions for those who were listening, but the bigger reason they said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?” was because they rejected the idea that he came from the Father, from heaven, and that eternal life came through him.