John 6:51-58<\/p>\n\n\n\n
August 20, 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most exciting things that have happened at our church is the recent baby boom. When all of the little ones were coming into the world, we became a bit giddy. It was like we were all expectant parents and grandparents! Last November, we rejoiced over the fact that in just one week span, four babies were born. And this spring beginning in April and extending into May, for five weeks in a row, I was delighted to stand up here Sunday after Sunday and with your expectant anticipation, announce the birth of another baby!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that the babies are a few months old, they are coming to church. When they were infants, I would go up to the Nursery and say, \u201cWho is this?\u201d \u201cAnd who is this one?\u201d Looking very carefully, one can tell that there\u2019s a little bit of the father and a little bit of the mother to tell the difference among all of the babies. Already, these little ones are beginning to take on their very own unique personalities that proclaim that God created each of them and blessed them with distinctive gifts and talents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who is this? This is Madison. This is Micah. This is Mason. This is Ryland. This is Sage. This is Madeline. This is Roka. This is Drew. This is Troy. This is Ryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who is Jesus?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While we can tell who are the new babies among us, we are unsure who was Jesus depicted in today\u2019s Scripture lesson. Who was Jesus? What was it like to sit at his feet on the Galilean hillside, to hear his words, to see his signs and wonders? Have you ever longed to be there, to be back there, and actually see and hear for yourself the very words of Jesus? I know some of the new parents are chronicling their new babies\u2019 first pictures, first words, first smile, first bottle, and so forth. They want to make sure that they have a record of their child\u2019s first accomplishments!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But we don\u2019t have that for Jesus. A few years ago, some biblical scholars attempted to reconstruct the real Jesus, Jesus as he was, through their extensive historical research and historical speculation. They came up with a chronicle of who Jesus probably was. And after some much publicized brouhaha, the study contributed nothing more than what we already knew. The study may have given us more historical accuracy about who Jesus was<\/strong> but it said nothing more about who Jesus is<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have been focusing on John 6 for the past three weeks and today\u2019s sermon is yet another message about who Jesus is: Jesus is the Bread of Life. In today\u2019s gospel, John 6:51-58, we see one of Jesus\u2019 hard sayings. As ones who follow the living Christ, Jesus is <\/em><\/strong>rather than Jesus was<\/em><\/strong>. His hard teachings should have just as much effects on us today as they did when Jesus first said them to his disciples and the crowds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hard Sayings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many times when Jesus demands hard things of us. \u201cGo, sell all that you have and give it to the poor.\u201d That\u2019s hard. Or, \u201cIf your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.\u201d That\u2019s hard. Or, \u201cBe perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.\u201d That\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in today\u2019s gospel, Jesus doesn\u2019t demand anything of us other than our faith. Rather, he makes promises that are hard to take. He tells us that he is bread that has come down from heaven. He is the bread that will satisfy all of our longings. We are to feed on him and we will be satisfied forever. I know some you new mothers out there wish that your babies would be satisfied longer than feeding them every three hours!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Isn\u2019t it ironic that it is the promise of Jesus that offends here, rather than any of his demands or commands? Jesus promises us that he is the answer to our deepest hungers, that we are to feed upon him and be filled, that he is to be more to us than food and drink\u2014the source of our very lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this scares the wits out of us. In these moments, we consider that perhaps our real problem with Jesus is not so much, \u201cWho was Jesus?\u201d but rather, \u201cWho is Jesus?\u201d Jesus invites us to feed on him today! Maybe that\u2019s the reason why so much energy was spent on trying to reconstruct a history of Jesus. If we can somehow make Jesus into an historical figure, a problem in the past, then we don\u2019t have to deal with him today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus, in today\u2019s gospel, offends those who stood around him that day. He offends us today. It wasn\u2019t that they were gullible and ancient people and we are skeptical, disbelieving, modern people. Rather it\u2019s a matter that Jesus is strange. He was strange then and he is still strange right now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019 critics ask, \u201cHow can this man give us flesh to eat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said, \u201cUnless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you\u201d (6:53). Eating flesh, drinking blood? These are extremely repugnant notions\u2014especially for a vegetarian like me! What on earth could Jesus mean by this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Greek, it is even more repugnant. The very word translated here as \u201ceat\u201d is actually closer to our words, \u201cchew,\u201d or \u201cgnaw,\u201d or \u201cgulp.\u201d This is very cannibalistic and offensive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said, \u201cThose who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them\u201d (6:56). After this, John says that many who once followed him, turned away. And who can blame them? Jesus seems extremely strange, distant and hard to take. The bread that comes down from heaven is a long way off from us. It\u2019s very hard for us to believe that God really looks and acts like Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus Comes to You<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of you have heard me say that I would love to visit the Holy Lands to see for myself the places where Jesus walked, healed, taught, died and resurrected. We yearn to experience the first century and witnessed for ourselves the work of Jesus\u2014to see him face to face. The implication of this desire is that belief would somehow be easier. We think that if we could stand face to face with who Jesus was then we can choose for ourselves. But if that were the case, why didn\u2019t more people of that day follow Jesus rather than reject him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our problem is not that we don\u2019t have enough evidence to convince us that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Our problem is that Jesus and his teaching can be too difficult and demanding here and now. It is not for us to choose to believe in Jesus on the basis of certain proofs and arguments. It is for Jesus to choose us, to come to us, to speak to us, to reveal himself to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why you are here this morning. It is not that you did a study of all of the world\u2019s alleged saviors and decided that Jesus had the most to offer. It is not that you assembled all of the available historical data and it all added up to Jesus. It is rather that Jesus in some way has come to you, spoken to you and chosen you to be his disciple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just like in the scripture today, Jesus keeps talking to his disciples, keeps working with his disciples, and keeps speaking and revealing who he is even when they don\u2019t understand everything about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But understanding isn\u2019t the issue. The issue is to keep trying to love Jesus, to follow Jesus, to feed on him, to savor and enjoy him as if we were feeding on the bread of life. The reason why this is a hard saying from Jesus for us is because when we feed on the Bread of Life, we commit our entire life to him. We eat, chew, gulp down the Word of God so that Christ is in us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Craddock\u2019s Stories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to tell you one of Fred B. Craddock\u2019s stories. Craddock begins,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was invited to the University of Winnipeg in Canada to give two lectures, one on a Friday evening and one on Saturday morning. I went. I gave the one on Friday evening. As we left the lecture hall, it was beginning to spit a little snow. I was surprised, and my host was surprised because he had written, \u201cIt\u2019s too early for the cold weather, but you might bring a little windbreaker, a little light jacket.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next morning when I got up, two to three feet of snow pressed against the door. The phone rang, and my host said, \u201cWe\u2019re all surprised by this. In fact, I can\u2019t come and get you to take you to any breakfast, the lecture this morning has been cancelled, and the airport is closed. If you can make your way down the block and around the corner, there is a little depot, a bus depot, and it has a caf\u00e9. I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, \u201cI\u2019ll get around.\u201d I put on that little light jacket; it was nothing. I got my little cap and put it on; it didn\u2019t even help me in the room. I went into the bathroom and unrolled long sheets of toilet paper and made a net in the cap so that it would protect my head against the icy wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went outside, shivering\u2014the wind was cold, the snow was deep. I slid and bumped and finally made it around the corner into the bus station. Every stranded traveler in Western Canada was in there, strangers to each other and to me, pressing and pushing and loud. I finally found a place to sit, and after a lengthy time a man in a greasy apron came over and said, \u201cWhat\u2019ll you have?\u201d I said, \u201cMay I see a menu?\u201d He said, \u201cWhat do you want a menu for? We have soup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, \u201cWhat kinds of soup do you have?\u201d And he said, \u201cSoup, You want some soup?\u201d I said, \u201cThat was what I was going to order\u2014soup.\u201d He brought the soup, and I put the spoon to it\u2014Yuck! It was the awfulest. It was kind of gray looking; it was so bad I couldn\u2019t eat it, but I sat there and put my hands about it. It was warm, and so I sat there with my head down, my head wrapped in toilet paper, bemoaning and beweeping my outcast state with the horrible soup. But it was warm, so I clutched it and stayed bent over my soup stove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The door opened again. The wind was icy, and somebody yelled, \u201cClose the door!\u201d In came this woman clutching her little coat. She found a place, not far from me. The greasy apron came, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d And she said, \u201cGlass of water.\u201d He brought a glass of water, took out his tablet and said, \u201cNow what will you have?\u201d She said, \u201cJust the water.\u201d He said, \u201cYou have to order lady.\u201d \u201cWell, I just want a glass of water.\u201d \u201cLook, I have customers that pay\u2014what do you think this is, a church or something? Now what do you want?\u201d She said, \u201cJust a glass of water and some time to get warm.\u201d \u201cLook, there are people that are paying here. If you\u2019re not going to order, you\u2019ve got to leave!\u201d And he got real loud about it. So she got up to leave and, almost as if rehearsed, everybody in that little caf\u00e9 stood up and started toward the door. I got up and said, \u201cI\u2019m voting for something here; I don\u2019t know what it is.\u201d And the man in the greasy apron said, \u201cAll right, all right, all right, she can stay.\u201d Everybody sat down, and he brought her a bowl of soup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said to the person sitting there by me, \u201cWho is she?\u201d He said, \u201cI never saw her before.\u201d The place grew quiet, but I heard the sipping of that awful soup. I said, \u201cI\u2019m going to try that again.\u201d I put my spoon to the soup\u2014you know, it was not bad soup. Everybody was eating this soup. I started eating this soup, and it was pretty good soup. I have no idea what kind of soup it was. I don\u2019t know what was in it, but I do recall when I was eating it, it tasted a little bit like bread and wine. Just a little like bread and wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we care enough to stand up for what Jesus stood up for and is still standing up for, we are in a real sense, feeding on Christ, savoring and enjoying him as if we were feeding on the bread of life. Craddock and the others could have just minded their own business. But their compassion for this poor woman was like that of Jesus. Jesus would have done the same. And when we act like Jesus, we are in a true sense, \u201cThose who eat Jesus\u2019 flesh and drink his blood. We are abiding in Jesus and he is abiding in us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Changes Our Lives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What unifies us is the affirmation that Christ is bread, the staple of life, and that unless we partake of him and his resurrection life, we cannot live. This rather repugnant and offensive promise by Jesus that he is the bread that has come down from heaven to satisfy all of our life longings, is the answer to the question, \u201cWho is this Jesus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see that when Jesus is in our lives, he changes everything. For all of the first time mothers and fathers who are here this morning, you know what I mean. When your baby came, you are forever changed. You could never have imagined what it was going to be like. You thought you\u2019ve been trained in multi-tasking so what\u2019s so difficult about having a baby? Now you know what I mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is something about taking another\u2019s physical life into ours that changes our own, as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and adoption exemplify. You will always worry about your child. You can never stop being a parent anymore. Your baby\u2019s life is a beautiful combination of both his and her parents and now, you will be known as the \u201cParents of your Child.\u201d You are forever changed when your child came into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we commingle our lives with Jesus Christ\u2019s, we are forever changed as well. As often as we participate in the Lord\u2019s Supper when we partake of the bread as Christ\u2019s body and drink of the cup as Christ\u2019s blood, our lives begin to conjoin with his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As his body, we are to be bread for the world, living in such a way that we nourish others\u2019 lives. We know that our new parents will feed and nourish their new babies because they are good parents. But all of us are called to commingle and conjoin our lives with Jesus\u2019, eating his body and drinking his blood so that we may also nourish the many who are hungry and hurting in the world. This is who Jesus is. And this is who Jesus wants us to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n O God, come into our lives as food for our spirits and nourish us to be like Christ. We know Jesus is our Bread of Life and the new covenant in his blood. Transform us each day as we strive to be like Christ and to know him as our Lord. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John 6:51-58 August 20, 2006 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. One of the most exciting things that have happened at