Matthew 26 and we want to begin reading verses 26 through 28. Matthew chapter 26 verses 26 through 28. Now while they were eating, Jesus took bread, He gave thanks and He broke it. He gave it to His disciples saying, take and eat.
This is my body. Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. I want to compare that to the gospel of John chapter 6.
John chapter 6, I will begin reading at verse 5 and read down to 11 to begin here. John chapter 6 verses 5 through 11. Now when Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming to Him, He said to Philip, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? He asked this only to test Him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do.
Philip answered eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother spoke up, here's a boy, with five small barley loaves and two small fish. But how far will the go among so many? Jesus said, Have the people sit down?
Now there was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about 5,000 of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. In verses 14 and 15, it goes on to say, Now after the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, Surely, this is the prophet who is to come into the world.
Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make Him King by force, which drew again to a mountain by Himself. Now we drop down to verses 26 and following. Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and you had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
On Him, God the Father has placed His seal of approval. Then they asked Him, What must we do to do the works? God requires. Jesus answered, The work of God is this, to believe in the One in whom He had sent.
So they asked Him, What miraculous sign will you give that we might see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Sir, they said, From now on, give us this bread. Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will never go hungry, and He who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still, you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me.
And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up on the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. And this the Jews began to rumble about Him because He said that I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, Is this not Jesus, the Son of Joseph, whose Father and Mother we know?
How can He now say, I came down from heaven? Stop grumbling among yourselves, Jesus answered. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws Him, and I will raise Him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets that they will all be taught by God, and everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me.
No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God, only He has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, He who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefather is a demand in the desert, yet they died, but here is the bread that comes down from heaven which a man may eat, and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world. Then the Jews began to argue, sharply among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. You have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in Him just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father so the One who felled me. Jesus is the Father, so the One who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefather is a man who died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.
Father, we pause before you because we recognize that as informed as we may be, our hearts we trust will move into the right place. We pray, Lord, as we consider these scriptures, we pray that you might impress upon us what we ought to do with them. We pray, O God, that you might be the teacher and that we might be receptive to your teaching. But Lord, we pray, most importantly, we would be changed.
And we give you praise for that in Jesus' name. Amen. As we've been attempting to look into the Gospel of John, and what makes this Gospel rather unique is that as much as the other Gospels tend to give you various pieces of information that we ought to know, John's Gospel is often intended not so much to teach the informational details. It's to bring our hearts to the place that it needs to be.
We mentioned that John writes his Gospel at a later date, as far as the calendar goes, and his intent is to particularly speak to a people who are beginning to be pretty much second-generation Christians. And as this season of the Gospel is one of the last to remain to be alive, it's carrying a burden that the things that really mattered continue to matter and stay within the beauty of the body of followers. As every one of us knows that maybe our grandparents were believers and followers of Jesus Christ, and they had a kind of quality or unique devotion to Christ. And then it comes to the next generation, and sometimes that desire to live for God is there, but it might diminish a little bit.
By the time you get to the third or fourth generation, unless there's new experiences with God himself, the faith becomes rather informational, and it becomes almost like, well, we already know those answers. What John is attempting to write is to present his Gospel in a way that the freshness of this relationship with Christ can continue on to the next generations and the next generations after that. And so his intent is to not give the details like Matthew's account gives, such as, this is what Jesus did, this is what he said, he takes the teaching on the Holy Soccer Mince, and he says, this is what it means. This is how it's applied.
These are the things that are important. So we look at the beauty of what John's Gospel is about, and we humbly trust that we might not only learn from a different style, a different approach, but we might be humbly influenced by the significance of what it really means. I believe as we look at John chapter 6, it's introduced with two rather amazing miracles. The first one is the beating of 5,000 people, or particularly men, not only counting all the women and children as they gather together with bread.
And this miracle, though, it should be a statement in itself. It is clearly a miracle in which there are people that are drawn to him because of that, and yet he has a crowd in the midst of the crowd that is actually bothered by this particular miracle. And then we end up looking at the second miracle where Jesus is bound to be walking on water, and we look at these two miracles side by side, we realize that the one that particularly demonstrates the power of Jesus Christ is like person walking on water, we don't find anybody debating questioning, arguing about who he might be when he's walking on water, and yet in the teaching of Jesus giving bread, and his invitation to eat, and it becomes his flesh, all of a sudden we've got all kinds of resistance taking place. But certainly these two miracles are intended to kind of set the tone of the teaching that is being presented in this particular gospel.
I believe it's obvious that when Jesus walked on water, the question of his identity was probably very clear. The difference is when he walked on water, people had put two and two together that he didn't get in a boat and somehow he got across the lake. And so there was this, you can imagine the voices in the top, you know, what's happening and how did you get there? So the only ones that saw him actually walk on the water were his disciples, and we find that they are pretty silent after that particular occasion.
It's clear as to the identity of Christ and what he can do in that particular miracle, but somehow the feeding of the multitudes didn't seem to have that direct impact. John writes about this miracle of feeding the five thousand with bread, not that it is a lesser miracle, but it is actually a greater miracle of what Jesus clearly came to do. Jesus really didn't come to prove he can walk on water. He did not come to this earth to demonstrate the strength of his power.
He came to clearly give his life in essence. He used to be the bread that will be consumed. And so we see in the miracle that might seem to be a lesser of a miracle that did not accomplish what some of us might believe it should have, yet we find that in that particular miracle, we find more about the humility of Christ than his majesty. As Jesus walks on water, the greatness of Jesus is seen in what he can do, and yet in the breaking of the bread we see the greatness of who Jesus is, particularly in his strength of offering grace and mercy and love to people in great need.
Now a little bit of background that might help contribute to putting together the significance of this chapter, and I hope that it's not only that we may learn some things, but our hearts are prepared to partake of the Holy Sacrament today. A little background might be helpful in understanding that in John chapter 6 verse 5, allow me to read that again. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? We learn from not only a little bit of this particular account, but when you look at Matthew Mark Luke's account of the feeding the multitudes, that the people he are feeding are following him because they want to be with him.
They want to follow him. They want to listen to his teachings. They want to take to hearts the things he's saying. And so the larger content of the crowd is actually coming because they're a hungry for truths, and Jesus is well aware of that.
As a matter of fact, some of them may have been following for a couple days. It seems to indicate that when their last meal was, we don't know, but by the time they were to leave and go back to the distance they came, Jesus out of compassion says, we've got to feed these guys. And the fact that Jesus' disciples aren't quite as compassionate. They're not quite as attuned to what's happening.
They're basically thinking about, now who's going to pay for this one? It would take eight months' wages to pay for this, and they're thinking in terms of where in the world are we going to get it out of bread? And if you've ever been in small villages and you try to go to the bakery, they would like to know a little bit ahead notice that you're bringing 5,000 people for pastries here on an instantaneous note. And he's not going to realize somewhat the humor behind this, and yet the beauty is that Jesus allows not only knowing what he's going to do, but he's including his disciples because he wants them to get the magnitude of this compassion.
And the magnitude of what Jesus is about to do can seemingly not take place until they realize there's no money in my pocket and there's no bread to provide. The resources are gone, and there is no absolute way that a provision can't be given. Jesus says, have the people sit out. Absolutely amazing to recognize the beauty of what's being established and the significance of what Jesus is attempting to communicate all within this miracle.
We mention about the compassion of Jesus. Part of that is, and Mark's Gospel, it gives reference to the fact that he observes that the people are like sheep without a shepherd. Because their spiritual appetite does not be in mass. Within the religious system of the day, the beauty of ministering to the heart of the people was rapidly being replaced by simply a system of religious performance.
And Jesus wants to teach his disciples that not only do you give them food to eat that builds their physical need, but you need to minister to their soul. And so Jesus is connecting together this bread as he's leading into himself being the bread of life. He's setting the tone for the beauty of this miracle. Another thing that might be worth noting as far as information is, again, the contrast between his disciples are not sure who's going to pay for it.
And yet Jesus in order for us to eat his flesh and drink his blood is he's obviously leaning towards what he's about to do in dying on the cross. He is going to pay it all. He is going to meet every need so that that greatness of God's salvation could be offered in his intentions to teach his disciples. The secret to this life, the purpose of why he came is to empty himself so that these people can have all that satisfies their soul.
And we think in terms of the beauty of our faith and how much Christ has given for us so that you and I might walk away filled and fully satisfied. Now this ties together with a lot of Old Testament concepts and a lot of Old Testament teachings. Obviously when God had led his people through the wilderness for those four years and that the man of hell from heaven every day, the scriptures give the description. It rained down bread from heaven.
We had a very wet summer. The rain might seem to get old when we think of those physical things but to realize that God faithfully rained down this man. He gave this bread every single day for the people to have the nourishment, the nutrition they needed. Now some of us that like variety might think, I don't know about that.
It might be good for a little while but the important thing is what other options do you have when you live in the desert? What other options were they? Not only did God supernaturally provide this bread but he also supernaturally provided water. For the people to drink there really was no other means or other ways that they could be fed on a regular basis.
We think about Jesus Christ and his statement, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Obviously there's a challenge in the religious minds on who does this Jesus guy think he is? I mean Moses gave us 40 years worth and you somehow magically pull off a few loaves to feed one crowd on one occasion. Jesus is an interested in competing, he's not interested in proving anything.
He simply mentions that he is who he is, that he is the bread that came down from heaven. So religiously speaking the religious leaders interestingly, I understand in the Jewish culture, believe that when the Messiah comes, he is going to feed the people, the manna, once again. I don't fully understand how to totally base that. It's just part of in preparation as I think about that.
I don't want a profound concept that there's this anticipation that someday we're going to recognize the Savior of the world because he comes and feeds us. Jesus does this and it pretty much is a reflection of the condition of our hearts. We'll pre-determine what you and I are able to see or to grasp. And so the religious leaders with our heart was set on resisting or questioning or challenging everything Jesus did.
Right there he feeds them the bread and they don't get it. It doesn't connect, it doesn't make sense. And this is why in John's Gospel you and I are encouraged to take a little extra time to reflect upon where our hearts are really at because our ability to perceive the things that have the power to change our life are uniquely tied together with the willingness to allow this heart to be open and teachable before Almighty God as we come to Christ. He will not necessarily try to prove to us a point.
He will simply do what is necessary and from that you and I should be able to draw conclusions. If he can feed 5,000 people he can put food in my place. And he also not only can feed me the physical needs of life but he certainly has the ability to feed my soul so that it becomes full and satisfied in him. Another interesting concept that's tied together is you notice when you look at the John's account in chapter 6 that there's this feeling like Jesus somehow is coming across like he might be equal to or better than Moses.
In the Jewish culture I mean you know you've got this chain of command and Moses is pretty much one of those at the top. I mean he did meet with God on Mount Sinai and he did present the Ten Commandments. And so in the Jewish world for this Jesus guide to come and give the impression he is like a Moses or greater than Moses obviously really irritated them because he comes and says as he challenges the people when the people said Moses gave us bread. Jesus says let's fix that.
God gave the bread. Moses simply was middle-mapped. Well to bring Moses down obviously was a challenge to them but I think they were more concerned that maybe there's a spot up here that Jesus gets to be put in that. It's interesting in Deuteronomy chapter 18 if you were to take time and study the significance is that is the Messiah was to be known as a prophet like Moses.
He was to be this one who ministers to the people and so the types that we see in Moses or the patterns we see in Moses life you see him in Jesus Christ. One of the greatest patterns is at the time of the golden Catholic worshiping. And Moses steps forward and he intercedes for the people. That's classic of an example of the greater one who's coming in Jesus Christ who holds back the wrath of God upon all humanity and by his, Jeffs and sacrifice in his great dinner session you and I have the opportunity for this great salvation experience.
So the Jewish people should have understood that a prophet and part of the story if you look in John chapter 6 verse 14. The statement comes out in part of the dialogue of what's taking place in chapter 6. After the people saw the miraculous sign that is the feeding of the bread that Jesus did they began to say surely this is that prophet that's out of Deuteronomy chapter 18. So there was the workings of truth.
There was the currents of God's spirit attempting to bring people to an understanding that Jesus really is the savior of the world. He is the promised one the prophet of God and yet the religious leaders put their heels right on down. They're beginning to say you know we've got to deal with this guy because the people are getting out of hand. Now also another historical thing that's important in understanding a little bit about Jesus inviting us to eat his flesh and to drink his blood is tied together with the concept that Jesus claims to not only be the bread of life but he also claims to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
In Exodus chapter 12 you get the pounds of the Passover and the significance of the blood being applied to the doorposts of the houses and the death angel passes over and the beauty of that story. It points towards again Jesus Christ because what this chapter is talking about is somewhat parallel to what the Holy Soccer Men are all about but it's particularly introducing more towards what Jesus will do upon that cross and why he is to die on that cross for the sins of humanity. Let's go back to Gospel John chapter 6 verses 26 through 29. Jesus answered I tell you the truth you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and you had your fill.
Do not work for food that spoils but for the food that endures to eternal life which a Son of man will give you and on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval. We find that people came to Jesus for lots of different reasons and many times throughout the Gospels we don't always know what the motives or the reasoning behind why people came to Jesus. No doubt it's probably not a whole lot different than every generation. There are those that come with their hand out and there's those that come with their heart broken.
There are those that come with one kind of need and another kind of desire and I believe that because of God's love mercy and grace that he can somewhat handle or absorb the fact that we might come to Christ for not so great pure reasons. But on this particular occasion Jesus wants to address these motives that may not be so pure. And so here's a people coming and they're returning to Christ because I tell you what some of us like red right? Some of us like really good bread and if Jesus can turn the water into wine and it's really good wine I guarantee you he can really bake some nice bread.
Okay and so at least that's me as a bread fanatic or a pastry buff. I'd like to believe there was more donuts than bread. Anyway the bread is important to understand. The quality I no doubt was there.
And so they not only enjoyed the benefit of this miracle or this blessing but they were back for more. Everybody knows that once the blessing or the beauty of God comes on your life you will be back. The only problem is that sometimes our faith can get a little off-site and sometimes we can find ourselves wanting to be close to Christ. We want to get to know him because we simply want something that is going to fill our physical appetite.
And Jesus begins to communicate that the reason I came is to give my life so that you can have a lot of bread. But that bread is not your goal in life. It is that your soul is satisfied in me. And so Jesus graciously gives out many blessings of promises to us.
But the focus of our lives is not to be on what physical or things that we might want in life. It is about to acknowledge that he is the Savior. He is my redeemer. He is my Lord.
He is my everything. And so he speaks and challenges the people to work, not for food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life. We could spend a lot of time trying to humbly consider what those things may be. But as we prepare our hearts for the holy sacraments, I trust that we understand enough to realize that what brings us to this place, what brings us to this moment is that we understand that the communion service is a celebration of what Christ Jesus has done for us.
And we haven't earned it. We don't deserve it. We really don't in any way feel like we need to create a sense of worthiness. But communion at the same time is a time to take to heart the genuineness of our hearts' attempt.
It is to bring ourselves to the place where we realize that this is a sacred moment. It's a moment in which we choose to humbly realize, I must eat. And I must allow that to become part of my life. But I can only eat because he has brought me to this table.
There's one thing that stands uniquely about John chapter 6 is the emphasis on you cannot come unless the Father draws you. And so one of the most sacred things about our faith is to realize that we have come to a point in our lives where God has done most of the drawing and most of the working and most of the setting up the circumstances, the details of life. And he's enabled us to have a heart that is willing to receive him. We really can't take credit for coming to the place where faith even begins.
And yet at the same time Jesus is inviting us to come and to celebrate what he has done on the cross because that's what keeps us there. I realize as we do some kind of inventory of our lives in humbly saying, Am I an individual that has come to a place where this faith is more than just something in my head? But my heart has begun to open, that my desire is to honor him and to live for him. That in essence is the preparation.
The conclusion isn't that I feel pretty good this week. I've been a rather good little boy this week so I ought to be able to take communion. The consensus really is I ought to come to the place where I realize I still need a Savior. I need His cleansing, I need His forgiveness.
And so my performance is not the issue. The issue is His performance. He died on the cross to pay for sins. He knocked on our hearts to give us that invitation to simply say yes.
And what he has begun in our lives, he's going to keep on doing our lives. And that's part of that celebration of the Holy Sacrament is believing that I certainly need an ongoing relationship of cleansing and forgiveness, but I also need an ongoing decision. Lord, whatever was not genuine last week, this I want to make genuine. Whatever may not have been so sincere in the days before this.
Lord, my sincerity and devotion is for you. If I've come to Christ and it's all about what I might gain, I pray that even today it might be about what I can give. That is my heart, my life, my purpose and intent. And I invite everyone to come and celebrate the Holy Sacrament together because we realize that even though it might seem like something that just symbolizes what He did, the mystery of John, Chapter 6, is somehow we are percaking Christ and embracing Him in a way that He imparts His life, His identity, His self within us.
The secret to our faith is Christ in us. I'd like to invite the Uters to come forward and prepare to serve. Let's pray. Father, we will never fully understand the cost that you paid through your son, Jesus.