Proper 14 (August 11, 2024)
Season after Pentecost—I Am the Bread of Life • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 29:18
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24 Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 26 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 had your fill. 27 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.” 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” 30 So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 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. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.” 35 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.
GOAL— That hearers heed the teaching of Jesus and seek him, the Bread of Life, instead of just earthly pleasures.
MALADY— the human heart craving temporal blessings more than eternal. The connection to the feeding of the multitude is obvious: People liked that Jesus could provide a full stomach. They were not fully aware he could give them so much more.
FOR WHAT LASTS
“Do not work for the food which perishes [TEMPORARY, SHORT-TERM], but for the food which endures to eternal life [PERMANENT, LONG-TERM], which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” (John 6:27)
Temporary — Something that will not last, like our earthly lives:
10 For he sees that even wise men die; The stupid and the senseless alike perish And leave their wealth to others.
12 But man in his pomp will not endure; He is like the beasts that perish.
39 Thus He remembered that they were but flesh, A wind that passes and does not return.
Permanent — Steadfast, Unmovable, Something that will last
19 He who is steadfast in righteousness will attain to life, And he who pursues evil will bring about his own death.
Similar words might be:
Short-term.
Long-term.
In my former career there was a saying that you never solve a long-term problem with a short-term solution.
Jesus exhorts his hearers in today’s sermon text: John 6:27 “Do not work for the food which perishes [TEMPORARY, SHORT-TERM], but for the food which endures to eternal life [PERMANENT, LONG-TERM], which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”
Jesus uses a picture of food because he had fed over five thousand people the day before, and now he was being approached by people who want him to provide them with more food because their bellies are empty again; they were focused on the result of Jesus’ miracle: their bellies were full. Sadly, they missed the real point of Jesus’ sign.
They stood before the One who was eager to provide them with things far more valuable than a happy meal. But, their attention was fixed on consumables of the moment—craving the temporary blessings—instead of THE PERMANENT, that which would bless them eternally.
Therefore, in our text today, Jesus tells them and us to
Labor for What Lasts
Yet, in our sinful flesh we are exactly the same. We gravitate toward the
Temporary — Short-term
Temporary — Short-term
These things won’t satisfy our deepest needs and longings
25 When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?” 26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27 “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”
We, of course, have upped the ante considerably on things that don’t last.
Simple bread won’t do for us.
We need not a meal out but an upscale meal out, not Culver’s but the best steakhouse ever.
We’re not satisfied with a roof over our heads; we need a house on the lake.
We need—yes, we need!—Chi-High to win state this fall and our favorite to be a starter.
We need a greener lawn, a cabin in the woods where we can spend our weekends, a retirement that provides a big chair, NFL Network, and Europe, Hawaii, and Australia.
But, none of these things will last, and can only satisfy a need or want for a brief time. They wear off, wear out, go out of style, get lost, get stale, break, or otherwise fail to maintain satisfaction.
St. Augustine said to God, “You have created us for yourself; our heart knows no rest except that it finds its rest in You” (Confessions, book 1, ch 1).
Remember Jesus’ parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:16–21)? The man’s fields had brought forth enough crops to set him up for many years, and they did give him pleasure for a while. Yeah, one day. And then God came to him and said, “Fool, this night your soul is required of you!”
We live our lives with the motto, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
1 Timothy 6:7 “For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.”
Job 1:21 “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there…”
OT Reading: The manna was meant to give the people more than physical food. It was to engender trust and faith in the God who give us everything good—and would one day give us the one and only good.
Despite that, on the seventh day — the Sabbath to the Lord — when they were supposed to devote their attention to their God and king this happened:
27 It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions?
Our problem happens to be we are curved in on ourselves, which means that live our lives for ourselves — “seeking food that perishes” — and not for food which endures to eternal life. In other words, we seek to live to please and provide for ourselves, and we consider Jesus only to the extent of what He can give us today.
Example: I’ll be in church Sunday to receive God’s eternal gifts, unless the big game is on TV. Or, dare I touch on the sacred summer activity? We seek to live to please and provide for ourselves NOW, and what Jesus provides comes in in second place. It is about PRIORITIES!
What’s more,
What you see is not all there is to get
What you see is not all there is to get
One must not pursue only the things of this world.
Lk 12:15: “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ ”
Mt 4:4: [Jesus said,] “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
One must, instead, pursue earnestly the things God sets before us.
Rom 14:17: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Mt 6:19–20: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
Rom 8:6: “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
So instead, our priority should be on the
Permanent — Long-term
Permanent — Long-term
Look to the things that last forever
God promises to supply our earthly needs.
Mt 6:25–26, 33: [Jesus said,] “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? . . . But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Mt 7:7–11: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
Our pursuit, then, should be of the things that do not perish (vv 27–29, 35).
To labor for the food that endures is nothing more or less than believing that the Living Bread, Jesus, came down from heaven and has secured life and all its necessities for us.
That he did by laying down his life on the cross for us.
That, you see, has secured both heaven and all that’s truly good for us in this life, because Jesus’ death has reconciled us to God, the giver of all good gifts.
Rom 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
In our second reading St. Paul retold the account of our Old Testament reading.
Everyone was baptized into Moses when they passed through the Red Sea
They all at the same spiritual food and drink. And Paul reveals that the Rock which provided their spiritual drink was Christ Himself.
Yet, God was not pleased with them, and most of them died in the wilderness never stepping foot into the promised land.
They serve as an example for us today, that we not make the same mistakes they did.
So, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, fed by His Word and strengthened by His Sacraments, Christ Jesus provides us the spiritual food we need to heed St. Paul’s warning to resist temptation, and live lives at peace with God.
There will be a great reward for delaying our gratification.
We are now in the days of the Church Militant, not yet those of the Church Triumphant.
In the Church Militant, we must understand the theology of the cross and await the appropriate time to deal with the theology of glory.
Mt 16:24–25: “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’”
Rom 8:18: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
Physical food is a blessing from God without which we would literally wither away and die. Earthly pleasures and recreation are gifts as well. And Jesus provides for both. Yet, while these gifts good things, it is far from the greatest thing God provides us. The greatest blessing God provides is spiritual food that He gives us in His Word and Sacrament. And THE BEST thing God gives us is his Son, the bread of life. Without that spiritual food, we wither and die in a much worse way. Our Father urges us to come to him for our daily bread, asking him to provide for our temporal needs. But may we hunger most for our greatest need: spiritual food that Christ freely gives.
Let us hold fast to Jesus, who is the one thing needful now and forever, the one thing that lasts. Jesus suffered and died to atone for our sins. He rose from the dead and has assured us that because he lives, we shall live also (Jn 14:19). He has gone to prepare a place for us. Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him (cf.1 Cor 2:9). There, we will feast forever on the Bread of Life he gives us.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.