Sermon Tone Analysis

Pentecost 13

John 6:41-58

September 3, 2006

*“Beyond Understanding, Taking God at His Word”*

Jesus seems to say some of the most unreasonable things, many of them are recorded for us in the splendid Gospel of John the 6th chapter.

He said, “I am the bread of life.”

“I have come down from heaven.”

No one has seen the father except the one who is from God.” “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.”

“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 on the last day, For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

At the beginning of our Lord’s sermon the Jews grumbled.

And after his sermon John states, “On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching.

Who can accept it?

41. /The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said: I am the bread which came down from heaven/.

42.

/They said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How does He now say: I have come down from heaven?/

Luther understood the difficulty of understanding all that Jesus has said and even the fantastic reasoning of God.

Yet Luther would not let that stand in his way, his faith, his trust, and his hope in God his savior through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Luther’s sermon on John 6…

St. John added these words to show how the Jews reacted to the sermon.

He tells us that they murmured at it.

They considered it ridiculous, offensive, and foolish that He claimed to have come down from heaven and to dispense a bread which afforded eternal life.

After all, they were acquainted with His father, Joseph, and His mother, Mary.

Their murmuring was to convey that He was either a great liar or a great fool for trying to persuade them to believe that He had come from heaven, although His father and mother dwelt right here in Capernaum.

First of all, John warns all those who hear this doctrine of Christ not to pry and to question when God’s Word and spiritual matters are concerned, and not to ask how this can be reconciled with reason.

Whoever wants to be a Christian and apprehend the articles of the Christian faith must not consult reason and mind how a doctrine sounds and whether it is consistent with reason.

He must say forthwith: “I do not care whether it agrees with reason or not.

All I must know is whether or not it is supported by God’s Word.

This I ask: Did God say it?

That decides it for me.”

You have often heard me exhort you not to dispute or reason about sublime spiritual matters that concern the articles of the Christian faith.

As soon as a man ventures to rationalize these, to brood over them, and to try to make them conform to reason, all is lost in advance, and we are doomed.

…It is impossible to measure and judge these doctrines.

They are of a kind that bids man take human reason, wisdom, and understanding captive.

They want to reign supreme.

If anyone refuses to surrender, I ask him to keep his hands away from this doctrine, lest the devil mislead him into hundreds of different heresies and sects.

That is the fate which befell the Jews and the Turks, Arius, and the other ancient heretics, as well as the schismatic spirits of our day and the papists, who ponder the question whether something harmonizes with reason.

All that is still wanting is that they resort to the counting table to investigate whether it is really true and take its measure with their reason.

The Anabaptists say: “A handful of water in Baptism is merely water, an external thing.

How, then, can it cleanse and purify the soul and forgive sin?

Water remains water.”

This they say because they measure the Word of God, “Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt.

28:19), with their own yardstick and judge it on the basis of their own education and their own notion as to its meaning.

This settles it for them, and God ends up playing the role of pupil to all men.

But we shall see what they gain from correcting God.

Christ, to be sure, lets Himself be judged and mastered; but He still remains the supreme Master and Teacher, as we find recorded in Ps. 51:5: “Thou wilt still be justified in Thy sentence, and also gain by being judged much.”

The prophet David admits that our God must endure being judged by all and that His Word must tolerate much.

But in the end it will become apparent “what time it is.”63

The Jews act like that here.

They hear Christ proclaim and say that He is the bread from heaven, and they immediately think of Mary’s and Joseph’s house and say: “Mary is His mother; Joseph is His father, etc.

Why, do we not know His family, His house, His street, the stones, and the wood?

How can we harmonize this?

How can He come from heaven?

His house is not in heaven, for His house and His parents are here on earth, in Capernaum.

Therefore this is a mistake; in fact, it is unparalleled folly.”

They regard it as a lie.

Our Sacramentarians, these dunces, do the same thing.

They declare that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, that He is enthroned in heaven at the Father’s right hand, and that for this reason He cannot be present in the Lord’s Supper.64

To be sure, we are well aware that bread and wine are on the altar; for we certainly see and recognize bread and wine.

But at the same time we say that Christ, who is seated at the right hand of His Father, is also present in the Lord’s Supper.

But how does this make sense?

Yes, if our God were to present us with sensible doctrines—doctrines which our reason could comprehend—none of us would be saved; we would all be lost.

For reason is not worth a thing for the purpose of salvation.

Nothing we undertake and attempt with our reason will help or save us.

Something superior to our reason and wisdom must take us to heaven.

If all the smart alecks on earth were to pool their wits, they could not devise a ladder on which to ascend to heaven.

This has been recorded for our warning, so that he who would deal with the doctrines of the Christian faith might not pry, speculate, and ask how it may agree with reason, but, instead, merely determine whether Christ said it.

If Christ did say it, then he should cling to it, whether it harmonizes with reason or not, and no matter how it may sound.

For I will admit that Christ is wiser than my reason is or I am.

Give honor to Him who is speaking here, and let Him be wiser than you.

This same rule holds in secular affairs.

In a household a servant sometimes does not understand the value, purpose, and reason of what his master commands.

But still servant and maid are obliged to go and do it, taking their reason captive, without any insight into the master’s intent.

This is the rule here on earth, and without it a household could not long exist.

Would you expect a prince to divulge all his plans and decisions to his people and confide all his policies to his subjects?

Should a general reveal, make known, and publish his tactics and strategy in an encampment?

That would be some army and business!

And yet we fools, in the devil’s name, will not believe our God unless He has previously initiated us into the why and the wherefore of His doctrines!

Thus people today will speculate and ask why Christ gave and instituted the Sacrament as He did.

In the Garden of Eden the devil acted like that when he said to Adam and Eve (Gen.

3:1): “Why did God do this?”

To the gallows with the big mouth who asks God: “Why did You do that?”

But if you must ask, then go ahead in the name of all devils, and I know where you can poke your nose.

These smart alecks can go hang.

Is it not most impudent for you to ask God, your Lord, whereas you do not dare inquire even of your brother, neighbor, master, or mistress why they do this or that?

On earth we must suffer many things, see many things, and do many things at the behest of another without understanding the reason for them.

Only later, after we have done it, do we begin to recognize the meaning behind it all.

Then the master says to the servant: “Now you see that this was the intent and purpose.”

And the servant replies: “I really did not understand that this is what you had in mind.”

“Yes, if I had told you,” says the master, “you would not have done it.”

If this is true in human affairs, much less should we pursue such a course with God’s affairs and constantly ask Him why He ordained this or that.

On the contrary, you must say to Him: “Lord, Thou art my God, I will believe Thee, hear Thy Word, obey Thee, and also die trusting in whatever my dear Lord has said.

I will not insist on seeing; I will not speculate or explore with my reason the purport of it all.”

It is also plainly stated in the articles of the Christian Greed: “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who was born of the Virgin Mary, etc.” How can I grasp this with my reason and believe that He who can span heaven and earth with one hand and is seated at the right hand of God is at the same time lying in a narrow manger and is suckled by the Virgin Mary?

How does this harmonize, that Christ is God in heaven and that He is also a small Child resting on Mary’s lap?

Indeed, I would be a long time trying to reason this out.

For there He lies, and yet He never leaves the Father.

But just close your eyes, and adhere to the divine Word.