Sermon Tone Analysis

Pentecost 14

Sept. 9, 2006

John 6: 60-69

*“This is a Hard Teaching, Who Can Accept It?”*

 

Introduction: Two young parents take their ailing child to the Doctor.

He in turn recommends test to determine what is causing the sickness.

Months go by.

Test after test is given until finally the doctor calls the parents into his office.

The results clearly and definitely determine that their child has an incurable disease and only a few short months to live.

The mother, shocked by the news turns away from the doctor and cries out, “no, I cannot accept it, my child is not sick and my child will not die.”

She leaves the room, clearly understanding what the doctor had said but refusing to accept it.

The child died in the mother’s arms a short time later.

What the doctor had said was hard to accept, but his words were true.

This is an extreme example, but all of us have been told one thing or another and pooh- poohed it as not true or perhaps not relevant for us.

It’s kind of like disregarding the idiot lights in our cars…your story.

Whether we don’t like the things we here, none-the-less they may be true and affect our lives.

Our gospel lesson for today is connected to last weeks reading where Jesus said, 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 feeds on me will live because of me.”

This week’s text continues, recording for us, the reaction of the disciples, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching.

Who can accept it?"

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you?

What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

And then our Lord says,"This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

“This is a hard teaching.

Who can accept it?”

It wasn’t hard to understand what Jesus was teaching.

To be sure, the disciples may not have understood it completely but they understood the words He was saying well enough.

The disciples were right: Jesus teaching was hard and it simply was hard to accept.

What Jesus had to say offended those who heard it.

But as hard as His Words were to hear and accept, His Words were Spirit and they were life even though His words were the last straw for many of those who followed Jesus as disciples.

Easy enough to understand but hard to accept, the truth was too much to take and they turned and walked away.

What was it that Jesus said that they clearly understood but could not accept?

They could not accept Christ’s incarnation, that the Son of God, who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven and was made man, born of the virgin Mary, suffered and died.

God becoming man, this is hard to accept.

And even harder to accept, as part of this incarnational reality, Jesus Christ offers His very real body and blood to eat and to drink for the life of the world.

This is a hard teaching.

Who can accept it?

We Lutherans pride ourselves in that we hold fast to the Words of our Lord’s teaching; that in His holy supper we indeed eat His true body and blood, not only according to His divinity, but also according to His humanity.

For this reason, Lutherans, early in our history, were called cannibals.

While we do not hold that we grossly eat human flesh, actually tearing Christ’s body with our teeth, we maintain, according to His word, that it is His true body even according to his human nature, that we do indeed take it into our mouths, and that we eat Christ in a sacramental and mysterious way, receiving from Him, forgiveness of sins, Salvation and eternal life.

Most protestants understand what Jesus said, but do not accept His words.

For them it is not reasonable to believe that what is received is true body and true blood, and that Christ’s flesh is real food that gives immortality.

Thus they understand but do not accept the hard teaching of our Lord, and they turn away.

As Jesus’ disciples turned to walk away His response was just as hard.

Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life…This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him.”

These words echo our Lord when He said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit.”

As Lutherans we confess in the Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason and strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.”

In other words, “the flesh counts for nothing.”

And we continue, “But the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel”…in other words, the Words that Jesus spoke and His Holy Spirit, they create and sustain our faith.

Yet many Protestants, though they clearly understanding what Jesus has said, do not accept it.

They turn away from out Lord and falsely teach that man is freely able to choose Jesus Christ as Savior.

They teach that people are not hog tied by sin, death and the devil.

They teach that people are free agents and are able to make free choices.

But the Bible teaches that mans will has been made captive to sin death and the devil through the fall into sin, thus, like prisoners humans have no freedom to make spiritual decisions.

God has made a decision for us.

He chose to send His Son into the world to save the world.

He sent His Son to save us from our sin.

He chose to save the world even before it was plunged into the darkness of sin.

Salvation would come through God’s grace alone.

For many people, this is a hard teaching and they find it difficult to accept.

They want to hold man accountable for his own salvation.

Man contributes nothing to his salvation.

Man alone is held accountable for his own sin.

It is God alone that saves.

For this we glorify God alone.

Lutherans also face a difficult challenge.

We clearly understanding what God says, but we too have difficulty accepting it.

How is it that if God clearly wants all people to be saved and He alone can create and sustain faith, why then is it that some people will be damned.

Why is it that some are saved and not others.

We would wrongly jump to the conclusion that it must be some favorable disposition within a person.

This goes against what the Lord has said.

The Lord alone saves.

Man does not turn towards God; God turns man towards himself and creates faith.

Even Luther could not peer behind this door.

He had to say that we must leave some things to the inscrutable or impenetrable mind of God.

Some things must be taken in faith.

This is a hard teaching.

Who can accept it?

As modern day Christians, all too often we understand what the Lord has said and what he wants in our lives.

All too often we find his word hard to accept.

We know His Word and will for us is true but we too walk away in unbelief.

We understand how are faith in God should be reflected in the actions of our everyday lives.

I don’t have to spell out all the things that we should or shouldn’t do.

Most of us have been around to know what God wants…and yet all too often we fail to do it.

Our Spirit may be willing but our flesh is all too weak.

For this we must daily come to our Lord and confess our sins and asking for forgiveness for the sake of Jesus Christ who was crucified for all our offenses.

In faith we must understand that our sins are truly forgiven.

This is God’s promise poured out in the blood of Christ and written down in Holy Scripture for our benefit and comfort.

Forgiveness too, is easy to understand but hard for us to accept.

Each one of us comes to a place before the Lord where we say, “Lord this is a hard teaching.

How can I accept it?