Bread from Heaven

 Jesu Juva

St. John 6:22-35                                               

August 4, 2024

Proper 13B                    

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        A stroll through the fellowship hall during the month of August is a strange experience.  Almost nothing happens in that space during these weeks of late summer.  It’s so quiet and still.  And perhaps strangest of all, there’s no food to be found in the fellowship hall—not even a cup of caffeine.  At every other time of the year, food just seems to show up in the fellowship hall—like manna from heaven: zucchini bread, donuts, Lenten supper leftovers.  But not now.  The smorgasbord is shut. The food court is closed. There’s nothing but a famine in the fellowship hall.

        The lack of food and drink today is especially ironic when you consider that today’s theme is  . . . food and drink.  Manna in the wilderness.  Jesus, the Bread of Life.  Jesus doesn’t care about coffee and donuts; but He does make it clear that there are two different kinds of food.  There are only two food groups according to Jesus:  He told the crowd, Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.  Did you catch the two kinds of food?  There’s the food you work for, which eventually, inevitably spoils and perishes.  And then there’s the food that Jesus gives—food that endures to eternal life.

        We’re well acquainted with that first kind of food—food you work for.  In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that many of us head off to work each day—to put food on the table.  That’s how it’s been ever since Genesis chapter three and the fall into sin.  It’s only by the sweat of your brow and painful toil that you’re able to put food on the table.  In the beginning, of course, before the fall into sin, food was free for the taking—veggies, grains, fruits and nuts—gifts freely falling from trees and plants, like a farmers’ market on steroids, where nothing ever died.  In the beginning it was all gifts and no work except harvesting and picking.

        But disobedience and death changed everything.  Now there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  You’ve got to work for your daily bread.  And all of creation is working hard to keep you working hard for every bite of food:  It starts with weeds, thorns, thistles, drought, storms, squirrels, and insects.  Then there’s the labor in the kitchen—grinding grain, kneading dough, slicing, dicing, shredding, baking, boiling—work, work, work.  And then there are the bigger, systemic obstacles like government regulations, unreliable suppliers, corporate greed, lawyers, cranky customers, lazy workers, piles of paperwork.  This fallen world is awash with food insecurity.  Daily bread never comes easy. 

        I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the whole system, it turns out, has been rigged by God.  It’s no accident!  He’s the one who has made our work such a sweaty, frustrating business.  Why would a loving God do such a thing?  Why?  To teach us (the hard way) that work is not the way to life.  It’s just work.  We cannot work our way to heaven; we can only work our way to the grave and to hell.  Now, for those who are in Christ—for those who have been justified in Jesus—God gives our work a sacred significance.  He treats all the works we do in faith as good works—as if we were doing it all for Him.  Your work, your toil, your labor—it can’t save you.  But it is all God-pleasing when done in faith.

        Faith is the key; and God uses food to teach us about faith.  Here’s what I mean:  the food that we work for perishes.  It spoils.  It goes bad. I threw out two dozen moldy strawberries on Friday.  So sad.  Nothing endures for long.  This is why we have freezers and refrigerators.  But those appliances are really nothing more than morgues—delaying the inevitable decomposition.  The same thing was true for the manna God gave in the wilderness.  That manna had an incredibly short shelf life.  Every day the Israelites could only go out and gather enough manna for one day at a time.  If they tried to hoard it or store it until the next day, it went very bad in a hurry.  The Lord gave them almost no alternative but to have faith—to trust that God Himself would provide their daily bread.  They never had the luxury we have of full cupboards and pantries packed to the ceiling. 

        But those same packed pantries and full fridges can also become a curse, causing us to forget about that other food that matters more—the food that Jesus gives—the food that endures to eternal life.  What’s more important to you?  The food that Jesus gives, or the food that you work for, purchase and prepare?  By nature we always pay more attention to food for the stomach than we do to food for the soul.   We crave our daily bread more than we crave the bread of life.  We’re more concerned about Sunday brunch than we are about the Lord’s Supper.  Our taste buds are out-of-whack, just like the Israelites’ taste buds.  God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, bringing them safely through the Red Sea on dry ground.  God fed them with manna and quail.  But they were too busy salivating and fantasizing over an imaginary menu from Egypt than to live by faith in the freedom that God had won for them.

        Will you live by faith in the freedom and salvation that Jesus has won for you?  Will you treasure and trust the food that God gives over and above the food that you work for?  Know this:  The food we work for is dead and we die along with it.  Even the Israelites who ate the manna still died—a whole generation.  The bread Moses gave couldn’t save them from death.  Neither could the laws that Moses gave save them from death.  That’s how it is for sinners like us.  No matter how many “good” things we might do, the wages of sin is still death.  We’ve earned our death with all of our works and all of the ways we’ve turned our backs on God and His gifts.

        The wages of sin is death, it’s true; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  It’s gift, not works.  It’s undeserved, unmerited, placed into open, empty, dead, receiving hands.  I’m now talking about that other kind of food.  Not the food that spoils, but the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.  Jesus promises food that requires no preservatives, no refrigeration.  It doesn’t spoil; it endures forever—and you endure forever along with it.  It preserves the eater to eternal life too.  Here in this place is free food—gift food—food from the hand of God that preserves the eater to eternal life.

        The crowds listening to Jesus were suspicious about this talk of free food that endures to eternal life.  What’s the catch?  What must we do?  What’s written in the fine print?  What must we do, to be doing the works of God?  But listen to Jesus’ answer:  This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.  The crowd wanted to know about works—plural.  Jesus answered them with one, singular work—to believe in Him.  And Jesus even called it “the work of God.”  Because to have faith—to believe in Jesus—is ultimately God’s work, not ours.  It is God’s work that we believe in Jesus whom He sent.  As the Catechism reminds us, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me . . .”

        Any good works you do flow from the Good Work that God has done in Jesus Christ.  It’s not our good life that saves us, but Jesus’ perfect life and death and resurrection.  And it’s all given to us freely as a gift—only able to be received through faith that God Himself works in us.  Our work can’t save us.  Our bread can’t save us.  Only Jesus has a work—and a bread—that gives life to the world.  He alone is the Breadsmith of this new and wonderful loaf.

        When the crowd asked Jesus for a sign, well, Jesus had them right where He wanted them—at the place where He gives Himself:  I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.  Jesus our bread; Jesus our drink.  If you’re thinking “Lord’s Supper,” you’re on the right track, and we’ll get there in a week or so as we linger a little longer in John chapter 6.  But today it’s all about Jesus and His gracious work to save you, and give you life.

        As you leave here today without the customary calories and caffeine, be reminded:  there was food at church today—the most important food—food freely given by Jesus that endures to eternal life.  Here the menu never changes.  Here our gracious God always gives Jesus, the bread of life.  Whoever comes to Him shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Him shall never thirst. 

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.