Jesus: Bread of Life or Bread of Today?

This is Christ the King Sermons. Christ the King Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh.

Thanks, Paul. Thanks for having me, CTK. This feels like a homecoming for me. How many of you, after you scanned QR codes, looked up on Google what a QR code stands for? Because that's the question I'm going to be walking away with today.

Thank you, Paul, for the introduction. Yes, my family is here—my wife, Kristen, and my two daughters. My wife doesn't like the front row, and neither do I. The great thing about my family is that my wife and my two daughters all share a birthday, May 20. So they made it really easy on me—I only have to remember one date. People ask me when my birthday is and I say it doesn't matter.

It's great to be here and to see this vision come true. Behind the scenes, I got to be part of—well, not an integral part, but see the integral parts of Christ the King. I got to work with you guys in a consulting role for a summer a couple years ago as you transitioned into Oberlin Middle School and worked through some staffing changes and restructuring. Basically, just Jeff dreaming big, which he does sometimes. This feels like a homecoming to me, and it's so rich to come into this sanctuary with you all and be reminded of the depth of CTK's liturgy and bringing members up to read their story. I'm just in love with your church. Thank you for having me today.

You also showed me kindness in that season. I was really wrestling with my call in Young Life and the ending of it. Jeff and the staff here at CTK really embraced me and helped me work through some things. Thank you for your kindness.

I often refer to your church. I grew up hearing that the Presbyterians were the frozen chosen. And I think that CTK is like the unfrozen chosen. You keep it loose and fun, but you have great liturgy and tradition as well. That's a great space to come into. So thanks.

When Jeff and I were having coffee at Pine State several months ago and he mentioned his sabbatical, I was so excited for him. I said, "What can I do to help?" And he said, "Preach." I said, "Oh. Sounds great. It's not what I do, but I'll do it."

Paul contacted me and sent me a Google sheet full of dates. I saw July 6 and thought, "Oh, perfect. Nobody will be here for the July 4 weekend." And look at your full sanctuary now. I realized my mistake was thinking that nobody would be here. Really, the people that are here are like the zealots. You guys are the true blue attenders of church.

My second mistake was seeing that the scripture was John 6, and I thought, "Well, I could do that sermon in my sleep. I've talked to Young Life Camp a million times about feeding 5,000 or walking on water." Then I was having coffee, which is basically what I do for work, and I bumped into David Spickard a couple weeks ago. He sat down next to me and said, "What are you working on?" I talked to him a little bit, and he said, "Well, I just preached at church this past Sunday." I said, "I'm preaching at your church in a few weeks." He said, "What are you preaching on?" I said, "John 6—the turning of water to wine, I mean the feeding 5,000 and walking on water." He said, "Are you sure?"

I looked back, and I realized—imagine my dismay when I realized I'm actually reading the second half of John 6: Jesus' sermon on the bread of life. And if you think filling in for Jeff is hard, imagine following Jesus. We're basically doing a sermon on a sermon today. I'm doing a sermon on Christ's sermon about the bread. So it's a challenge, but I think we're up for it if you'll jump in with me and do it together.

I was really nervous about coming here and being with you. Then God reminded me of something over the past week or two. I don't need to impress you because, honestly, CTK, you're just a gentle and kind and easily impressed crowd. But secondly, more importantly, it's really not about me. Jesus reminded me that he loves me like I am, that I don't need to impress you, that I don't need to come with some powerful words this morning, but just the words of Christ. What better to preach on than just the sermon of Christ himself on the bread?

So much of following Jesus is not learning these new things about him. It's really reminding ourselves of the old things we already know. So I'm excited to jump into the scripture with you. Let me give you some context before we jump in.

I'm assuming whoever preached last week preached the easy one on bread and feeding 5,000 and walking on water. So some context here. After this happens, the scriptures say that the people were so enamored with Jesus—he made all these people eat bread and fish and fed 5,000 with such a little amount—they wanted to take him by force and make him king. Those are the words my scriptures use: take him by force and make him king. So he slips off, like he often does, off to the mountain alone, away from this crowd that wants to make him king by force.

Then he sends his disciples ahead. You've seen this movie before. The crowd wants his disciples, so he says, "You go this way, I'll go that way." Maybe it's some kind of distraction, but let's split up and meet on the other side. You've seen this movie a million times. And that's what happens. The disciples go three or four miles, and Jesus walks on water to meet them. Then he gets in the boat and it says immediately the boat arrived at the shore—which is Capernaum. We'll read that later in our text. And I just think that might be the biggest miracle. We think it's the feeding of the 5,000 or the walking on water, but Jesus just invented a teleportation yacht. He gets in the boat and all of a sudden the boat is where it's supposed to be.

I know it's July 4th weekend, and a lot of folks who are in church on Sunday of that weekend don't own boats, because the people that do own boats are on them right now. So just in case you're considering, this is always the weekend in my life where I think, "I really do need a boat." In case you're considering that, I want to give you some facts. I don't have any facts on the teleportation yacht—that's just Jesus and his thing. But a yacht is anything under 100 feet. And then after this comes superyachts. Once we get onto the superyacht category, basically however many feet it is is about how many millions of dollars it is, roughly. So a superyacht is anything less than 200 feet, 100 to 200. A megayacht is 200 to 300 feet, and a gigayacht is anything over 300 feet. Can you imagine a 300-foot gigayacht? And then there's a Giyat, which is teenager for big booty. That doesn't even have anything to do with this. Some of you know that, some of you don't.

So Jesus does his teleportation yacht. Immediately they arrive at the shore. This isn't the most convenient route for Jesus to take—it's kind of an escape plan for him. I want to paint a picture for you. You think the Sea of Galilee is this huge sea, like a great lake. Capernaum is up there on the northwest, and somewhere on the other side is where the feeding of the 5,000 happened. Tiberias is just across the way, and as we'll read, boats come from Tiberias to take a lot of these people up to Capernaum. It's about seven miles across and 12 miles up and down. If you take Raleigh and turn it on its side, the belt line is about the same exact size. I'm not tricking you here—it's the same scale. So it's about the same size as the belt line of Raleigh. I think Jesus was just escaping from the Glenwood exit to the Western side. He was just getting on the other side of town, basically, from these people who wanted to force him and make him king.

Jesus' Bread Sermon

And now we arrive at our scripture, John 6, the second half. Dale Brunner, the great Presbyterian theologian and Sunday school teacher at Hollywood Press, said that John 3 was about the evangelism of the lost, but John 6 is Jesus' bread sermon, and it's all about the worship of the found—not worshiping the found, but the found's worship. Today's scripture is about how we come to God and how we worship him.

There's a crowd that we're going to read in just a second, and this crowd is full of different kinds of people. There are some grumblers, some Jewish doubters, some genuine but flaky seekers, and some loyal but confused followers in this crowd. I would almost compare it to today's America. This is sketchy, but I'm just a guest preacher so I can do it. It's almost like American politics today. You got kind of like 10% over here in this extreme and 10% over here in this extreme and then 80% of us in the messy middle. This crowd is having a conversation with Jesus. My hope is that we're going to read this all together—50 verses almost.

We're gonna read it all together. And it's risky for us to do this, but I really think it might be the most important thing we do this morning—just to read a sermon by Jesus. It might be the best thing we do.

And the other reason is this: I want to engulf you. I want you to see yourself in the crowd. So in just a second, we're gonna pull out our bulletin—our church road map—and read the scriptures together. You're gonna read the parts in bold, the crowd parts. Paula's gonna be our Jesus. Thank you, Paula. And I'll narrate.

So be ready because your first line is on the next page. You gotta quick flip and then read your line. Okay? Alright. Let's read God's holy word and Jesus' sermon on the bread together. It's gonna take us a minute. We're gonna get through it.

Let me pray. God, be with us here. Be with us now as we hear your word, as we hear Christ's words, as we hear the crowd as they speak back to him and ask him. Lord, help us see ourselves in this place sitting on the shoreline in the Temple of Capernaum. And Holy Spirit, be here now. Help us read 50 verses together. Open our hearts, open our ears, open our minds to what you would have for us this morning. Amen.

On the next day, the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Our God, if you do not hear."

Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal."

Then they said to him. And Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, then you believe in him whom he has sent."

So they said to him. And Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father 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."

They said to him. Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

So the Jews grumbled about him because he said. They said. Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves saying. So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread that the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever."

Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "It's my heart's day."

But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them. — John 6:22-71

Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life, but there are some who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him. And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." — John 6

And after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the 12, "Do you want to go away as well?" Simon Peter answered him. Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the 12, and yet one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the 12, was going to betray him.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Again, I think it's the most important thing we could do today is to just read the simple words of Jesus, the word of God, to come together. It's a little bit nostalgic, as though a church would come together and hear a letter to Corinth read aloud. But it's a beautiful passage and a complicated passage. It's hard, but good. And I want to give some simple reflections. Obviously, God's word is far more important than what I would have to say, but I want to give some simple reflections as I thought through this passage of scripture.

Who Are You in the Crowd?

The first one is: who are you in the crowd? There's grumblers, zealots. They're fans of religion who sometimes are more in love with the church and its rituals and the culture of the church than Christ himself. Or bibliophiles—people that are so in love with the word of God that they forgot to be the presence of the Holy Spirit when they interact with folks.

In John 5, just a chapter ago, Jesus says to some of those folks, "You study the scriptures diligently, day and night. You know them well, but the one who the scriptures are about is in front of you and you will not receive him." — John 5

So those are the grumblers that are wrapped up in all the trappings, but they've let the tools take over the workshop.

Or are you someone in the messy middle—maybe in the 80%—trying to figure out if this Jesus is worth following with your life? Surrendering not just your time and travel and behavior and habits. Happy to follow him, but maybe just to a point. When things get weird or hard or confusing, you want to run back to what you know, what's comfortable.

Or are you a true disciple? One who believes that he, Jesus, is the way and the words of eternal life? One wrestling with God—which is what Israel means—even when God says something hard to hear.

Before we get too far down the road of sheeping and goading ourselves, I just want to say: I think that I'm all three. I have all three of those in me. I have a religious little Pharisee trying to break out, trying to be legalistic and treat the world harshly in the name of God. I have someone inside me that doesn't know if I really want to follow all the hard things Jesus asked me to. And I have someone who wants desperately to follow him even when it's confusing and hard and I don't know what to do next. I just want to claim him.

Questions and Responses

Well, this crowd, they have a few questions for Jesus and he has a few responses for them. There's two questions from the seekers, the 80 percenters. There's two questions from the grumblers. There's one question from the disciples, and there's one conclusion from the disciples. So let's walk through those.

The seekers first ask, "When did you get here?" In other words, did you perform another miracle that we missed? We were trying to find you to see the next thing you would do. Did you walk on water perhaps? There's a rumor maybe. Did you teleport a boat? What did we miss something? When did you get here?

The messy middle wants to know: did a miracle happen without us knowing it?

And Jesus doesn't answer that question. Instead, he says to them, "Why are you where you are?"—not "where are you," not "when did you get here," but "why are you where you are?"

I've heard that when God came back up to the fall of man in the garden seeking Adam and Eve who were hiding, a better translation of the verse when he says "Where are you?" is "Why are you where you are?" And I liken it to this idea: they want to know when did you get here. They want to know the details, the specifics, the news of the miracles. And he says, "Why are you where you are? Are you following me because you want another miracle? I'm way bigger than your daily bread, though I can be that too. I'm not just fuel for life that you experienced yesterday. I'm the fuel for life everlasting as well."

Oh, well, we want that. "What do we have to do to do the works of God?" the crowd says. How do I get this? Every day I want it. Do it again in my life. Give it to me every day.

And Jesus says, again, he doesn't answer their question, but says, "The work of God is a very long list for me. But for you, it's just to believe in the one he sent." I'm gonna say it a third time. The work for you is just to believe in the one he sent.

Then we get to the grumblers' questions. "Aren't you just one of us?" That's what they're saying. You're saying you're sent? Again, they're not focusing on the real point of what he's offering them. "You're sent from heaven? No. You're not. We know your parents. We know your family. You're not Jesus from heaven. You're Jesus from Nazareth. You're just like one of us."

And Jesus responds again, "You think you're here to analyze what I say, but the Father brought you to me to have me speak into your life. You didn't show up here to test me. You were brought here for me to give you these eternal words of life."

God brought you here to this moment to encounter Jesus, to encounter eternal life through him. The bread of life. Messiah.

And so you will eat my flesh. Wait. Wait. Wait. The grumblers' next question. "You want us to eat your flesh? You want us to drink your blood?"

And Jesus responds, "You still think I'm talking about bread? You still think I'm talking about manna that stains when really I'm talking about myself?"

The bread of life doesn't just stop at keeping you alive today, but alive forever. See, we want another Moses. We want another miracle. We want another victorious leader and defender of our life, but Jesus won't stop there. He'll defend us against death as well.

They think the man in the desert pointed to the bread they ate the day before, a reminder. But that bread wasn't a foreshadowing of God's new bread. It was a foreshadowing of Christ himself. He is the bread, not another baker.

And finally from the twelve and the disciples, "This is really hard. This is hard to hear." And again, for us, it's easy to hear, right? We celebrate it all the time. But before it all came together for them, they're saying, "This is hard to hear and how can we trust you this much?"

And his response is, "If all you're looking for is the next miracle or victory or signpost, even if I set myself to heaven right in front of you, it wouldn't be enough. Your eyes, your stomachs, your minds, it will not be enough. I want your heart. I want you to trust and surrender your life to me. It's not just this world that you need to trust me in, but it's the next one too. You know I'm good, but you need to know that I'm God. And how will you know? Because I'll refuse to be king here when they try to make me one, when I already know I'm king of heaven. I'll sacrifice my flesh and blood here on earth to save your soul in heaven. That's how you know that he's not just good, he's also God."

The Pattern: Wrong Questions

So in conclusion, do you see Jesus? People keep asking him questions. The crowd keeps coming to him with these questions, and he keeps on not answering them, coming back with other questions. We go to God and we want him to tell us what's going on or why or what or what's next. And oftentimes, it's not that he can't answer that. Instead, he tells us, "You're asking the wrong question. I wanna have a conversation that's bigger than the one you wanna have."

And when things get hard with Jesus, we feel alone and we feel like he's disappointed us. My spiritual director asked me a question a couple months ago: "Can you think of anyone in the gospels that Jesus didn't disappoint?" And I was like, "Well, of course. I mean, yeah, let me rattle them off." And every person I thought of, I'm sure we could find one or two, but every person I thought of, no, yeah, yeah, I remember he disappointed him too. "Can you think of anyone that Jesus didn't disappoint?"

It reminds me of when my kids were little and I would throw them up in the air, right? Their arms would go flailing. You throw them, you know, two or three feet, and then you throw them like five or six feet, and then you throw them and your wife says, "Stop it," because you want to go ten feet. I got a picture of my kids. I like to throw my kids in the air in dangerous-looking places. You can't tell there's a lot of ground there, but that's next to a cliff, you know. That's on the descent right there. That's Ava on the descent and at the beach, but if there's sand and water, we can go really high, you know. We can get dangerous.

And when I take my kids and throw them up in the air—you've done this too if you have children—and you catch them after the first time, what's the next thing they say right after that? "Again. Again. Again. Do it again. Do it again."

And you do it ten, fifteen times until you don't need to work your biceps for another two weeks. You're just dead tired and you don't know if you can catch them again. That's when you stop.

And I think that's a great picture of the Father and what he's saying to us right here. The eighty percenters—they don't doubt that Jesus is good.

They doubt that he's God. They're like children and their hearts are in the right place, but their experience is what's lacking. They don't see how much bigger the conversation is that he's having. They just want to fly through the air again, do another magic trick, do it again Jesus.

But he's a father who's saying, I'm not just having fun with you. I'm teaching you that I will always catch you. I love when you laugh and fly. I also love when you trust me to throw you higher. When you surrender your safety and your security to my embrace.

The work for Jesus is to keep you and never lose you and follow the Father's will and not his own and so much more. But the work for you is simple. Just trust that Jesus will do what he does. Surrender to it.

How Do We Do It in Real Life?

Well, I think first of all, we have to be still and quiet. I'm so tempted to move into action and manifest things and make things that I need to learn the art of being still and listening to the conversation Jesus is trying to have.

The fight is the Lord's. You need only be still. — Exodus 14:14

This was my prayer for a year and a tumultuous time of my life. We have to be still and quiet. And that would lead us into a space of prayer. We have to pray.

This was my prayer for the time that I was serving with CTK and not knowing what was next in my life, what my call or purpose was: God, give me space to do what I do and trust to let you do what you do.

And then finally, we have to step into the mystery. It is mysterious. We don't know how to pray, what to pray, what to do, when to sit, when to move. It's hard. It's mysterious.

Dallas Willard said, God's grace is not opposed to effort, but God's grace is opposed to earning. So we move into this mystery with God of what's next and what to do, but we don't think that it's going to earn us anything. We just think we're going to offer some bread and fish and hope that Jesus blesses it and does something miraculous with it.

God's grace is not opposed to effort, but God's grace is opposed to earning.

Questions to Examine Our Hearts

Where am I with following Jesus? And why am I where I am? What is the work of God in my life? To believe in the one he sent, plus or simply to believe in the one he sent?

God, do I believe you are from heaven or Nazareth? Do I want to stop you at being good or am I ready for you to be God too? This is a big one.

How has Jesus disappointed me? That's an honest question. And the follow-up to that: Can I surrender to him anyway?

And when we enjoy this Eucharist before us, let us let it have weight. It's reminding us that he is the source of life and life everlasting.

Prayer

Lord, thank you for your words. Thank you for this crowd that would engage in such a long passage of scripture, a hard, confusing, rich, holy passage of scripture. God, I pray that whatever I said that wasn't from you would fall away and that your words would shine boldly into our hearts. Thank you for this morning, this rainy morning, for a break from temperature and the world around us to come in and let you preach your sermon on bread to us this morning. We love you. We invite you into our hearts in this time. Amen.