Why did you go to all the trouble of eating breakfast this
morning? Couldn’t you come up with something better to do with
your time? After all, didn’t you eat three meals yesterday, and
the day before that, and the day before that? Haven’t you been
eating your whole life long? So why do it again this morning?
Why not just declare a moratorium on eating –forget about it;
don’t do it any more? Why not concentrate on doing something more
constructive, more useful, more socially conscious than sitting
down at a table three times a day and eating?
But, Pastor,
you say, I’d starve if I
didn’t eat. I’d get so weak I couldn’t do anything, and
I’d eventually die! People need to eat to stay alive. That’s why
God gives us the gift of food in the first place.
Good point! You’ve convinced me how important food is. I guess
eating regularly is a good thing after all. It’s something we’d
better not neglect, huh?
And yet we can eat three perfectly balanced, perfectly nutritious
meals every day, our whole life long, and it’s still not going to
keep us alive forever. Even if we’ve never eaten a solitary bite
of junk food, or anything that’s bad for our health, there will
come a time for each of us when we won’t show up at the breakfast
table anymore, or any table at all
other than the cold hygienic table of the mortician where our
bodies will be prepared for burial. As necessary as the food we
eat is to sustain our life in this world, each of us will
eventually die. Because earthly food can’t keep us going forever.
It’s been that way ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit
in the Garden of Eden. You could say that the fruit from the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the ultimate junk food,
guaranteed to put Adam and Eve and all their descendants into the
grave. One bite of this fruit and it did its deadly work for all
generations. Death came crashing into the universe like a runaway
truck into the living room where mom, dad, and the kids were
happily watching their favorite TV show. What a mess!
And ever since Adam, the death-dealing poison of the forbidden
fruit runs through each of our systems. Death came into the world
through the sinful disobedience of the one man, Adam, Scripture
says. We each inherited his sin and guilt before God, and death
and hell are thrown in as part of the bargain. After all, what is
hell but another kind of death, intensified to the “nth” degree?
To be eternally separated from God as the source of life is to be
in hell.
But what if there was something we could eat, some medicine we
could take, that would reverse the lethal effects of Adam’s sin?
What if there was something we could feed upon that wouldn’t clog
our arteries, wouldn’t make us more likely to get colon cancer or
some other disease, but would give us eternal life – life with
God, life abundant? Wouldn’t we want to make that a regular part
of our diet? Wouldn’t we recognize that while earthly food is
good, the
food that
endures to eternal life is infinitely better?
In today’s Gospel reading our Lord Jesus Christ makes several
claims for Himself which answer these questions. He says that
He’s the Bread of God who has come down from heaven to give life
to the world. He tells us that He, the Son of Man, is the One who
gives the food that endures to eternal life. And finally, our
Lord states clearly and unmistakably that
He Himself is the
Bread of Life, and that whoever comes to Him will never go hungry,
and whoever believes in Him will never be thirsty. Earthly food
will only get you so far. But as the Bread of Life, Jesus will
take you all the way to life eternal with God.
That’s why our Lord came down from heaven in the first place – why
He was made true Man, and lived a life of righteousness before His
Father in heaven, and why He gave up His life on the Cross as a
sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. So that through faith we
could feed on Him and live eternally with God. So that all our
sins could be forgiven and we could know that even though death
will one day kill our bodies, it’s only temporary. We who are in
Christ will rise again. We who trust in the Son of God will beat
death and live forever. Because through our Baptism into Christ
and through faith in His Name we’ve been united to the Savior who
defeated sin and death eternally when He died on the Cross and
rose again on the third day.
Whoever has
the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not
have life, Scripture says.
It’s as plain and simple as that.
How many of you plan on going out to eat after today’s Divine
Service? – maybe to Nagano’s, Pappy’s, Kentucky
Fried Chicken, or Wendy’s. Now why would you go to KFC?
Presumably, because you wanted chicken for lunch. Why would you
go to Nagano’s? Because you felt like eating Japanese. You
wouldn’t go to Nagano’s if you wanted fried chicken, and you
wouldn’t go to KFC if you wanted Japanese. If you doubt me on
that just try ordering tapanyaki steak at Kentucky Fried Chicken
sometime and see what a strange look the cashier will give you.
If you want the food that endures to life eternal you won’t find
it at any of the restaurants I’ve named. You won’t find it in
your own kitchen either. There’s only one place you’ll find the
Bread of Life. And that’s here in the Divine Service, where our
Lord Jesus Christ is present for you in Word and Sacrament. Here
He feeds you with His Word of forgiveness. Here He feeds you in
the Sacrament with His Body and Blood, given and shed for you for
the remission of all your sins.
O taste and
see that the Lord is good! the psalmist writes.
The Lord is indeed good, for He loved you so much that He gave His
only begotten Son for you, so that through faith in Him you won’t
perish but will live forever.
You are what you eat, the saying goes. Sit down at Adam’s table
and imitate him in his act of indulging in what God has forbidden,
and you’ll die eternally. But come to the Lord’s Table, the
Lord’s Altar, and eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood in humble,
penitent faith, and you will live forever.
My flesh is
real food, and My blood is real drink, Jesus says –
the ultimate health food! And as He also says, whoever eats His
flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, and He will raise
them up at the last day. Death and condemnation are the main
course at Adam’s table. But because of Jesus life eternal and
forgiveness of sin are the main course at the Table of the Lord.
Did your parents teach you when you were young to eat your
vegetables and fruit? They did that because they knew it was good
for you. The Holy Spirit’s like that. He wants us to have what’s
good for us too. He wants us to feed upon the food that endures to
life eternal, our Lord Jesus Christ,
the bread of
God who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
When we sin, the Holy Spirit directs us to the
Gospel for forgiveness. When our faith is weak, He directs us to
God’s Holy Word and the Savior that Word proclaims. And when we
recognize our overwhelming need of God’s help, strength, comfort
and salvation, the Holy Spirit directs us to the Sacrament of the
Altar. For there in the bread and wine is Christ Himself, with
His Body and Blood, to forgive us and strengthen us and comfort us
and give us a foretaste of the heavenly feast to come.
This is what we Christians need. It’s traveling fare, food for
the journey as we make our way through this fallen world to the
life of the world to come. You can’t make it on an empty
stomach. You need Jesus. You need Him regularly. You need Him
as He comes to you in His Body and Blood, as He’s present for you
in the Word of life that we sinners so desperately need. You
wouldn’t neglect eating today just because you’d eaten the day
before, would you? So why would you neglect to partake of the
Sacrament just because you took it a week ago? Why put yourself
on a starvation diet when Christ your Savior would be present for
you in the Holy Supper every time we, the church, assemble
together?
Today’s gospel tells you that Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life,
the Bread of God come down from heaven for your life and
salvation. Remember that as you approach the Altar today. He’s
the true manna from heaven, the food that endures to life
eternal. No earthly food can make that claim. Even those who eat
a perfectly nutritious and balanced diet will still die one day.
But those who feed in faith upon Jesus will live forever as
partakers of His resurrection and the new life He graciously gives
in the Gospel.
In Nomine Patris. . .
