John

John 6:60-71 records the day many of Jesus' disciples stopped following him. This sermon shows that the hard saying about eating his flesh and drinking his blood was a deliberate shock. Jesus pressed the picture of bread until it broke, so that hearers who wanted more loaves would see that he gives himself in death. The saying forced a decision. Many turned back, and Jesus asked the Twelve whether they would leave too. Peter answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" and confessed Jesus as the Holy One of God before he understood everything. Verses 64, 65 and 70 then show that the Father grants faith and the Son chooses first. Christ holds his people through dry seasons and doubts, and he will never cast out anyone who comes to him.

In John 6:41-59 the crowd grumbles at Jesus' words, because no one comes to him unless the Father draws him. Jesus calls himself the living bread from heaven, and he gives his flesh on the cross for the life of the world. Like the Passover lamb, yet once for all, his broken body frees his people from judgment and from slavery to sin. To eat his flesh and drink his blood means to believe in him: verses 47 and 54 make the same promise of eternal life. The present tense, and a Supper Jesus had not yet given, rule out the Roman Catholic reading. Feeding on Christ continues daily in the Word and prayer. Whoever feeds on him abides in him, and Jesus will raise him up on the last day.

The crowd crossed the sea to find Jesus, but they came for another free meal, and he called them to labor for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man gives. When they asked what works they must do, Jesus answered that the work of God is to believe in him whom he has sent; the Father gave the manna, and he now gives the true bread from heaven. Jesus is the bread of life, and whoever comes to him hungry will never hunger. All that the Father gives him will come to him, he will never cast out anyone who comes, and he will lose none of them but raise them up on the last day.

After Jesus withdrew from the crowd that wanted to make him king, his disciples rowed into the dark against a rough sea without him, a picture of everyone who tries to row toward God in his own strength. Jesus came to them on the water and said, "It is I; do not be afraid," resting their comfort on his own presence before he did anything about the wind. The disciples gladly took him into the boat and immediately reached the land, and the decisive change happened in them rather than in the weather. Christ came to be bread and peace for his people, and he calls weary believers and outsiders alike to stop rowing alone and welcome him.

With a Passover crowd of five thousand men coming toward him, Jesus tested Philip by asking where they could buy bread. Philip counted denarii and Andrew counted five barley loaves and two fish, and both measured the task against their own resources instead of looking to the Lord who had fed Israel with manna. Moved with compassion for sheep without a shepherd, Jesus fed them all until they had eaten their fill and gathered twelve baskets of fragments, yet the crowd wanted a king who would fill their stomachs and free them from Rome. Every meal still comes from the Father's hand, so believers rest their peace in the good shepherd who provides all they need, rather than in savings or a career.

Jesus calls four witnesses to who he is: John the Baptist, the works the Father gave him to do, the Father himself, and the Scriptures, which bear witness about him. His hearers search those Scriptures yet refuse to come to him for life; the Father's word does not abide in them, and Moses, on whom they set their hope, accuses them. The root of their unbelief lies in the heart: they receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God. A craving for human approval, sharpened today by likes and followers, still crowds out faith, and Christ exposes it so that sinners will repent and seek God's glory in him.

When the Jews sought to kill Jesus for calling God his own Father, he pressed the claim further: the Son does nothing of his own accord but only what he sees the Father doing, because the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. The Father has given the Son greater works than healing a lame man. The Son gives life to whom he will and executes all judgment, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever hears his word and believes has already passed from death to life, and at the last day all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and rise, some to life and some to judgment before the same Son.

At Jacob's well Jesus offers the Samaritan woman living water: whoever drinks the water he gives will never thirst again, for it becomes a spring welling up to eternal life. That water is the Holy Spirit, who never leaves believers without his sustaining work, though they still suffer and doubt. Christ is also the access to the Father. The hour has come when true worshipers worship in spirit and truth, not on Gerizim or in Jerusalem, as God extends his promise to the nations.

When John's disciples worry that everyone is going to Jesus, John answers that he is not the Christ but the friend of the bridegroom, who rejoices at the bridegroom's voice: "He must increase, but I must decrease." Scripture calls God the husband of his people, and Christ is that bridegroom. He comes from above, speaks the words of God, and has all things from the Father; whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Ministers are never the main characters in the story of redemption; Christ is.

Nicodemus asks how a man can be born again, and Jesus answers with heavenly things. As Moses lifted up the bronze serpent so that dying Israelites could look and live, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son." God did not send his Son to condemn the world but to save it. Believers struggling with sin can rest in this: Christ came to free them from sin's bondage and make them alive.