|
Jesus said, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We now live in a time when Biblical teaching on the family, on marriage, and on human sexuality is under attack by our culture. This is not news to you, I know. Increasingly, we Christians find ourselves at odds with American culture and society over several fundamental issues. To be a Christian today is to open oneself up to the charge of being an ignoramus, or worse, a bigot. Certainly, being a devout Christian today is not a path to social respectability. Sadly, what has been happening over the last 15 years is that some Christian leaders have been compromising the Gospel by their teaching and their actions. There’s a new book out called, “Shepherds for Sale” by Megan Basham. In it, Basham indicts a few prominent evangelical pastors for compromising the Gospel and the Word of God for the sake of popularity, cultural respectability, and money. We are discovering today that there are many Christians who have stopped following Jesus Christ because they cannot accept His teaching, particularly on marriage, on divorce, on gender, on human sexuality. There’s been a trend over the past 5 to 10 years of once prominent evangelical leaders either denouncing traditional teaching on these subjects or them rejecting Christianity and the Church altogether. Joshua Harris, who wrote How I Kissed Dating Goodbye, made a lot of money with his book, which called for Christian young people to reject dating in favor of what he called Christian courtship. Later, he renounced the book and his Christian faith altogether. The lead singer for Caedmon’s Call, a Christian rock band, came out strong for transgenderism, writing songs that testify that Jesus thinks transgender people are “beautiful.” While this is disheartening and even shocking, it is not new. Today’s Gospel lesson from St. John tells us that there were many of Jesus’ followers who simply could not accept His teaching, and so they fell away. In response to Jesus’ teaching about He is the Bread of Life, that one had to feed on His flesh and blood to inherit eternal life. This was too much for some who said, “This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?” When we read this passage, we find it remarkable that people who lived during the time of Jesus, who saw Him in person, and who watched Him perform miracles, could then turn away from Him because they couldn’t accept what He taught. Jesus’ response to those who struggle to accept His teaching is two-fold: First, Jesus says, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” Jesus is underscoring His identity as the eternal Son of God become Man. He reminds them that He is no mere prophet, but that He came from the Father to become a human being and live among us. And He will return to the Father, thus telling them of His coming Ascension back into heaven. Therefore, Jesus’ teaching is divine teaching, straight from heaven. Because it is divine teaching, not mere human wisdom, then we must recognize it as ultimately authoritative and receive it. Second, Jesus tells them, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Jesus is reminding them that human intellect alone is incapable of understanding the things of God. We need divine assistance; we need the Holy Spirit to understand and receive the things of God. Jesus’ words are powerful, and Spirit filled, and they speak beyond our intellect to our souls and spirits. Jesus is not surprised that there are those who cannot accept His teaching. St. John writes, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray Him.” And Jesus tells them, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted to him by the Father.” Here again Jesus points to the mystery of our salvation. We choose to believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Yet, at the same time, we cannot take credit for that choice. We believe because God the Father reveals the truth to each of us. We are saved because we responded to God’s drawing of each of us to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ. This is a cause for joy and gratitude, not pride or self-satisfaction. The Christian teacher and Bible scholar A. W. Tozer once said, “A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to ‘accept’ Christ without forsaking the world.” We read in today’s Gospel that many of Jesus’ disciples stopped following Him because they couldn’t accept the truth He was proclaiming. It was true then, and it is true today. And the fundamental reason for this is that there are those who refuse to yield fully to the Holy Spirit, to embrace Christ and reject the world and its values. We are now living in a time when the contrast between Christ and the world is stark. Each day we are being tempted with the idea that we can somehow “straddle the fence” and be a follower of Jesus Christ, and yet be accepted by the world. This is a delusion. You cannot do it. For all of us who have come to know Jesus Christ, there is only one choice. “So Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’” +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
0 Comments
Jesus said, “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, I and I in him.” +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
There’s an ancient legend attached to the mother pelican, that she, in times of famine would wound herself by striking her breast with her beak to feed her young to prevent starvation. Early Christians adapted this legend to symbolize Jesus Christ. The pelican represents Jesus our Savior and Redeemer who gave His life for us and feeds us His own flesh to nourish us on our way through this life to eternity. This legend and image have become a part of our own liturgical tradition. The image of the pelican feeding its baby pelicans has been placed on altar frontals and on chasubles. In Durham Cathedral, before the Reformation, the Blessed Sacrament was reserved in a silver tabernacle fashioned like a pelican. The legend of the pelican is a beautiful illustration of what Christ is trying to teach us about Himself and His love for us today. The people listening to Jesus’ teaching on the deeper significance of His declaration, “I am the bread of life” are caught up in literalism. They react to Jesus’ words by asking sarcastically, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” They think, just as the pagans did, that Jesus is talking about some cannibalistic ritual of consuming human flesh and blood. But Jesus is not talking about cannibalism. He is talking spiritually, that is sacramentally. Jesus is pointing us to the mystery of the Incarnation, where He, the eternal Son of God, has come to earth as a human being. By doing so, He redeems all of creation. That means that the physical elements of this world, such as water, grain, fruit, and the human body, are no longer defiled, but holy. God can and does use the physical elements of this world to accomplish spiritual work. In the Old Testament, God saved the people of Israel from death, by allowing them to pass through the waters of the Red Sea, and by feeding them with manna, or bread from heaven, and by giving them water from the rock. Then in the Covenant He made with Moses; He commanded the people to sacrifice lambs as an offering to atone for their sins. Now in the New Testament, Jesus the Son of God, the great High Priest, takes these elements of the physical world and uses them to establish the New Covenant in Himself. The passing through the water of the Red Sea becomes the water of baptism. The manna from heaven becomes the bread and wine of the Eucharist. And the sacrificial lamb offered each year for the sins of the people becomes Jesus Himself, the perfect Lamb of God who blood shed for us on the Cross becomes the once for all sacrifice for the sin of humanity. Therefore, when Jesus is talking about the bread and the wine becoming His Body and Blood, and that His Body and Blood is true food and drink, Jesus is connecting Himself to Creation. St. Apolinaris says that we are the beneficiaries of eternal life through the Incarnation. Jesus offers His flesh on the Cross for our salvation. Through Christ’s humanity, all humanity is saved. St. Irenaus writes that in Jesus Christ we have the union of the flesh and the Spirit. Therefore, Christ has not only elevated the fallen human race back to God, so the elements of creation, such as bread and wine, are elevated to heavenly status. The bread and the wine of the Eucharist have both spiritual and physical realities. The bread becomes more than bread, it is the Body of Christ. The wine becomes more than wine, it becomes the Blood of Christ. All this is a mystery. That is, we cannot fully explain it using physics or biology. Rather than try to understand with our minds, we must first believe Jesus’s words, and then we will understand what He means. Jesus also says, “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in Him.” When we partake of the Eucharist, we receive through the Sacrament the very eternal Life that Jesus Christ has in Himself. As Jesus says in John 15, we abide in Him; we are connected to Him as our Source and Life, and He lives His divine Life in us and through us. Today, Riley and Aramis will be receiving their First Communion. It is one more milestone on their journey towards greater union with Christ. It is also a part of their transition into deeper fellowship and communion with all of us here at St. John’s and with their Christian brothers and sisters around the world and throughout time. My prayer for you, Riley and Aramis, is that you never lose your hunger to know Christ and draw closer to Him, and that you will be filled up with His Life for eternity. +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “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.” +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite classic movies is Ben Hur starring Charleston Heston as Judah Ben-Hur, a devout Jewish man of noble birth living in Judea during the time of Christ. Judah and his mother and sister are unjustly imprisoned by the Romans. Judah ends up as a slave on a Roman galley, while his mother and sister are locked away for years and become lepers as the result of the harsh conditions there. Eventually, Judah gains his freedom when he saved the life of a Roman consul in battle. He returns home to find his mother and sister, only to learn that they have become lepers. Judah then races Massala, the man who condemned him and his family unjustly, in the chariot race. Massala dies because of a crash during the race. Yet, despite Massala’s death, Judah has no peace. In one scene, Judah is speaking to his friend Balthshazzar. Judah stops to take a drink from the stream. Then Judah says to his friend, “I am thirsty still.” Balthshazzar invites Judah to come with him to go listen to Jesus speak (Jesus is speaking nearby on top of a hill). But Judah refuses, saying “I have business with Rome.” Ultimately, Judah only finds healing and peace when he witnesses Christ dying on the Cross. Seeing that Christ is an innocent man dying on for the sins of others, Judah is stuck to the heart when he hears Christ forgiving those who unjustly condemned Him. Judah says, “I felt Him take the sword out of my hand.” Ben-Hur is a powerful story of pain, suffering, revenge, and redemption. It is a very human story about how even a good man can be corrupted by the injustices and sorrows of life. It is a story about how the things of this world, such as power, fame, riches, and revenge can never satisfy. Today’s Gospel lesson shows us that only Jesus can satisfy the deepest hunger and thirst in our souls. Jesus continues His discourse on His statement “I am the bread of life.” It is one of the seven “I am” statements that Jesus makes about Himself in John’s Gospel. And you will remember that by using the expression “I am” Jesus is directly linking Himself to God’s revelation of His own Name during His encounter with Moses in Exodus. Jesus seeks to help others understand and believe that He is the answer to their longing and their searching. People have come to Jesus from all over to get more of the bread that Jesus used to feed the five thousand. Jesus tells them that mere bread cannot save them, only He can. Jesus goes on to declare that He is no mere prophet, but that He has been sent by the Father. Jesus says, “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.” Jesus’ great purpose as the Son of God is to bring the entire human race back to Himself, that sinful suffering humanity would believe in Him and be saved for eternal life. But once again, the people listening to Jesus, particularly the members of the Jewish religious establishment, are dismissive of Jesus’ words. They dismiss Jesus’ words because they don’t have the spiritual ears to hear what Jesus is saying. They are thinking according to the ways of the world and the flesh, which say that they have no real need for God. To them, Jesus cannot be the Messiah, since He comes from Nazareth and is the son of Joseph. They don’t know or recognize His virgin birth. Furthermore, they reject God’s grace because they are not hungry for the things that only God can give. Here Jesus reminds them, “No one can come to Me unless the Father draws Him.” Here is the great mystery of salvation: Jesus does not force us to follow Him. He allows us to choose to follow Him. Yet at the same time, that desire to follow Jesus does not come from within us, but from God. Do you remember what Jesus said to Peter when Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah? Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” Therefore, none of us can take our salvation for granted. We did not earn it; it was a gift given to us. We are saved because God reached out to us and revealed Himself to us. Jesus then returns to the meaning of His statement, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus tells the people that while God fed their forefathers in the desert with manna from heaven, eventually they all died all people will do. But Jesus is offering them a different kind of bread. Jesus says, “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.” Now some Bible commentators want to tell us that Jesus is only speaking spiritually and not literally about bread. That is, Jesus is the bread for our souls. And that is certainly true, as far as it goes. When we eat bread or any other kind of food, we are satisfied for a time. But when we have the bread of Jesus we will be spiritually filled up. Speaking metaphorically, this works. But there is more meaning here: Jesus also says that “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Here Jesus is talking about His own death on the cross. Jesus offers to us the bread of His Body broken for us on the Cross for our salvation. Again, one could say that Jesus is only speaking metaphorically. But it is the words that Jesus uses at the Last Supper to connect the food of bread and wine directly to Himself and His sacrifice for us on the Cross. Jesus declares that the bread becomes His body, and the wine becomes His blood. Thus, Jesus declares that His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink. Thus, Jesus is not simply speaking spiritually or metaphorically, He is also talking about our participation in the Eucharist. It is at the Eucharist that Christ feeds our souls and bodies with the food that truly satisfied. When we feed on Jesus at the Eucharist we are fed, not just for the day, not just for life, not just to overcome the hardships and challenges of life, but for the ultimate joy of eternal life. +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. |
Archives
September 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed