John 6:56-69

By Bill Hattendorf, Lay Preacher

Perhaps you’ve noticed that over the last five Sundays, we’ve been working our way through the Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. However you feel about John, today is the end of that run for now. We’re back to the Gospel of Mark next Sunday.
        To put today’s lesson into context, allow me to bring back up some other pieces of this story.  The Gospel of John, of course, is different from the other three in the New Testament. John’s is a gospel about the logos, or “Word.” It relates the history of the Word that it says was with God in the beginning (that phrasing being an allusion to the opening of Genesis). 
        The synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) purport to provide “good news” which some folks see as an historical account of Jesus’s life, whereas  John’s gospel could be called the spiritual gospel precisely because it tells the story of Jesus in symbolic ways that differ sharply at times from the other three. John’s existential theology is to simply believe (“credo” in Latin), rather than conform with Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven.” As the logos, John’s Jesus overcomes death, and his miracles are simply a means to show the people a sign that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, a sign of God’s love for us, a sign that we can trust and believe in Him.
        The teaching of John is of self-sacrifice, of passion, of love, and of friendship. Jesus tells his followers to pursue the light and spread love and self-sacrifice. This is different from, say, Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commands his followers to love their enemies, rather than telling them to lay down their lives, out of love, for their friends.
        In John's gospel, Jesus dies on a different day than in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s … In the three synoptic gospels Jesus actually eats a passover meal before he dies, but in John's gospel he doesn't. John’s last supper is actually eaten before the beginning of passover, so there’s a different sequence of events leading up to the crucifixion for John's gospel. Matthew and Luke follow Mark closely by having Jesus crucified at the third hour (9 AM) on the day following the Passover feast. But John’s timeline you could say is different for theological reasons. It has Jesus taken to be crucified on the sixth hour (12 noon) on the day before the Passover feast.
        Let’s say that Passover begins at 6 o’clock with the evening meal, so in John, the day leading up to the Passover is the day when all the lambs are slaughtered and everyone goes to the temple to get their lamb for the passover meal. In Jerusalem this would have meant thousands of lambs being slaughtered all at one time. And in John’s gospel that's the day on which Jesus is crucified. So that quite dramatic scene in John’s gospel has Jesus hanging on the cross while the lambs are being slaughtered for passover. John’s gospel is forcing us, dramatically at least, in his storytelling mode, to think of Jesus as a passover lamb.  Jesus doesn't eat a passover meal, Jesus is the passover meal, at least within the way that John tells the story.
        So this theme of the Lamb of God, the Passover symbolism, runs all through John’s gospel. From the very first scene in John when Jesus enters the story for the first time, John the Baptist sees him coming and says, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” So the whole story is now bracketed by this one motif, the Lamb of God. And that’s the kind of symbolism that eventually becomes one of the most profound and dominant in all of Christian theological tradition. In just that small capsule we have a whole theological tradition of Jesus as the Lamb or God wrapped up.
 
        In the New Testament we see many pictures of Jesus. We see him as the Good Shepherd, the bread from heaven, the Word, and the vine. We learn about him in parables, and we puzzle over what those parables might mean. And, we’re in good
company with our questions and wonderings. Even the disciples – Jesus’ closest followers – had questions, too.
         John's symbolism may be the most evocative as well as provocative in the New Testament. John’s language can seem intentionally antagonistic toward Jewish tradition and sensitivities. The idea of the Passover, of course, is very Jewish but John tends to turn some of those ideas against Jewish tradition. In today’s lesson, Jesus essentially says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Later John notes “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
        Jesus grosses them out with talk of consuming flesh and blood. The idea of drinking blood is absolutely abhorrent to Jewish dietary regulations. So the very language and the symbolism that is so rich within John's gospel also has a decidedly political tone to it in terms of the evolving relationship between Jews and Christians. John’s gospel is witness to a Christianity that’s moving further and further away from Jewish tradition. And in fact it’s seeing Jewish tradition often as actually hostile to the Christian movement.
 
        In John, we get a startlingly clear look at who Jesus is, which is why John is the favorite Gospel of many people. But, for all its beauty and imagery, today’s John 6 reading is also one of the most disturbing passages in the Bible. So disturbing, in fact, that it causes many of Jesus’ disciples – though not the twelve – to turn back from following him.
        Although Jesus’ words “I am the bread of life” are familiar to most Christians, in this passage the disciples declare this to be a “hard saying.” While the crowd was initially enthusiastic about the idea of Jesus as one like Moses who could provide a miraculous bread (the loaves and fishes), many find his teaching sufficiently “hard” that they turn away. What is it about Jesus’ teaching that they find difficult?
        Well, some interpreters think that Jesus’ disciples have only understood his words on a literal level. Although modern readers are conditioned to hear Jesus’ words about those “who eat my flesh and drink my blood” as a reference to the Lord’s Supper, the disciples at the time would have no experience of the Eucharist. This episode precedes the Last Supper. They reject Jesus’ teaching because they think that he is referring to cannibalism.
        However, it may make more sense to think about the narrative logic of what John is doing here. In the original manna story, the people’s response to God’s salvation is mixed. Although they initially herald the triumph of God in the Exodus, they immediately begin to “grumble” & “complain.” They don’t trust God to take care of them.
        Similarly, the group following Jesus initially receives the seemingly miraculous food of loaves and fishes and heralds Jesus as a prophet. But they also begin to “grumble” against Jesus and his teaching about the manna. It’s too hard.
        To partake of Jesus as manna involves a reliance on God. One way John expresses this throughout the Gospel is through the word “abide.” The same Greek word, meno, appears here, although it is often translated remain: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood remain in me and I in them.” Feeding on Jesus as manna means remaining or abiding with Jesus. It is through this proximity that Jesus brings life to those who eat.
        But “abiding” with Jesus is difficult. Staying with Jesus and learning from him is a long process. For many, a quick fix would be more attractive. The crowd initially attracted to Jesus – as a Moses figure who could work miracles – learn that Jesus is not offering an easy victory but the long road of discipleship.
        The twelve are the ones who “abide” with Jesus. They stick with him even though his teaching is difficult. (Although they, too, will scatter during the trial and crucifixion.) Here, they recognize Jesus’ words as life giving and do not turn away. In doing so, they represent what it means to trust that God will provide manna. They stick with Jesus, who is the manna, and they listen to his words. This is their only real option – much like the Israelites in the wilderness, whose only other option was to return to slavery: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
 
        John tells us Jesus knows the disciples are finding this teaching to be especially difficult, and he calls them out. He asks them the question, “Does this offend you?” The Greek word also translates as “scandalize.” The disciples are offended by Jesus’ teaching. They are scandalized by it.
         John tells us, “Because of this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” The truth he spoke was offensive. Scandalous. And they simply couldn’t accept it. Jesus then asks the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
        Theologian Soren Kierkegaard contends that there comes a point in our lives where we have to make a choice: to believe or be offended. But, before the choice can be made, there is tension. We are confronted by God with the scandal of God’s amazing and self-giving love, and we face a profound tension that will lead either to offense or belief. It is this tension that holds within it the beautiful possibility of faith.
        All of the disciples – the wider group and the twelve – face the difficult teaching of Jesus. When many of Jesus’ followers walk away. Jesus asks the twelve if they want to leave also. In the midst of the tension, Jesus sits with them and allows them to take it all in. Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
        For Peter, profound tension was the beginning point of deep faith. Faced with the scandal of reliance on the very body and blood of Jesus, Peter found himself abiding in Christ. John 6 makes it clear that the Gospel is hard. It’s offensive.
        Are we offended?
        Are we scandalized?
        In this day and age, we are no strangers to scandal. We hear, almost daily, about the fall of celebrities, about people who have climbed to the top, only to have their deepest, darkest secrets exposed as they fall from lofty heights. Scandal after scandal is featured on the tablopids in the grocery check-out line.
        The good news of Jesus Christ is that the scandal of our sin is no match for the scandal of God’s self-giving love. The most amazing news of all is that the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us. The good news of the Gospel is that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus – nothing. 
        I love the way Heather frequently closes this service by saying “Rest assured that God is infinitely more concerned by the promise for our future than the mistakes of our past.”
        The love of God in Christ is far more than we could ever believe or imagine. And confronted with that reality, we are shaken to the core. But Jesus not only speaks out and challenges us in the tension, he allows us to sit with it, too.
        So, will we be offended, or will we believe?
 
        Amen

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