Sermon Tone Analysis

Often they say that image is everything.

Sadly, in religion sometimes image is the only thing.

It is what causes people to go to a church somewhere…the symbols.

The symbols become an end to themselves.

They attend the mass.

They partake of the Lord's Supper.

They submit themselves to baptism because just in the picture itself they seem to think is the answer...is the purpose...the end of their journey.

Yet Jesus confronts image for image sake all through the gospel of John that we have seen.

Time and again, Jesus will use symbols to teach a deeper truth that is otherwise hard to discern, but so often the people He is speaking to stop at the symbol.

They don't see the deeper truth.

That was true all the way back in John, chapter 2, when Jesus told the Pharisees, /"Destroy this temple, and in three days I'll build it again."/

He was speaking of His body, but they thought He was speaking of that glorious temple that stood there on Mount Moriah.

Then in chapter 3, He speaks to a member of the Sanhedrin, a man named Nicodemus.

He said, /"You must be born again,"/ and Nicodemus can't get beyond the impossibility of being physically born a second time.

The image Jesus used was something he couldn't understand.

Then in John, chapter 4, the woman at the well…Jesus says, "I can show you where you can have living water and never thirst again."

She didn't realize He wasn't talking about plumbing, but He was talking about the inner spiritual life.

So too when we come to John, chapter 6, and Jesus gives His great discourse on the Bread of Life there in the synagogue at Capernaum.

He begins to speak of the necessity of eating His flesh and His blood.

There will be those on that day as well as even those today who get stopped at that image, and don't seem to get beyond the image itself.

I want to speak to you today about what Jesus is really talking about in this last portion of John, chapter 6, and that is the words of eternal life.

Christ is pointing the disciples, the larger group of the audience as well as His inner core of disciples to the words that He speaks, not to the particular image that so often they get stuck on, but to the deeper truth.

You see baptism, which we observe and we're named because of it, in and of itself is nothing.

But it symbolizes something.

It symbolizes a deeper truth that takes place on the inside of the person being baptized that is demonstrated in that baptism.

The Lord's Supper we observe in and of itself is nothing, but it symbolizes the Body and the blood of Jesus Christ.

What Jesus is talking about today, if we just leave it at the image then we miss the truth.

We miss the words Jesus is trying to share with all those in the audience.

I'm going to pick up in verse 56 of John, chapter 6, this morning.

I invite you to join with me.

Jesus says, /"He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him."/

This word to abide, to remain, is a common theme in John's gospel.

He uses it throughout talking about sometimes that Jesus abides in the Father.

The Holy Spirit abides in us.

It is this relationship, this intimate relationship that we are to have with God that is coined in the term abiding.

He says, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has that intimate relationship with Me, and I in him."

Then in verse 57, /"'As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.

This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead.

He who eats this bread will live forever.'

These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a hard saying; who can understand it?'"/

Jesus, there in that synagogue, back in a time when it wasn't as formal as a church service would be today, a layperson could speak, and dialogue with the others gathered.

Jesus is teaching on this day, and He's teaching that whole discourse that begins way back in the early part of John, chapter 6, and that He is concluding here in this section, and He comes to this portion where…/"he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me."/

Now the interesting thing is up to this point, Jesus has been talking metaphorically.

He says, /"I am the Bread of Life."/

He's been speaking in metaphors about Himself, but for some reason here, they think He's speaking literally.

They somehow think He's talking about some form of cannibalism, of `some form of a pagan practice here, when of course that's not at all what Jesus is saying.

He's trying to explain to them.

He says in verse 58, this is, in other words, "I am the Bread which came down from heaven."

He's already spoken about that in the previous verses, and He's saying this is the true bread, not the manna, which came down.

That physical bread which came down from heaven, your forefathers ate that and they died.

Well, not even that manna that came from heaven was Jesus referring to physically.

He's talking metaphorically entirely, and that manna He's speaking of in verse 58 is the law that came down from heaven…that which Moses gave.

Remember He says, "Moses didn't give you that manna, God gave you that manna."

Well metaphorically, if Jesus is the Bread, then the manna is not physical either and really He's talking about that law.

When the forefathers depended on that, they died.

When they depended on that for their salvation, they died.

Now He's saying the real bread the Father sent down from heaven was to observe all the words that I told you, to obey them, and to follow Me.

I am that true Bread.

Well the disciples…they heard it and they said, "This is too hard."

That word for hard in the Greek is a word that means harsh.

In other words, it wasn't too difficult to understand intellectually, it was offensive to them.

They were thinking of physically eating somebody's flesh, physically drinking someone's blood.

They were listening to Him saying that their fathers made a mistake when they depended on that manna that came down.

They didn't see the real manna.

In other words, they were looking to the physical and not following what the law was trying to show them.

They were depending on the immediate satisfaction and not depending on God.

They weren't trusting in Him.

He said they died in the desert.

What is it referring to?

When they came to the borders of Kadesh-Barnea, and they sent those spies in to spy out the land, and the spies came back and 10 out of the 12 said, "It's too dangerous to go in."

The entire congregation of Israel, these forefathers, they decided not to go forward.

They were afraid.

Why?

Because they depended on themselves more than they trusted in God…the God who had provided the manna to them, that was not sufficient to them.

They weren't willing to trust them.

They were only willing to trust what was right in front of them.

They were only willing to trust what they could see.

Seeing was believing for them, and hearing the stories of the giants in the land was enough for them.

They weren't willing to go forward in faith.

They didn't understand the God who could bring down bread from heaven was a God they could trust.

That was the deeper truth God was trying to teach them.

It was that, "Listen folks, I can bring bread out of nothing.

You can trust Me and go into a Promised Land that is full of the enemy and I'll give it to you, just as I gave you the manna."

But instead, they trusted in themselves.

Now here are the Galilean Jews.

They've been raised to believe that the law itself provides salvation.

They trusted in their own observance of the law.

They didn't trust in the God who gave the law.

So they would be upset, for instance, when earlier we saw in John, Jesus healed on the Sabbath because for them the Sabbath was an end of itself.

They didn't understand God gave the Sabbath for man to rest and man wasn't subject to just bow before the Sabbath.

There was a deeper truth to all of that.

So now they understand they are to have this intimate relationship with Christ, and it's offensive to them.

They've been raised with a certain kind of religion and they want that to continue.

They were willing to follow Jesus when they thought He was going to free them from Roman oppression.

But the idea of following a Savior, a Messiah just out of pure faith… No, that wasn't anything they were interested in, and so it says that many of them turned away.

They trusted in themselves more than God.

Jesus knew this.

Verse 64 tells us, /"'But there are some of you who do not believe.'

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.