Fed and Nourished for Eternity
Heidelberg Catechism-Sacraments • Sermon • Submitted
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Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 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.”
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 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.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
Scripture: John 6:35-71
Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Days 28-29, Questions and Answers 75-76, 78-79
Sermon Title: Fed and Nourished for Eternity (Consider switching to now or always)
Brothers and sisters in Christ, living in our time and context is quite a luxury when it comes to being taught the faith. We have easy access to the Bible in our language both in print and electronic forms. We have the entirety of the written Word, which enables us to read all of the events and teachings that have been recorded and that the Spirit has inspired to provide for God’s people. When “eating flesh and drinking blood” are mentioned in our text, most of us, probably without much thought, hear that as Jesus calling the crowds to believe on his upcoming sacrifice. We do not believe anyone needs to eat a piece of flesh off of Jesus’ limbs or drinks a cup that holds a draw of his blood.
This has not always been so clear, though, and I would venture to say, still may not be for those who are not believers. Take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of those who are receiving this message for the first time. Having been served a meal of bread the previous day, these people returned to the one who provided their meal, and he effectively tells them today’s menu is his flesh and blood, “real food and real drink.” You can only imagine that the messages sent from the brain to the taste buds and smell sensors and back signal that this meal is unpleasant to most anyone in their right mind. For most of the people we have been journeying with today, the meal offered by Jesus is not all that attractive.
It is not an easy message, because as we identified with the rest of Jesus’ teaching this morning, it is a message that indeed takes faith to truly understand. The text we have before us to consider the Lord’s Supper tonight does not put us with Jesus in the upper room with the twelve disciples where he had bread that he breaks and distributes, wine that he pours into a cup and passes around after he has given thanks. In the upper room, before he was arrested and sentenced to be crucified, Jesus took bread and said, “Take and eat; this is my body,” and with the wine, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The people in this synagogue in Capernaum have simply been looking for food; they have physical appetites needing to be nourished, but Jesus wants them to have the opportunity for much greater nourishment. But the crowd of disciples could not wrap their minds and hearts around what he offered; their conclusion is that this is too hard, too harsh, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” This man may very well be a prophet, even the Prophet, but they did not have the necessary appetite to receive his meal.
They are not the only ones who encountered trouble with the teaching of Jesus’ body and blood. The early church faced officials and opponents, who heard about the “feast of flesh and blood” and accused Christians of being cannibals. 1500 years later, during the Reformation, communion rose up as one of the major issues. The Catholic Church claimed that the bread and wine of their Mass literally became Christ’s flesh and blood. Our Reformed ancestors were studying Scripture, and they called for that thinking to be re-examined. In much more intelligent language, probably in Latin, they said, “We don’t eat Jesus.” At that time, the leaders could not reconcile the issue, and shows that even in the church believers do not all agree with what the elements of the Lord’s Supper entail.
When it comes to the Lord’s Supper or as we may call it communion or Eucharist, which comes out of the Greek word that emphasizes the thankful nature involved, what do we believe? As we have been looking at over the past couple weeks, the sacraments are all about the sharing in Christ’s one sacrifice and the blessings that comes about to those who believe in him for salvation. The language of answer 75 tells us that when we see bread and wine handed out and received, we receive the nutrients and compounds that make up those substances; this is a physical practice, but the point is not so much that you leave the worship service having had a snack, but more important that you have had your spiritual appetite nourished by being reminded of Christ’s sacrifice. We remember the real, physical death that Jesus died, and that that action was for us. This answer drills this in, by using that phrase “for me” three times” and an additional “to me;” Christ died not for himself and his salvation, but rather wholly for we who believe.
It is not just a memorial that we look back to though, but it is also, as we confessed in the second part of answer 75, “So surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood.” This type of language draws us back to what it means for the Spirit to confirm faith as we talked about back in Lord’s Day 25. Surely, because of God’s grace, which we have through true faith in him alone, we know that sacrifice saved us from the death and condemnation we deserve, and it also gives us hope of an amazing future. Our thankfulness is not just things have been completed behind us, but as Jesus testified too later in his ministry, that he is going to prepare a place for us. While our mortal bodies will all pass away unless Christ comes before that time, we get reminders of the promise that is reiterated over and over again in John 6 that there is eternal life and he will raise us up on the last day. The resurrection hope that we have, brothers and sisters, is not a second life as we experience right now, but when he raises us up on the last day, it will be to experience true communion with him. Let that be a great comfort, and a great future to look forward to, as you take the bread and the wine.
The nourishment from participating in the Supper causes believers to reflect back on what Christ has accomplished, to look ahead in hope to what his sacrifice provides for us in eternal life, but we also believe through the Spirit that the Lord’s Supper provides and sustains believers right now. The Catechism reveals two major ways that celebrating communion does this. The first way is by offering believers an invitation to profess their faith again. We gave our word in answer 76 that to eat and drink is, “To accept with a believing heart the entire suffering and death of Christ and by believing to receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life.” Think about our crowd in John 6; they were a crowd looking for something simple, something temporary; Jesus was offering them food that when digested properly provides everlasting life. While the majority of that crowd did not have the ability to believe, the gift of faith, not all of his disciples left. By sticking around these people were confessing that they did believe; they wanted the life that he offered them. We see a link developing between profession of faith, a profession that accepts what Jesus teaches and offers, and when that is genuine, we receive God’s forgiveness for all of our sins. We need to be reminded that our God is a gracious God and we are repeat offenders, thus regular communion is an opportunity to re-profess our hope and trust in his work, and recommit to what he is calling for.
If we think back to baptism, signaling how God claims his children before anything else, participating in communion is a chance to respond to God with our commitment of love. It is not a practice to take lightly without genuine repentance and the desire to turn from our sins. That does not mean that if you sin after participating, you are condemned, but there is a mindset that this supper is for true believers, it can only be effective to those who have true sight to what God is doing. This meal is for those who understand and believe in what is behind the bread and wine, understand and believe that Jesus died and rose again for the cleansing of their sin and guilt in his perfect justice and mercy.
Right now, communion provides believers the invitation to profess their faith. The second way it sustains us is taught in the second part of answer 76, “Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us, we are united more and more to Christ’s blessed body. And so, although he is in heaven and we are on earth, we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. And we forever live on and are governed by one Spirit, as members of our body are by one soul.” This is such an amazing promise and witness for believers. The Spirit of Christ unites us with our Lord and Savior. We share in all parts of who Christ is; Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect, sinless life, a life perfectly glorifying God. We get to be one with him.
The love language continues here as the Catechism authors seem to have had Ephesians 5 in mind when they were writing this. Paul wrote in this letter to the church in Ephesus, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Indeed profound, but such a rich blessing to consider how Christ laid his life down for his people, his bride, and he is the one who purifies us by taking us to himself. He commits to someone who has not been faithful in the past; as his bride, we have cheated him, yet he remains faithful to us. Even though we are separated until he gathers us to himself, we are one with him.
This is an incredibly deep thing to take to heart when we practice communion, and hopefully something that sticks with us. If we hold this understanding of what believing in Jesus’ sacrifice offers to us, then we should grow in our faithfulness to our partner. It is a great assurance that once we have entered into committed fellowship with him, he will not divorce us even though we will not always be faithful. We are called to not test the graces of God, the graces of our holy spouse, and that is a fruitful piece of advice that any of us in a husband and wife marriage would identify with as well. Things tend to be better and much fuller of joy when we care about the needs and wants of our spouse, when we seek to serve them as we would want ourselves to be served. Just as in the marriage of two people here on earth, so it is in the redemptive work of Christ, he unites us with himself, he marries us to him. God desires for us to be faithful to him and confess our union with him. Participation in the Lord’s Supper, when done in good faith, grasping Scripture’s promises allows us to experience union with Christ.
The final piece we get to consider together this evening, very much building upon the union of believers and Christ, is what we find in the final part of answer 79. “[Christ] wants to assure us, by this visible sign and pledge, that we, through the Holy Spirit’s work, share in his true body and blood as surely as our mouths receive the holy signs in his remembrance, and that all of his suffering and obedience are as definitely ours as if we personally had suffered and paid for our own sins.” What the Catechism testifies to is that God Word not only teaches us that Jesus washed away our sins, but he also takes care of the guilt that might remain. We, united with Christ, have gone to the cross; our sin was nailed to him, but because we are one flesh and one bone, because we are married to him, he has forgotten the past; there is nothing to look back on and be discouraged by our previous unfaithfulness, because Jesus has taken the sin and the guilt away. We need not worry nor be anxious because of how wretched we were. If we are in relationship with the Savior; he tells us that the way to live on is the way of enjoying him, experiencing pleasure in all that he offers. Just as marriage tends to give the bride a new name, so we also have been given a new identity that the Lord’s Supper reminds us of, and encourages us to live out of the commitment we have made.
Celebrating the Lord’s Supper in our worship services should be a significant occasion for those who believe and have been saved. We can come with the basic mindset, which is the straightforward do this in remembrance of me, but we’re called to embrace that and grow into what is offered to us. Our souls receive a taste of the bread of life, and we get reminded of that taste as often as we participate. We will never be starved by the one who has come down and given himself for us and to us. May we live looking back, looking ahead, and looking at what Christ does even now. Christ, our living risen Savior, is at work uniting us with his body, a union which will be perfect when he comes again. Amen.