Only Christ

ONLY CHRIST John 6:46-58, 66; 1 Corinthians 10:14-17

Theme of the Month Evangelism—Living & Sharing the Good News

Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Sharp

Lead Pastor, English Congregation Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church, Vancouver, British Columbia

Sunday Sermon for 18 April 2010

Scripture Passage John 6:46-58, 66

No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.

This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

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Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

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Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever."

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66

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

1 Corinthians 10:14-17

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

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I don’t know how you reacted to this passage from John 6 with its talk about eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood, but I know that for many people their reaction is one of ugh! Gross! This is the stuff of horror novels and lurid splatter movies. And taken out of context, the words would repulse us as profoundly as they repulsed the Jewish crowds who had gathered to hear the Jesus’ preaching. This was hardly what they had expected and not surprisingly, many of Jesus’ listeners were offended by his words.

For centuries, Israel’s society and religion had a ban on drinking blood and cannabalism.

Evidently, some of Israel’s Old Testament neighbors apparently drank blood as a religious act.

They believed that if they drank the blood of an animal they took into themselves the strength and vitality of that creature. If they ate the flesh or drank the blood of an animal that had been dedicated to a god, that god who had entered into that flesh and blood offered to him would also enter into them. But for Israel, blood was life and life was blood. That’s why Israel was forbidden to partake of blood. Life comes from God alone. To seek life from the blood of an animal rather than from God, the source of life was idolatrous.

It is clear from the context of today’s passage and what Jesus has to say elsewhere that when Jesus spoke of his flesh and blood as the food and drink of eternal life, he was speaking in powerful, intimate images and metaphors that emphasized that he was offering a relationship with himself as the real source of life. Jesus knew that his listeners were very much inclined to chase after false promises of spiritual nourishment. But he wanted to make the radical claim and emphasize that he and he alone could offer them true bread for their deepest hunger and true drink for their most desperate thirst. Only he and only he alone could satisfy the hunger and thirst and needs of the human soul.

In many ways, our modern culture isn’t very different from the first-century crowds that gathered around Jesus. Jesus’ words confront us with the fundamental challenges of human existence.

Where do we place our faith? Where do you seek meaning and purpose? Where do we discover fullness of life?

This passage reminds us that it is sad, but true, that we are still inclined to look for life in all the wrong places—only to glut ourselves at a tempting buffet that leaves us unsatisfied. There is a folk tale among dieters that celery takes more calories to digest than celery contains. That means you could starve to death while eating your fill of celery. The more celery you eat the faster you starve. Now I don’t know if that’s really true of celery, but it is certainly true of many of the things that we use to try and fill our empty lives.

And yet our materialistic world brainwashes us and promises in the most creative and persuasive Madison Avenue ways that it can provide that which satisfies our deepest hunger and thirst.

Television commercials, radio advertisements, newspaper ads, internet pop-ups bombard us constantly and repeatedly with overt and subliminal messages that try to entice us to believe that there are certain “things” that we definitely must have in our possession if we are going to be happy, satisfied, and successful. But even when we have them we still are dissatisfied for the most part.

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There is a story about a man who was a regular diner at a certain restaurant. The management always did its best to please him. So when he complained one day that only one piece of bread was given him with his meal, the waiter quickly brought him four slices. “That’s good,” he said, “but not good enough. I like bread with my meals and plenty of it.” So the next time he ate at the restaurant, he was given six slices of bread. “Good,” he said, “but you’re still being a bit frugal aren’t you?” Even a large basketful of slices on the table the next day didn’t stop his complaints. So the manager decided to teach him a lesson. He had a huge loaf of bread baked.

It was four feet long and two feet wide. When the customer arrived, the manager himself, with the help of the waiter, carried the large loaf to the bread-lover’s table, and waited for his reaction. The man glared at the gigantic loaf, then looked at the manager and said, “So, we’re back to one piece again!”

Some people look to wealth and things, possession for satisfaction. The right car, the right house in the right neighborhood, the right “toys”, the right food and drink, the right gadgets—these are the things that will being happiness and fulfillment. This is what our world tells us with loud shouts and enticing whispers. But this is really a dead-end. It’s nice to have money and the things that money can buy, but at best, money and things only provide some basic security and passing pleasures and creature comforts, but they can’t provide the abundant life we need and want. Like a narcotic, the more wealth we have, the more things we have, the more we feel we need.

For other people the point of life seems to be the pursuit of fame—being recognized by others and applauded by others. That too is a dead-end. One day a gushing admirer said to Winston Churchill (the British Prime Minister who wasn’t always liked as a politician). “Doesn’t it thrill you that your speeches draw such huge crowds?” And Churchill replied, “Yes, it is gratifying, but I try to keep in mind how much larger the crowd would be if they had gathered to witness my hanging.”

The sad truth is that so often those who pursue and find fame, don’t always find happiness or meaning or satisfaction. And there are plenty of movie stars and pro athletes who can attest to that. They have fame, but their lives are empty.

Still others hope to find some meaning in life by looking good. The right clothes, the right shoes, the right colognes or cosmetics, the right hair style or even having hair. The advertising community knows only too well that adults and youth, both are obsessed by designer clothes, trendy jewelry and flashy cars.

A so-called “yuppie” (young urban professional) was driving his new BMW convertible. He had the top down, his right hand on the wheel and his left arm hanging over the door. With the CD player going full blast, he didn’t notice the rusty old pickup truck that pulled around to pass until it sideswiped him. The car spun out of control and when it finally came to a stop the young man got out of his car. “My car!” He cried, “my beautiful car!” The car was a wreck. Then a policeman arrived. “My car, my beautiful car,” he said to the officer. “You got more to worry about than your car,” the Officer replied. “You need an ambulance. Your arm is badly injured.”

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The young man looked down at his bleeding arm and cried, “My Rolex watch! My beautiful Rolex!”

Now, we could go on and on cataloging the relative worthlessness of things that offer dust in place of true bread, but do we really need to? Our culture chases after anything that might possibly fill up the emptiness within. But what we are so often left with is disappointment and a deepening hunger.

Someone has written: “Looks aren’t everything. Luxury’s not everything. Money’s not everything.

Health is not everything. Success is not everything. Happiness is not everything. Even everything is not everything. There’s more to life than everything.” (Steve Turner).

But we often forget that. We limit and condition our search. We would rather, it seems, look for fulfillment from the creation than from the creator. We imagine that we can satisfy ourselves with God’s gifts and, at the same time, ignore the Giver. And the result is that we end up hungry and thirsty for something we can’t name, and we wonder what’s gone wrong.

An ice cream shop in Venezuela boasts nearly six hundred flavors, including such taste-tempting ice creams as eggplant, onion, smoked trout, and spinach. Imagine trying to decide on just one flavor among six hundred. You could browse for hours. And yet, so many of us pass through this world as if we were wandering among six hundred flavors. We taste this and try that, we sample endlessly, but our hunger is never fully satisfied. We are always looking for something better, and nothing ultimately fills us.

But no matter how often we say it or we hear or experience it in ourselves or others, we are slow learners. I am reminded of a book title by J. Ellsworth Kalas. He entitled the book: If Experience is Such a Good Teacher, Why Do I Keep Repeating the Course? And it is true. Experience ought to teach us something, but we don’t seem to learn.

And it is here that Jesus steps into our world with his challenge and gift.

Jesus faced the same situation with the people of his day. His world wasn’t much different from ours. “When,” asks Jesus, “will you quit trying to fill up your empty lives with things that don’t ultimately satisfy?” Wealth, fame, appearance. You can find stories in the Bible of people who tried them all and still were empty. Others sought to find purpose and direction in life through religion or religious observances but ended up with legalism, national pride, dusty traditions?

And still their lives were empty.

Jesus says to them and to us: “If you really want to be filled up on life, then fill up on me! Feed on me, for I am the life-sustaining bread you long for. Drink me up! Only my life can quench the thirst in your life. Unless you feast on me, you will have no hope of abundant life” Now many of us here, especially those who have been going to church for quite a while, are probably thinking – I’ve tried Jesus and frankly it didn’t work. But my question to you is: Did you really try Jesus? Did you really meet him and allow him to transform your life? Or did you just dabble? Fit him in when it was convenient or useful?

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Writing in The Sacred Romance, a young man, Brent Curtis, shares his experience of this hunger and his search. He writes: “If I'm not abiding in Jesus, then where is it that I abide?” I once asked myself. I began to notice that when I was tired or anxious, there were certain sentences I would say in my head that led me to a familiar place. The journey to this place would often start with me walking around disturbed, feeling as if there was something deep inside that I needed to put into words but couldn't quite capture. I felt the "something" as anxiety, loneliness, and a need for connection with someone. If no connection came, I would start to say things like, "Life really stinks. Why is it always so hard? It's never going to change." If no one noticed I was struggling or asked me what was wrong, I found my sentences shifting to a more cynical level: "Who cares?

Life is a joke." Surprisingly, by the time I was saying those last sentences, I was feeling better. The anxiety was greatly diminished.”

“My comforter,” he says, “my abiding place, was cynicism and rebellion. From this abiding place, I would feel free to use some soul cocaine—watching a violent video with maybe a little sexual titillation thrown in, having more alcohol with a meal than I might normally drink, things that would allow me to feel better for a little while. I had always thought of these things as just bad habits. I began to see they were much more; they were spiritual abiding places that were my comforters and friends in a very spiritual way.”

“The final light went on one evening when I read John 15:7 in The Message. Peterson translates Jesus' words on abiding this way: "If you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon." Jesus was saying in answer to my question, "I have made my home in you, Brent. But you still have other comforters you go to. You must learn to make your home in me."1 This is Jesus’ Radical Offer. He gives us himself. He offers to satisfy our spiritual hunger and thirst – If, we are prepared to make our home with him and allow him to make his home in us.

God spreads a sumptuous banquet before us, and all too often, you and I nibble around the edges. God fills our cup to overflowing but we scarcely take a sip. Even religion may leave us starving, if we become like the people Paul accuses of keeping up “the appearance of religion,” but rejecting the “inner-power of it” (2 Timothy 3:5).

Jesus is no friend of spiritual anorexia. Jesus came to feed the hungry. The bread he offers us is no snack, but the staff of life. The blood he spills for us is not measured out in an eyedropper; this is a fountain, a life-giving river. Jesus offers us nothing less than himself ! And why is it that we settle for almost anything less?

It seems that most of us choose existence over abundant life. The same old, same old and there is no particular sense of direction in our lives and so we miss out on its meaning.

There is an interesting piece of dialogue in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I don’t know if it made it into the movie or not. Alice, speaking to the Cheshire Cat, asked:

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Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997) ONLYCHRIST 5

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—“said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the cat.

“---so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Many people drift through life with no sense of direction and miss their meaning. They exist, but don’t live. They never find their purpose, and they come up empty-handed, frustrated, depressed and disillusioned.

The purpose of life, according to Jesus, is to seek God’s kingdom, God’s will above everything else. It is to love God, and to love people. Anything less is not worth much. It is existence and not life and Jesus comes to give LIFE. And what is our response? For you see Jesus won’t leave us to duck the issue, to avoid the question, to postpone making a decision. We all have to decide what we are going to do with Jesus.

It was after his “flesh-and-blood” sermon that John tells us in verse 66 that many of Jesus’ “followers/disciples turned back and no longer followed him”. Some of them left because they misunderstood what Jesus was saying. Others left because they understood only too well what he was saying. They knew that Jesus was challenging them to give up their substitute gods. We still love substitutes, don’t we? Sugar makes us fat so we substitute chemical sweeteners. Sunshine is unpredictable, especially here in the Pacific Northwest, so we brown ourselves in tanning salons.

Designer perfumes are too expensive so we settle for copy-cat scents. Substitutes are easy and convenient.

I still remember walking down many a street in Hong Kong and almost weekly having someone come up to me asking me if I wanted to buy a fake Rolex. Very Cheap! We like our substitutes.

Substitutes are easy and convenient.

So are substitute gods. They are more manageable and less demanding than the real God. But they can’t give us life, because they have no life in themselves. If we want real life we will discover it only in the real God, the God who became flesh and blood for us, the God whose whole self is offered to us in Christ.

So, here we stand in a world hungry for meaning and purpose and direction. Around us stands a hungry world, almost empty of life, and Christ confronts us anew as he did the crowds at Capernaum. He tells us that we can never find what we need in the storehouse of empty promises or the buffet of dust and ashes. Only Christ knows what we hunger for; only Christ understands what we thirst for. Only Christ can give us what we so desperately need and really want.

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So the question is why go hungry? The table is spread. The cup is poured. The banquet is prepared. Christ invites us, awaits us with open arms. Come and be fed. Come to Christ. Come to life.

Reflection Questions 1. What are your reactions, questions, thoughts, impressions of today’s Scripture passages?

2. If you had been a part of that audience who heard Jesus’ “flesh-and-blood” sermon, what do you think would have been your reaction?

3. Do you find this passage and Jesus’ claims too radical/shocking?

4. Besides the things named in the sermon, in what other places do people look for meaning and purpose in life; ways/places where our deepest hungers and thirst are satisfied?

5. Why is it that we so often want the gifts without the Giver (God)? Why is it that we settle for other things to satisfy our search for happiness, joy and meaning other trusting the promises and person of Christ?

6. Have you ever found yourself settling for “substitute gods”? If so, what were they?

Why were they so appealing?

7. When you look at your life, do you feel that you are going “hungry”? Or have you found that the life Jesus gives really does satisfy and fulfill your deepest need? Be honest.

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