Pentecost 11 Year B
Sermon Preached by Reverend Michael Hillier on Sunday, 4 August 2024.
John 6.24 – 35
We have been looking at events surrounding the Feeding of the 5000, and we continued that today following the actual Feeding. The people were so amazed that Jesus fed them in the way He did that they wanted to seize Him and make Him their king.
Jesus responded by immediately getting His disciples out of harm’s way by putting them in their fishing boat and making them sail back towards Capernaum. Then He dismissed the crowd and went up into the hills to pray and be alone. We discover these details by comparing the events as they unfolded in each of the Gospels.
With the disciples and Jesus heading in different directions, the crowd is left in a state of uncertainty. They choose to remain where they are, and their faith and belief in Jesus lead them to anticipate His return.
Nothing happens; they are not sure what to do. Jesus will not be back. Some boats arrive from Tiberius across the lake. No doubt, they had been fishing and come to shelter here from the storm the night before. You might remember the disciples had been rowing in the storm and then saw Jesus walking towards them over the sea. That was in last week’s Gospel.
But now we come to today’s Gospel reading. The waiting crowd gets into these fishing boats that shelter in the bay and returns with the fishermen to Capernaum. And much to their surprise, who should they meet on arrival but Jesus! They are astonished.
Jesus does not reply to their question about how He got there but immediately says they sought Him for the wrong reasons. They wanted bread, as it were, ‘on demand’. Jesus then tells them about ‘the food that endures for eternal life and that God will give them ‘through the Son of Man’
(v.27).
If you reread that text, you will see the discussion flowing backwards and forwards between Jesus and these people, with several references to the 40 years the Jews spent in the wilderness during the Exodus and how God fed them manna, bread from heaven. Now, there is just great confusion, and they are entirely lost in this profound and complex discussion with Jesus, reflecting the depth of spiritual understanding they were lacking.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Imagine I say to you, ‘Let’s repaint the interior of this Church.’ Don’t panic; I’m not suggesting it! Let’s say you think it’s an exciting idea, and some of you think white or cream and others think pastel shades.
But you have yet to realise that my name is Michelangelo, and I am thinking of something approaching the Sistine Chapel that will blow your minds and change things forever. Imagine you have never heard of me, seen the Sistine Chapel, or even pictures of it. You can’t imagine what I’m talking about. All you can think of is white, cream or pastels and arguing the merits of each.
You are not trying to be tricky, obtuse, or difficult. However, your sense of vision and imagination need to stretch farther for you to understand the possibilities of what I’m talking about.
It is as if you’re conversing with someone about gravity and thinking about Newton and his falling apple. But the person you are talking with is Albert Einstein, who thinks about it entirely differently and imagines quantum physics.
Jesus realised this crowd would not get it, but He had to try and persist. Some of them might partially get it now, and in time, others will. He was taking the long view.
The crowd speaks to and questions Jesus, portraying confusion and a very this-worldly attitude. They can’t seem to get beyond being fed, making Jesus their king, and asking Him to bring them freedom from the Romans and new life. It was all very this-worldly.
Then, the people refer back to the Exodus and how God fed those people with manna (v.31). In their confusion, they rightly connect between Jesus feeding the 5000 and God feeding the people in the wilderness 1200 years before.
The crowd wants a sign, but surely they have just been given one if you want to see it in those terms. Jesus has just fed them in the Feeding of the 5000! But, since they recalled the Exodus, Jesus again began to try to get them to see the bigger picture.
They see Jesus in terms of what He can do for them, almost as some fairy godmother who meets their every physical need.
So Jesus again begins trying to get them to see a bigger picture—a picture that points back to the Exodus since they have alluded to it, but which extends it further. So what was that?
Jesus, in effect, was saying, ‘Stop thinking about what I can do for you and start thinking about who I am! What matters is who I am. If you grasp that, you will begin to understand what I can do for you and what I want to do for you.’
The Exodus was a pre-eminent moment in Jewish history when God acted decisively, inaugurating something new. Jesus was trying to convey to this crowd that what God was now inaugurating was a new and decisive act more significant than the original Exodus. And it is centred on He, Jesus.
So, the question of who Jesus really is now comes to the foreground and will dominate this conversation in John chapter 6 and subsequent chapters.
We saw a similar thing with the Samaritan woman in John 4. Jesus was resting alone by a well. This woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked for a drink. The conversation quickly takes her out of her depth as it talks about Living water. She wants this to save her from having to journey to this well. It is the same as the crowd asking for ‘this bread always’ (v.34). She and they see this in a very concrete, material way as a quick and easy solution to getting water and
bread.
But this Samaritan woman has clues that there is more depth to this conversation than she can comprehend, and she goes to tell her fellow villagers. Like this crowd following the Feeding, Jesus is trying to draw her to a deeper place, and this path lies through Jesus.
One other point regarding our text for today: verse 27 tells us that ‘God the Father has set His seal’ on the Son of Man, Jesus. What does this mean? In those days, the king gave his seal to his envoy, and everyone knew that with this seal, this envoy came from the king and carried his authority. Jesus is saying I come from God and have His authority. I take His seal.
So, what might all this say to us this morning? Our text climaxes in our last verse when Jesus says that He is ‘the bread of life’, and those who come to Him will never be hungry, and if we believe in Him, we will never be thirsty (v.35).
Clearly, Jesus is saying something more profound than physical bread and water. He wants to take you and me to a deeper place than we can imagine, a place that satisfies our deepest longings.
There is no slick answer, no one-sentence soundbite that will sum it up. Jesus has given us hints and clues; now, we must discover what is hiding there in plain sight. So, take some time this afternoon or tomorrow to sit down and converse with God. Who might God be for you, and what might He be trying to say to you? And where is God trying to lead you?