What were John’s intentions when he wrote today’s Bible passage? Who was he writing it for? It is only chapter six out of the twenty one chapters in his Gospel and he writes about Jesus puzzling his audience. Doesn’t he think his readers will also be puzzled?
When WE read today’s passage about eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood, most of us automatically think, as Duncan said last week, about Jesus’ last supper with the 12 disciples, and our communion service. How he told us to share bread and wine remembering his gift to us of forgiveness and life.
This is how Luke’s gospel tells of Jesus’ request –
Then he [Jesus] took a cup of wine, and when he had given thanks for it, he said,
"Take this and share it among yourselves. For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come."
Then he took a loaf of bread; and when he had thanked God for it, he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying,
"This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
After supper he took another cup of wine and said, "This wine is the token of God's new covenant to save you--an agreement sealed with the blood I will pour out for you. (Luke 22:17-20 NLT)
Do you know which is the only Gospel that doesn’t mention Jesus’ last Passover supper, where he gives these instructions to, “Do this in remembrance of me"? Yes! John’s gospel. And John was sitting right next to Jesus!
John must have chosen not to tell that story because he knew it was already well documented. The other gospels also contain many stories of miraculous healing that John doesn’t mention. John tells just four stories of healing, including Lazarus being risen from the dead, and none of these are in the other Gospels.
Altogether John tells of only seven miracles of Jesus that he calls ‘signs’
At the end of his gospel John says,
“I suppose that if all the other things Jesus did were written down, the whole world could not contain the books. (John 21:25 NLT)
May be he was thinking of the other books – Gospels.
In today’s passage John quotes Jesus saying
62 What will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven again?
Does he expect his readers to know the ascension of Jesus is now an historical fact, because they know these words from Luke –
Then Jesus led them to Bethany, and lifting his hands to heaven, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up to heaven. (Luke 24:50-51 NLT)
Christian readers will read John’s words and understand.
For the people in Capernaum, at the time, Jesus was trying to explain to them he wasn’t talking about his physical body been eaten. So he tells them, what actually is a prophecy about his ascension.
He says effectively my whole body; bones, flesh and blood are going to rise to heaven one day. I am not talking about literally drinking my blood. I’m a Jew, I am aware that in our law the blood of an animal can’t be consumed, rather it is poured on the ground. What I’m trying to explain is a difficult concept, listen, concentrate, trust me and believe.
Looking at each gospel as a whole, Mark and Luke seem to be writing their gospels to inform unbelievers. In fact Luke says that is what he is doing at the beginning of his gospel. They are very factual. They tell us what Jesus did.
When a person has just seen someone healed instantly and miraculously, or another miracle, it would be unusual for them to dislike the person responsible. Can you imagine not wanting to be friends with the person who just healed the blind, crippled, deaf, and others?
Not wanting to listen to the man who can just whip up food and wine from nowhere? You would think such a person just daft.
Saying historical facts aren’t true really is quite silly.
So providing accepting Jesus isn’t too challenging, the majority of people will believe in him. Especially if they get something for nothing. But this of course isn’t real belief.
All four gospels tell the story of the feeding of the 5000. The reason that Jesus, had many disciples around him, when talking to them in today’s passage. These are the people that had received the miraculous meal the previous day. Who wouldn’t follow Jesus at that time, apart from religious leaders who found him a threat?
Incidentally a Home Office Survey of 15,000 people in England and Wales in 2001 revealed that 80% believed in God. A similar survey of Sun readers revealed only 70% had a belief! What does this says about Sun readers?
Unlike the other gospels John seems most concerned to show that Jesus knew he was the Son of God, but also that he was totally human. From the beginning of his gospel we find symbolic language, stating Jesus is God. Really this information is beyond human comprehension.
In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. (John 1:1 NLT)
John doesn’t actually say Jesus created the world before his physical birth, because Jesus is God. But that is what he means.
John writes many thoughts which can’t be proved or disproved historically or scientifically. Spiritual ideas.
It is in John’s gospel’s where all the “I am” sayings of Jesus are written. Saying that are to be understood spiritually and not taken literally.
For instance -
I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. (John 10:9a NLT)
People would understand that he didn’t really think he was a gate or door. But what they did think he was saying, upset them. They thought he was saying something like –
“I am the only way to eternal life. Follow me.“
”I am the one who saves and protects you in this life for the next”.
Another example of Jesus’ “I am” sayings is -
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that doesn't produce fruit” (John 15:1-2a)
"Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. . . Anyone who parts from me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” (John 15:5-6 NLT)
Is this gentle Jesus meek and mild speaking? I’m sure those listening didn’t think he was taking about Grape Vines. They knew he is implying those who don’t follow him will be discarded by God.
Such statements by Jesus caused arguments.
As John 10.19-21 says -
When he said these things, the people were again divided in their opinions about him. Some of them said,
"He has a demon, or he's crazy. Why listen to a man like that?" Others said,
"This doesn't sound like a man possessed by a demon! Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" (John 10:19-21 NLT)
In today’s passage similarly we had -
John 6:58 I am the true bread from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.
What we lose in this translation from the Greek, is that Greek has a present continuous tense for verbs, that aren’t easily translated into English. So it doesn’t mean anyone who eats just once but
Anyone who KEEPS ON eating this bread will live forever.
If someone ate bread or anything else on one occasion ten years ago and haven’t eaten anything since. Well they would be dead now by now wouldn’t they.
Similarly anyone who accepted Jesus ten years ago and have ignored him and his will for their lives ever since, is spiritually unconscious. They aren’t Keeping On eating the bread.
Some people who remember John 3.16; part of which is on the banner behind me; find it a very encouraging verse. Which it is, but it should be read with understanding and with verse 17 and 18.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who KEEPS on believing in him will not perish but KEEPS on having eternal life.
John 3.17-18 continues -
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. "There is no judgment awaiting those who continue trusting in him. (John 3:17-18 NLT)
A promise with a warning! God isn’t interested in your past, but your future.
I have never been to anything like a Billy Graham rally where thousands of people go forward to say they are giving their lives to Jesus. But many who do
make a decision don’t continue with that decision for more than a few weeks.
Many of the people who had been fed by Jesus and were there in the synagogue with him, in Capernaum, also decided following Jesus wasn’t for them after all. For a start trying to understand what Jesus meant was difficult. So they couldn’t be bothered to try.
In his gospel John points out that many times people didn’t understand the symbolic language Jesus was using. It seems some of his words would only be understood later by his disciples.
For instance he said
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19 NLT)
He wasn’t talking about the Temple the Jewish Leaders were looking at, but his body which would be resurrected three days after his death.
When Jesus asks a Samaritan woman at a well for water he also says to her,
"If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water." (John 4:10 NLT)
She thought he meant drinking water even after he said -
“The water I give takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life." (John 4:14 NLT)
Jesus seems to deliberately speak to people in symbolic language and in parables, hoping they will remember what he has said and think about his words later.
Hopefully, eventually, knowing him better, the woman at the well, understood, that when Jesus referred to “water”, he meant the Holy Spirit.
John’s Christian readers most likely would understand that the perpetual spring was the Holy Spirit. But does anyone fully understand the Holy Spirit?
Today there are lots of things we don’t understand, that we just accept and use because they don’t challenge us to do something we might not choose to do. For instances how many people here don’t know how computer storage keeps getting bigger and bigger on smaller and smaller pieces of equipment? Yet you happily use them all the same.
The more we now about God’s creation the more we realise there is much, much more to know. Spiritually we have hardly got started.
In the crowd listening to Jesus in the synagogue that day were people who just couldn’t be bothered to understand what he meant. But there were others who understood and chose to leave. They wanted an easy passage to eternal life, one that made them feel pleased with themselves, and took little effort. Hopefully later they changed their minds again.
Peter answered Jesus for the 12 as they are called in the passage. They had seen all that Jesus had done, the miracles he had achieved. They heard his teaching. At times they found him embarrassing because he offended people who they thought were important.
But they knew him as a loving, honest, friend who could be trusted. No, they didn’t understand everything he said, but knew he was wiser than them.
They had never met anybody like him before. So wise and loving. They had never heard of anybody like him before. That is apart from the Messiah foretold in the scriptures, and Jesus seemed to fit the prophecies about the Messiah.
They had their 30AD idea of what heaven, eternal life was like. May be they hoped for a place with just the right weather to grow luscious crops, lakes with plenty of fish, no diseases, a large family, beautiful homes with silver and gold utensils, and no Romans to tell you what to do.
What is your idea of heaven?
Some people today have the wrong idea of heaven, and hell. Like the guy who said, “I would rather be in hell with friends, than playing a harp forever in heaven.”
This is how Jesus describes his purpose in our eternal life.
My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. (John 10:10b NLT)
For some it might be lazing on a sun drenched beach for six months of the year, for other walking though beautiful countryside without feeling tired.
Some might want to drive a sleek sports car or be a brilliant player in their favourite football team. Younger people might fancy computer games with real live graphics.
Whatever your ideal idea of eternal life Jesus promises for those who believe, love, trust and follow him, it will be better than all your imagination.
So what does Peter answer on behalf of the 12, when Jesus asks the question, “Are you also going to leave?”
“Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. 69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”
What is your answer to Jesus?