**Due to a clerical error, our Gospel readings for Pentecost 11 and Pentecost 13 got switched.**<\/p>\n
Text: John 6:51-58<\/p>\n
The Living Bread<\/p>\n
Grace,
\nmercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
\nJesus Christ. Amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes
\nfrom the Gospel which was read earlier.<\/p>\n
If you ask In our text <\/p>\n Those who The Jews So it is The Jews How often do we too misunderstand? Can we grasp the concept of what it is that What Jesus says is very This is the For those Jesus makes This flesh and blood of Jesus Christ Now the peace of God which passes **Due to a clerical error, our Gospel readings for Pentecost 11 and Pentecost 13 got switched.** Text: John 6:51-58 The Living Bread Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes from the Gospel which was read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmy wife, she will tell you that I like food, maybe even a little too much. While food is good, good food<\/strong> is even better. Give me a nice steak and I\u2019ll call that good food. I can live off of sandwiches if I had to, but
\nI can live a lot better off of a good piece of steak.<\/p>\n
\nfor today, Jesus makes a statement that is a hard statement for the disciples
\nand other listeners in the Capernaum synagogue to swallow: \u201cI am the living
\nbread that came down from heaven. If
\nanyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.\u201d<\/em> Their attitude toward Jesus of Nazareth had
\nundergone a dramatic change since only the previous evening. Just a few miles away and only a few hours
\nbefore, Christ had fed five thousand men with five small barley loaves and two
\nsmall fish. At that time He filled the
\nrole of Messiah much to the liking of the Jews. They wanted an earthly king. They
\nwanted a leader who would feed them by miraculous means every day. So when Jesus withdrew from the crowds and
\nreturned to Capernaum,
\nmany followed Him.<\/p>\n
\nsought earthly bread from an earthly king were very disappointed once they
\ncaught up with Jesus back in Capernaum,
\nhowever. He gave them no new miracles.
\nHe produced not a single new loaf of miracle-bread. Instead He used their curiosity to go into a
\ndiscourse on much more important matters. \u201c\ufeffI
\nam the bread of life,\ufeff\u201d<\/em> He announced. This was a \u201chard teaching\u201d for many; it still is. Yet it is a Gospel gem for those who hunger
\nfor eternal life.<\/p>\n
\nhad been trying to get another miracle out of Jesus. They had been talking about how the Lord had
\nonce fed their forefathers with manna. Still impressed by that event in the desert many centuries earlier, they
\nchallenged Jesus, \u201c\ufeffCan you top this?\ufeff\u201d So Jesus reminded them of something
\nthey were overlooking: their forefathers had died. Even with a steady diet of
\nmanna from heaven, an entire generation of their ancestors had died!<\/p>\n
\nthe same with us. All the food in the
\nworld will fill our stomachs in this life, but in the end, we will still be
\nhungry. Only the \u201cliving bread from heaven,\u201d<\/em> Jesus Christ and His Word sustain life
\nfor all eternity. Manna was limited to
\nJewish fathers in the wilderness. It
\ncould not give life. In fact, it could
\nnot sustain life lastingly for the people died a temporal death. But the Bread of Life, heavenly in nature, is
\nfor all men. It does not allow spiritual
\ndeath; in fact it gives eternal life.<\/p>\n
\ncouldn\u2019t accept it. They didn\u2019t
\nunderstand what it was that Jesus was saying. \u201c\ufeffHow can this man give us his flesh to eat?\ufeff\u201d<\/em> They
\ndidn\u2019t understand what was to come with His death and resurrection. They didn\u2019t understand at all. Did they think He was urging
\ncannibalism? There might have been some
\nwho found the concept of Jesus Christ as their bread of life much too hard to
\nswallow. They preferred the bread
\nof their own righteousness to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. For
\nthem, He was too much a flesh-and-blood person like themselves to be
\ntheir Bread of Life. <\/p>\n
\nJesus Christ is offering to us? Of
\ncourse we can\u2019t grasp what it is that He is offering us. Can we truly understand how He so willingly
\nsacrificed His life for us? Can we truly
\nunderstand what how when in just a few moments when we come to the Lord\u2019s
\nTable, in simple bread and wine we will receive forgiveness of sins in Christ\u2019s
\nbody and blood? <\/p>\n
\ndisconcerting to the non-Christian, but very comforting to the Christian. \u201c\ufeffI tell you the truth, unless you eat the
\nflesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
\neternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.\ufeff\u201d<\/em> Those who do not eat and drink the
\ncrucified Son of God can be certain of their status. Christ speaks to them directly: \u201c\ufeffYou have no life in you.\ufeff\u201d<\/em> He voices a
\nsimilar warning later in \ufeffJohn: \u201cI told
\nyou that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I
\nclaim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.\u201d<\/em> That is what is available to those outside of
\nChrist; death. But for those who eat
\nChrist\u2019s flesh and drinks His blood, they have eternal life. <\/p>\n
\njoy of every Christian; life everlasting with the Bread of Life. The food the world provides is temporal and
\nwill only last a short time. It will
\nsustain our needs in this world, but the things of this world cannot and will
\nnot sustain us in the life to come in Christ. We rely solely on the Word of God and His life-giving Sacraments to
\nsustain us.<\/p>\n
\nlistening to Jesus\u2019 words, every word He spoke sounded stranger and
\nstranger. Did He really mean that His
\nbody was bread? Did He really mean that
\nI had to eat His flesh in order to have life? Those at the synagogue were asking these and more of these types of
\nquestions, trying to understand what exactly it was that Jesus meant. They still saw Jesus as a man and only a
\nman. He was to be their Jewish King, and
\nHe was. However, He wasn\u2019t King of the
\nJews as they thought that He would be. His kingdom wasn\u2019t an earthly kingdom. It never was supposed to be that way. He even told them that His kingdom was not of this earth, but they
\ndidn\u2019t understand that either. Jesus
\nChrist is more than just a man. He is true
\nGod and true man. Since He is true God
\nand true man, it is He alone that is able to sacrifice Himself for our
\nsins. It is He alone that is able to
\nfeed us with His body and His blood to sustain our bodies, but more importantly
\nsustain our souls and our faith.<\/p>\n
\nclaims that only He can make: "For my flesh is real food and my blood
\nis real drink. \ufeffWhoever eats my flesh
\nand drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live
\nbecause of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.\ufeff\u201d<\/em> It
\nis this bread and wine that gives life!<\/strong> Because of this meal that we eat, we remain
\nin Christ; in essence, we have life in Him. We have life in Him because the Father has sent Him. The Father sent the Son to defeat sin once
\nand for all, to restore humanity to its original intended position: as sons and
\ndaughters of God. <\/p>\n
\nwill give to all who eat it eternal life. On the last day, we will be raised to life. That is the gift that all Christians and all
\nbelievers in Christ can look forward to. That is the gift that comes only from \u201cthe bread that came down from
\nheaven.\u201d<\/em> The food of this world will
\npass away, but the bread of life will sustain us forever. In Jesus\u2019 name. Amen.<\/p>\n
\nall understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ
\nJesus. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"