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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. The last two Sundays, and then today, have all been from John chapter 6, which talks about Jesus. Jesus is telling his disciples and those gathered around about himself being the bread from heaven. The Bread of Life. That’s how it kind of began three Sundays ago. Last Sunday, he talked about his flesh being real food and his blood real drink, which brings life. And then today, it gets a little bit even more deep, and he says, “He who feeds on my flesh, he who drinks my blood, has life indeed, eternal life.” Very strong. It just builds upon one, upon the other. Amen.
But the beautiful thing to accentuate this morning is he who feeds on his flesh, he who drinks his blood, abides in Christ, and Christ abides in him. This abiding is important. It’s not Jesus saying, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you remember me, you think about me, and I’ll think about you, and I’ll remember you. It isn’t about thinking and it isn’t about remembering. It’s about abiding. Totally different concept than thinking and remembering.
When it comes to thinking and remembering, you know as well as I that as we get older, our thinking and our remembering is not so good, is it? And you have seen the ravages of sin and your loved ones who have aged; their thinking and their remembering is not so great. But abiding… Abiding is totally different, isn’t it? That’s the point of Jesus saying, if you drink my blood and eat my flesh, I will abide in you, and you will abide in me.
Now, this revelation of him saying, “Here’s how I’m coming to the world.” I’m coming to the world in an incarnational way. Incarne, meaning enfleshment, literally becoming flesh, God. This is how I come to the world. This is how I reveal myself to the world. I don’t reveal myself to the world as if I’m a thought that you have to keep remembering. I reveal myself to the world as becoming one with my creature, so that the creature can be joined back to the Creator. This is the kind of revelation that he’s proclaiming.
The problem is, it’s met with a lot of doubting and scoffing. Jesus’ disciples hear this—not just the twelve, but the other disciples that are gathered there in the synagogue at Capernaum. They’re listening to this, and their minds are contemplating this and cogitating about it, and they’re kind of doubting and scoffing. And you know what’s sad? That doubting and scoffing still goes on today.
How can God give us His very flesh and blood? How can God give us His very flesh and blood? How can God be abiding in me and I in Him when I don’t see Him and I don’t hear His voice? I hear a preacher proclaim His Word, and I hear a preacher read His Word, but I don’t hear Him, do I? And the doubting and scoffing brought about this question: How then can this man give us his flesh to eat? That’s still being asked today.
The vast majority of Protestant Christians in America look at this and say, how can that be flesh and blood with bread and wine? So they think in terms of it being nothing more than our remembrance or thoughts about Jesus. And if that’s the case, then all this is, is Jesus’ thoughts and remembrance about you. And as I said, you know how as we get older, or even now, our thinking and our remembering is not something to be trusted, is it? If that’s what our salvation depends upon, if that’s what our assurance is based upon, Jesus makes it very clear: receive me as I have proclaimed myself to you. Here is how you do it. Receive it.
Now, it says it very clearly that many of his disciples, after they heard Jesus proclaim this teaching about himself, threw up their hands and stopped following him. The text said, “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?'” Yes, it is a hard saying. Not so hard for our faith; hard for our gray matter between our ears. Because we try to figure it out rather than receive it. But the question is not so much about figuring it out. Really, the question you ought to ask yourself is, Does this passage bring me comfort? Right? The answer is most decidedly yes.
If my participation with Christ’s flesh and blood there is what I abide in Christ, and Christ abides in me, and it’s not about my thinking, and it’s not about my memory, then there’s a real joining of Christ with me and me with Christ. That is not a new theme in the Scriptures. That theme began at your baptism. When Christ talks about being baptized into Him and us being joined to Him, if that theme was started there in our baptism, then this theme is not a new theme. It’s a continuation of that theme. Not about thinking, not about remembering, but about being joined and abiding with Him. That’s substantive. That’s not abstract reality; that’s substantive.
Take, for example, a marriage. Can you imagine how bizarre and crazy a marriage would be if the husband and wife said to one another, “We want to have a personal relationship with one another,” correct? The other says, “Yes, we do. I want you to be my personal husband, and I want you to be my personal wife.” Yes, that’s what we agree upon. And I want this relationship between us to be real and not fake. Absolutely, that’s what they both say. And I want this relationship between you and me to be growing and not stagnant. Not symbolic. Absolutely. How are we going to do this? We’re going to carry this relationship on as husband and wife? By thinking about it. By remembering one another. By contemplating our relationship, but not participating and abiding with one another.
Do you see the utter ridiculousness of such a thing? Conjecture? Our relationship with God is a personal relationship, but it’s not about our thinking of Him or contemplating Him or His thinking about you and contemplating you. It is about abiding and being joined to Him. In the same way that a marriage is made a marriage when the two become one flesh, Scripture talks about the joining and the abiding of one with the other, so it is with our Lord Jesus. This is what his text says: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I abide in him. That is a marriage. That is what Jesus is proclaiming here.
Now, you and I know that in a relationship, intimacy is a very important aspect of it. And some, as you know and have observed, either in other people or in yourself, find intimacy kind of scary. It’s scary because that means you are known by someone, and that means you know someone else. And the reason that that is scary is that the more you know about someone else, the more you realize it’s all laid out there, clear as a bell; both their good points and their bad points. And when you are known and abided by with your spouse, they know you—your good points and bad points. And that’s a scary intimate relationship. This personal relationship. This real relationship. This abiding with Christ.
The disciples reflect that uneasiness. Not the twelve, but many of them. It says very clearly, they then stopped following Jesus. So Jesus turns to the twelve after these guys left because the intimacy was beyond what they could comprehend or understand. Deal with one of the two. There are many people with whom you know who don’t want a real intimate relationship with Jesus either because to be in an intimate relationship means that they’re continually abiding with him at that table.
Lots of people like a little bit of Jesus—a little bit of Jesus when they need him, a little bit of Jesus when it’s convenient for them, a little bit of Jesus when it fits their world, but not too much. Do you want a marriage like that? Then you don’t want a relationship with God in the flesh like that either. Here is where he says, “He who feeds on my flesh, he who drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him.” There is this union. I know you, and you know him. As much as a human being can know God, but better yet, think about how God knows you, and He still wishes to abide in you. That is the comforting aspect of this text.
So when Jesus puts the words to the 12 as he puts it to you, you don’t want to go away as well, do you? You don’t want to walk away from this intimate relationship and intimacy of abiding with one another, do you? You don’t want me only when it’s convenient for you, do you? Peter stands up for all the 12 and says, “No, no, no, we want to abide in you. We want you to abide in us.” Amen. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We know and believe that you are the Holy One of God.”
That is your confession of faith. But it’s a scary confession of faith. It brings great joy and comfort, but it also lays bare your life before a holy and righteous God. And it brings you into a very intimate and personal relationship—the kind that can make you feel uncomfortable at times. The kind that pulls you and stretches you, pushes you and crushes you, and raises you back up. That kind of a relationship. Abiding. Not thinking, not symbolizing, not remembering, but abiding.
His flesh and blood gives life. Therefore, his flesh and blood abides in your flesh and blood, and your flesh and blood abides in his flesh and blood, and his flesh and blood brings life. Your flesh and blood brings death. God be praised that he abides with this dead carcass as he abides in your dead carcass. That’s what gives that deadness life. He took that death and buried it in the grave and rose again to bring life to death. Amen. To bring hope to despair and to bring joy to complete and utter sadness.
Paul said the same thing in a different way. Paul said, “Christ dwells within me. I no longer live. I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself up for me. I no longer live; Christ lives in me.” You are going to eat and drink Christ’s flesh and blood, as he said in this text… And he will abide in you, and you in him. And that is a marriage made in heaven.
In Jesus’ name, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
