Blue Lake Presbyterian | 8-19-2018
Good morning welcome to the Blue Lake Presbyterian Church and thank you for coming this morning.
The title to today’s Message is: “Bread of Life” and is based on John 6:51-58
The children are lined up for lunch in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school. At the head of the table is a plate full of sliced bread. Above it is a sign that reads: “Take only two slices. God is watching!”
The children keep moving down the line, where at the other end of the table was a large plate full of chocolate chip cookies.
One of the children looks at the cookies and then wrote a sign that read: “Take all you want. God is watching the bread.
Last week my wife and I had dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants. After we ordered the meal, the waitress came with freshly baked bread straight from the oven. What a delight.
Some restaurants have taken the bread experience to a new level. In Missouri and Alabama, there is a small chain called Lambert’s Café, “the home of the throwed rolls”. The story goes that Norman Lambert started the tradition of throwing rolls to customers.
He explained, “I started throwing rolls, when it was too crowded one afternoon to serve the rolls to a customer and somebody yelled, ‘Throw em.’ So I threw them. So, this has become a tradition that the fresh rolls, right out of the oven are thrown to customers.
Brio Bread Works in Arcata is a notable local bread story. They make bread by hand, in an Old-World artisanal style, a style used by bakers for thousands of years, called “pain au levain” The name comes from the way the bread is leavened with wild yeast.
This morning, I brought some Brio buns for the bread lovers in the group.
What is it about bread that makes it so delicious? According to a report by French Yeast manufacturer “Lesaffre” the taste buds spread all over the tongue, recognize a series of flavors: sugar, salt, acidity and bitterness among many others. This combination of tastes and aromas makes the flavor.
Bread, in its various forms, is the most widely consumed food in the world. It is an important source of carbohydrates, which helps explain why it has been an integral part of our diet for thousands of years.
A 2010 study by the National Academy of Sciences discovered traces of starch from the roots of cattails and ferns in prehistoric mortar and rocks. Those roots were ground into flour and mixed with water. Finally, the paste would be cooked on heated rocks, making this prehistoric flatbread.
But how did we go to the fluffy loaf of bread? The answer lays in commercial yeast production dating back to Ancient Egypt around 300 B.C.
Bread has come a long ways since then. According to IndexBox, a marketing research group, the global bread and bakery market in 2015 was over 230 billion dollars in size.
What does the bible say about bread?
Bread is commonly mentioned in the bible, it is cited 366 times. In Genesis 3:19, God instructed Adam: you shall eat bread. In Genesis 18:6, Abraham told Sarah to make some bread cakes after unexpected visitors showed up.
When the Israelites left Egypt, the bible says in Exodus 12:39, they baked the dough, which they had brought out of Egypt, into cakes of unleavened bread.
More than half the books in the bible (38 out of 66), make references to bread. But there isn’t a chapter in the bible where bread is mentioned as frequently as in John 6.
In this chapter Jesus talks about bread 17 times. But in verse 51 he talks about a special type of bread, called living bread, or the “Bread of Life” and that brings us to today’s reading which can be found on page………… of your pew bible
John 6:51-58
51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give, for the life of the world, is my flesh.” 52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So 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.
54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that, which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
Please bow our heads. Guide us, O God, by your Word and Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth find wisdom, and in your will, discover your peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Gospel of John was written around 90 AD, later than the other 3 gospels of Luke, Matthew and Mark. John’s Gospel often fills gaps of what the other writers did not mention.
Such is the case with today’s reading. All Gospels describe the feeding of the 5000 in great detail.
But only John gives the narrative that followed after the feeding, the next day when Jesus addressed the people in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus gives this sermon on the “Bread of Life” the day after the people filled their tummies with bread and fish.
It almost seems that if Jesus hadn’t performed this miracle and fed the large crowd first, he wouldn’t have had such a receptive audience.
Jesus promises that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life and will be raised up on the last day. Jesus promises to nourish the world with the gift of salvation.
For a moment let’s go back to the first words of The Gospel of John. It starts with: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And in John 1:14: And the Word became flesh and lived among us.
Jesus said, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever but then he equates his flesh, with the “Bread of Life”.
And the Jews are not getting it, they are getting confused, they start disputing among themselves, they are arguing and they pose the question: how can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
But Jesus reiterates what he said before and makes it even more clear in verse 53 “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…….
The folks that were listening were raised in the Jewish tradition, with the Ark of the Covenant and the laws of Moses. That is what they knew, but now things have drastically changed and the people are confused.
They keep asking Jesus what do we need to do, Jesus repeatedly says, believe in me and you will never thirst or hunger and receive eternal life.
The answer to the salvation question can’t be any clearer. These words from Jesus changed the world forever. It was a paradigm shift.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Growing up in Holland I recall the days of coal and anthracite as a heat source.
I remember one particular New Year’s Eve, as a child, staying up until after midnight, and I went with my dad to the farm, where he was scooping coal into the boiler to keep the greenhouse warm.
This all changed when natural gas arrived, and we no longer needed coal. This was instrumental change. It was the new way.
So it was with Jesus. He said I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me.
Many people at the time didn’t want to hear and covered their ears and didn’t want to see the light and closed their eyes.
There are still many folks around the world that have not been exposed to, or touched by the shining light of Jesus Christ, the light that provides Eternal Life.
Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul died this week. She was a church-trained pianist and organist who often accompanied herself on recordings and in concert.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in a commentary this week: Aretha Franklin, thanks to her powerful, flexible voice and fierce delivery, was the most commanding and influential vocalist of her generation. When Aretha Franklin let out a gospel wail or added an “Oh, yes I am” as a spiritual fill, her songs became urgent messages, and awakened the emotions of anyone with a heart.
Oh Yes I am… That saying “I AM” came from the mighty God of the universe who called Himself: “I AM” when he spoke to Moses from the burning bush.
In Exodus 3:14, Moses said, “When I go down to Egypt and the people ask me who sent me, what shall I tell them? “ God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM”. You shall tell the Israelites “I AM” sent you.
1500 years later Jesus completed the statement that was given to Moses.
Seven times in the Gospel of John he uses the expression, “I am.” And the first thing he said in John 6:35 “I am the “Bread of Life”. He who comes to me, shall never hunger”.
When someone wants make an impression on another person and is communicating something very important, it is not unusual to repeat what was said, just to make sure, to make the point, just to make sure the other person clearly understood what was said.
This reading today took less than 2 minutes to read, but in this short time Jesus repeated himself over and over. He actually said the same thing 6 times in less than 2 minutes.
Whoever eats the “Bread of Life” will never hunger.
In verse 58 he said: This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that, which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
The ancestors Jesus is referring to were the Israelites, spending 40 years in the wilderness with Moses, while the Lord provided them every day with bread that came from heaven, as described in Exodus 16.
They called it manna. Moses had explicitly told the Israelites in Ex16:19, not to leave any for the next day, but some of them left part for the morning anyhow, and it bred worms and became foul.
See this Brio bread fresh from the store this morning, once you break this bread, you can smell the freshness and flavor.
But here is a piece that is 4 days old. Not so fresh any longer as a matter of fact, it is getting hard as a rock.
The bible says in Joshua 9:12: This bread was hot from the oven when we left our homes. But now, as you can see, it is dry and moldy.
When this piece of bread sits around for a few more days, mold will start growing on it. Eventually it will rot away and become compost.
The bread of the world will pass away, it will die, but the bread that Jesus provides is the “Bread of Life”, it will never pass away, and those who eat this bread will never die.
And here we have arrived at a cornerstone of the Gospel, a pillar that holds a fundamental truth, a tenet which depicts the great news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The promise of salvation through the “Bread of Life” is so enticing, so convincing, so intriguing, and so powerful.
You make ask, what I need to do to get this, to eat this bread. What do I need to do to get this amazing, life transforming experience?
Billy Graham in a sermon he gave in 1988 said that in America more people die of loneliness and guilt, and depression, of insecurity and heart hunger than die of physical starvation.
A few years ago researchers at BYU conducted an influential meta-analysis of scientific literature on this subject, and found that social isolation increases the risk of death by an astounding 30%, and some estimates as high as 60%!
Bread in the Bible, is the symbol of spiritual life. People all over the world are the same; they have an inborn hunger for something, and that something is Christ. People cannot be satisfied with anything less than Jesus Christ.
What do we need to do to receive Christ?
You just open your heart and say, “Lord Jesus, come in. I’m willing to turn from my sins and receive you as my Lord and Savior.”
Jesus said: “I am the “Bread of Life”. He who comes to me shall never hunger”.
This “Bread of Life” satisfies the inner longings and hungers of the human heart.
Have you taken a bite of this bread?
The simple truth is this: all one needs to do is: say yes to a personal relationship with Jesus, ask for forgiveness, eat his bread, believe, and Jesus’s promise of eternal life will be like fresh water, flowing from a cool spring.
We started this morning with the hymn based on the melody of Beethoven’s 9th symphony: Joyful Joyful we adore thee,
Friends, as we close today, I honesty cannot think of a more Joyful promise as the promise of eternal Life.
Thank you and God bless you.
Amen,
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