John 6:35-51
August 11, 2024
For students of all ages, August is back to school month. Sales for school supplies, clothing, electronics, sports equipment, and furniture are plastered on our televisions, newspapers, and on social media. I love how the ads often show children smiling and happy as they walk through the school hallways with their new clothes and supplies. While I believe most students are happy to have new things and are excited to see their friends again at school, those smiles are often preceded by a sense of grumbling as the students complain to their parents that the summer went too fast, they were having so much fun, why do they have to go back to school. But students are not the only ones who grumble. I mentioned last week how we all grumble about the weather, road construction, rising prices, and many other things.
A few weeks ago we heard the story of Jesus’ incredible miracle of feeding more than 5000 people with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. And the people were impressed, so much so that the next morning when the people noticed that Jesus was gone, they didn’t just give up and go home, they went looking for Him by getting into boats and sailing back across the Sea of Galilee. When the people finally found Jesus, I’m sure many of them were expecting Jesus to compliment them on their passion and determination to follow Him. However, Jesus reveals to them in the verses leading up to our Gospel lesson the real reason they came looking for Him saying, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill” (John 6:26). In other words, Jesus knew they were looking for Him just to use Him, to see what else they could get from Him for free. And sadly, there are times when we do the same thing. In general, we want Jesus to make our lives easier and so we spend a lot of time seeking more of the things of this world from Jesus.
But notice that Jesus does not criticize the crowd for using Him. He criticizes them, because they weren’t using Him to get they really needed – that being spiritual nourishment instead of physical nourishment. In verse 27 Jesus says, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” Jesus is telling them that He wants them to use Him to obtain the forgiveness of sins, which leads to eternal life, not the things of this world that will never last. In the opening verse of our text He explains this even further by saying, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Jesus then went on to say in our Gospel lesson that He had come down from heaven, but the people did not believe Him. In fact, they were offended by what He said and they began to grumble. Pretty amazing considering that even after Jesus miraculously fed them and healed those who were sick, thus revealing how much He loves and cares for them, they still grumble.
And like any other sin, when the sin of grumbling gets out of hand, the problem just gets worse. This unchecked sin leads to them wanting to get rid of Jesus, as they begin to formulate schemes to kill Him. The grumbling intensifies when they had Jesus brought before Pontius Pilate, and before you know it, a huge mob of people start screaming at the top of their lungs, “Crucify Him!”
It’s easy to see how their sin progressed to the point of outright rejection of God. But grumbling against Jesus did not stop back in the 1st century. No, we still have people today who grumble against our Lord and His Church. There are people who have been raised in the church and believe in Jesus as their Savior, but who will say that Christians are “closed-minded” and “judgmental,” and they will insist that the Church’s views are outdated and should be removed from public areas. In fact, many times it is God’s dearly loved children, like you and me, who grumble against Him the most.
We saw it last week in our Old Testament reading from Exodus how God freed His chosen people from 400 years of slavery, parted the Red Sea so they could cross over safely to the other side, and then closed the waters on Pharaoh and his armies as they followed so they drowned. But a few weeks later the people complained that they didn’t have enough food and that God must have brought them out to the wilderness to die. Even when God provided them with food, water, and shelter, they still grumbled against God.
We see this grumbling continue in our Gospel lesson, as the people wanted more miracles from Jesus; and it happens with us today. We are just as guilty. For example, have you ever grumbled when you were dissatisfied with God? When He didn’t answer your prayers the way you wanted? Have you ever said, “Lord, why am I going through this now? I don’t deserve this!” Maybe you did not say it out loud, but God heard those grumblings in your heart.
When we see blessings go to others instead of us, we grumble. When we see other people who don’t go to church, living better than us, and we just don’t think it’s fair, we grumble. When those who we think deserve God’s punishment, but end up being forgiven and rewarded instead, we grumble. In other words, we even grumble at God’s grace to other sinners. I would bet that we all grumble more often than we like to admit, and according to God’s Word our sinful grumbling deserves punishment, that is, eternal separation from God.
But there is something about us, as compared to those people who grumbled in our text. Something that makes us different from all the grumbling atheists of today, and that is faith. You and I believe in Jesus. We have been brought to faith in Jesus, who never grumbled. Just think about that for a moment. When a loving and innocent Jesus was being beaten by the Roman soldiers, He didn’t grumble. When He was climbing that hill to Calvary, while carrying a cross, with thorns on His head, He never said, “God, I don’t deserve this.” Even as He hung there in tremendous pain on the cross, with people spitting on Him and hurling insults at Him, instead of grumbling, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”
For all the times we grumble, Jesus did not. For all the times we complain about God and criticize one another, Jesus kept silent. He who took our sin upon Himself and died on the cross for us simply says, “Forgive them.” And that’s what He does to us and others, He forgives.
A man who used to attend worship on a regular basis suddenly stopped coming to church. Apparently he did not like the way things were going at the church. The pastor tried to contact him several times, but the man never responded. Finally, on a cold winter evening the pastor went to the man’s home, unannounced. When the pastor ran the bell, the man opened the door and the pastor said, “I have a message I would like to share with you, may I come in.” The man knew why the pastor had come, so he welcomed him in and they sat down in front of a nice fire in the man’s fireplace. After making some small talk, the pastor took the fire tongs and carefully picked up a piece of brightly burning wood and set it aside, away from the fire all alone.
The pastor and the man watched as the flame on the wood burned out completely. The pastor then picked up the piece of wood and put it back into the fire, and immediately it began to glow once again with the rest of the wood. The pastor then got up to leave and asked the man, “Do you get it?” And the man said, “Yes, pastor, thank you for your visit and for your fiery sermon. I’ll be back in church on Sunday.”
God calls us to faith in Him through baptism and His Word. And this saving faith is nourished and strengthened by gathering together with others for worship and Bible study, and it is fed with the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, who we receive here in at this communion rail in bread and wine. Jesus said in verse 47, “Whoever believes in me has eternal life.” That reality should cause us to grumble less and give thanks more, knowing that our God is gracious enough to forgive and save even ungrateful grumblers like you and me.
