Drawn to Christ
What is the hungriest you have ever been? Maybe you’ve had to miss a meal or two because of a busy schedule. I once had to go four days without eating because of a medical issue. During that time, I couldn’t stop thinking about food. In our current age, we are blessed with an abundance of food. We can go to the grocery store and buy pretty much anything we want to eat. We can even pick up our phones and have food delivered right to our doors. Imagine not having that blessing. Imagine living in a world where you don’t know where your next meal will come from. Imagine that a change in the weather can mean that your family is going to starve. Imagine how important the idea of bread becomes to those who are starving.
The people who saw and heard about Jesus performing the miraculous miracle of multiplying bread wanted him to continue providing bread for them. They understood physical hunger. They saw Jesus as a never-ending food supply, but he wanted to give them something better. He wanted to give them himself; the Bread of Life which would give them eternal life. We too understand physical hunger, but we don’t always understand spiritual hunger. By nature, we want to satisfy our spiritual needs on our own by earning our way into God’s favor. As Paul tells us in our reading from 1 Corinthians the truths of the Spirit are foolishness to human reason. It is only by faith when we have been drawn to Christ by the Father that we can understand the truths of salvation.
The message of salvation simply does not make sense to our limited human reason; instead, it offends our reason. When the crowd heard Jesus say that he is the Bread that comes down from heaven they began to grumble against him. Their reason could not accept what he was saying. First, they could not accept that this man they knew from Nazareth was claiming to be from heaven. They asked, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? So how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” And secondly, they could not understand how this same man was claiming to be God. When Moses was at the burning bush, he asked God what name he should use to refer to the God who sent him to the Israelites. God responded that his name was I AM. When the people in the crowd heard Jesus say, “I am the Bread of Life that came down from heaven,” they knew that he was claiming to be God. They simply could not accept that this man standing in front of them was God.
The world struggles with this truth as well. Think of how foolish the incarnation sounds to worldly wisdom. Jesus Christ true God from eternity set aside the full use of his divine power and glory for a time to be born as a helpless infant. God then lived a life of poverty and humility on this earth and then willingly suffered and died on the cross to pay for the sins of the world. All this he did to purchase and redeem those who are by nature his enemies. Think of how foolish it is to picture God hanging in humiliation and dying on a cross. But this is the central truth of the Gospel. This is the profound spiritual truth that Luther restored to the church. On the slide, this morning is a picture of part of the altarpiece in the town church of Wittenberg. Luther from his pulpit is pointing to Christ dying on the cross because this is the center of Christian faith.
This message of the Gospel sounds like complete foolishness to the world. This is not how we would expect an all-powerful God to act. The world would expect the Son of God to come to this world with majesty and glory, not be born in the lowliness of a manager. The world would expect the Son of God to smite his enemies and rule this world with power and authority, not allow himself to be beaten, humiliated, and tortured. And the world would certainly not expect the Son of God to die. Just think how rare it is for someone to willingly die to save someone they love. Christ died to save those who are by nature his enemies. But this is exactly what Christ did for us. He did not come to this world to rule but to do the will of the Father. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up on the Last Day. For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the Last Day.”
Our God is just and holy. He cannot leave sin unpunished. But our God is also merciful and gracious. 2 Peter 2:9 reminds us, “The Lord is not slow to do what he promised, as some consider slowness. Instead, he is patient for your sakes, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance.” God’s will was to send his one and only Son to this world to suffer and die for the sins of all people. On the cross, Jesus made full
and complete payment for all of our sins. But this too is a truth of Scripture that we struggle with. Our foolish human reason insists that we must do something to earn the forgiveness of God. We don’t like hearing the truth that by nature we are born dead in our trespasses and sins and can do nothing to save ourselves. This is why Luther wrote in his explanation of the Third Article, “I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”
Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” It is God working through the gospel and the Holy Spirit who creates faith in our hearts. We do nothing to earn this salvation. We need Jesus to be our substitute. In John 6 Jesus tells us that he has seen the Father. The OT reminds us again and again that sinful humans cannot stand before the presence of God and to see the face of God is death. Because of our sins, we cannot stand in the presence of God. Christ alone is perfect and can see the face of God. Christ offered his perfect life as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world. By his death, we have been washed and cleansed in his holy blood. His perfection and righteousness cover our sins. Because of this, we can now stand in the presence of God. We are no longer objects of God’s wrath but are saints clothed in the perfection of Christ.
Jesus wants us to have this gift of salvation. He invites us again and again to eat the Bread of Life which gives life and salvation. He wants to draw us to himself through the proclamation of the gospel. We cannot earn heaven on our own. It is only by eating the Bread of Life that is Christ that we have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Jesus emphasizes this point 5 different times in this section of John. He tells us that eternal life is found in him alone. By his death Christ paid for our sins and by his resurrection from the dead he destroyed the power of death and hell. All those who the Father has drawn to Christ have the amazing gift of eternal life.
The wisdom of the world rejects the message of the Gospel as pure foolishness. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. In fact, it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nothing. Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Jewish law? Where is the probing thinker of the present age? Has God not shown that the wisdom of this world is foolish? Indeed, since the world through its wisdom did not know God, God in his wisdom decided to save those who believe, through the foolishness of the preached message. Yes, Jews ask for signs, Greeks desire wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified—which is offensive to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We preach Christ crucified, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” We boldly proclaim the message of Christ crucified. Our Savior looks foolish to the world as he hangs in shame on the cross, yet we know that it was on the cross that he won our salvation. This is the message that draws people to Christ. This is the message that offers forgiveness of sins, and this is the message that gives eternal life to all who eat the Bread of Life. Amen.