But Jesus did not come to be a bystander to His own creation. No, He came to be a redeemer of His people and to rule over all as the Lord of creation.
“Hold the door!” he says, and there is a tense moment as four people board an already crowded elevator. Some people look straight ahead. Others huddle into the corner or press against the wall. While no one begrudges the people a ride, everyone is glad when they reach the ground floor and can pile out of the elevator.
Human closeness is not always appreciated. We have grown up wanting to have our personal space. The social distancing of COVID and the social closeness we feel through texting our friends has led us to value that personal space even more. Whether we are dealing with a crowd in an elevator or a single person who happens to be a close talker, human closeness can be difficult. There is a tension between our desire for a comfortable distance and the closeness of other people.
In our Gospel reading, this tension becomes a fault line in the ministry of Jesus. In His “Bread of Life” discourse, as in His mission and ministry, Jesus takes human closeness to a completely new level and shocks us with the intimacy of God’s love.
The words of Jesus in this text are shocking. He has fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. The people have been following Him, hoping He would provide more food for them. There has been talk that Jesus is like Moses, feeding God’s people in the wilderness. But now, Jesus shatters these expectations and explodes these biblical allusions. He speaks about people needing to eat His flesh and drink His blood. For Jews, eating flesh with the blood in it was forbidden (see Leviticus 7:26-27). Eating human flesh with blood in it, and worse yet, chewing the human flesh of the one talking to you with His blood in it that is coursing through His veins right now is horrifying, scandalizing.
Jesus has taken closeness to a completely different level, and we see the effects. The people are hostile to Jesus and begin to argue with one another (6:52). The thousands following Him start to walk away. His own disciples, who are still following Him, grumble about the difficulty of this language and the obscurity of its meaning. Jesus has gotten close, real close, to His people and His people do not like it.
Why did Jesus say this? Why did He offend people? Could he not just let them have their personal space?
No, Jesus could not. God is not going to live on the outside of our safe spaces. He is not going to provide us with all we want for this life (6:26) but then fail to give us what we truly need for eternal life (6:27).
God is not going to live on the outside of our safe spaces. He is not going to provide us with all we want for this life but then fail to give us what we truly need for eternal life.
Jesus has come to save those who the Father has given Him (and the Father has loved the entire the world; reference 3:16) and, in order to save God’s people, Jesus needs to get close to them... really close. He is going to take their sins as His own. He is going bear God the Father’s punishment as His own. He is going to be the dead king on a cross who is raised up in ridicule and scorn, and yet ends up saving the world.
Jesus alludes to this at the end of the reading. He recognizes He will be betrayed (6:64). He tells His disciples He will ascend to where He was before with the Father (6:62). This ascension, as we know, happened through the cross. Jesus came so close to us that he could breathe our poisoned air, bear our festering sins, suffer God’s blistering punishment, die our death, and then rise, so He might bring eternal life to us.
The One who is close to us now is the one who knows us most fully and loves us most deeply.
This closeness of God to His people is the message we share with the world. As in the Gospel reading, this is still a hard teaching for people to hear. In our world, people want the Church to help them when needed, but otherwise stay out of their lives. They listen to the commandments of God, and they see restrictions on their freedoms. They resist the idea that God has made the world, because this would imply He has a claim on it. And they fight against the idea that God would seek to change the world. For them, God is a higher power which some may or may not believe in and God should be limited to the private realm of a person’s life.
But Jesus did not come to be a bystander to His own creation. No, He came to be a redeemer of His people and to rule over all as the Lord of creation. His people do live differently than the world around them, but they do it because the Spirit of Jesus lives in them. Jesus came close to us in dying and rising for our sin, but He remains close to us through His Spirit who guides our actions in the world and reminds us we are living in Christ’s Kingdom.
As we walk with others in the world, our landscape is indeed fractured. We will find ourselves encountering tensions that may erupt into quaking conversations. Why? Because God desires to be close to His people, close enough to know and to bear their sin, so they might be close enough to Him to experience His life-changing love.
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on John 6:51-69.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching John 6:51-69.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach John 6:51-69.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
