Feast on Christ

John 6:51-58

Transcript

Let's pray.
Father, may your will be done, Jesus. May your word be proclaimed and spirit, may your work be accomplished. In us we pray. Amen. The most important moments in my life have included food.
Papa often sat at the dinner table in a wicker woven chair that made that stretching sound whenever he moved, sat down or adjusted his posture with his shirt off. He sat with elbows propped on the ledge of the table, a sleeve of fig newtons laid within reach of one hand and a tall, sweaty glass of cold milk at the reach of the other, while his black Bible with red trimmed pages laid open on his place mat. You would find him there every morning before breakfast and every evening after supper. As I would pass him by, he would invite me to join him by asking if he could share his Sunday school lesson with me. Being a kid whose belly was his God, I always obliged because for me it involved fig newtons and cold milk.
However, it was over these sleeves of Newton's and milk that my papal made known to me the lover of my soul. It is how I came to know Christ and all that he has done for me. It was at papal's dinner table where I met Christ and it was over fig newtons and milk that I learned of the one that I would now call my goddess. Another important moment in my life that involved food was my wedding. We had just exchanged our vows upon a mountaintop in Granby, Colorado.
We descended the mountain in a ski lift in order to capture amazing footage for our wedding video. Our names were announced as we proceeded to join our guests for our wedding celebration. A feast was prepared, toasts were made and the time for cutting the cake had arrived. As we walked hand in hand towards the table that held this culinary masterpiece of cake perfection, I reflected upon the conversations that led up to this moment that Melissa and I had had. She had told me that she wanted this moment to be very sweet and loving in any temptation or mischievous plots.
To ruin the moment by shoving cake or even gently applying the cake anywhere but in her mouth would not be appreciated and could lead to an annulment. I understood the assignment and I wrangled in every ounce of boyish immaturity that wanted to smear cake on my wife's face. Together as one, we cut the cake. Together. As one we locked our arms, and together as one we moved our cake filled hands towards each other.
What was supposed to be a tradition that symbolizes bond and unity and joyous quickly turned into betrayal. As my wife, who upon threat of divorce had told me that this moment needed to be sweet and lovely, smeared icing on my nose like sunscreen at the beach. But despite all that, it was at this wedding table, over shared cake, that we began our wonderful life journey together. Food is usually presented at our most important moments in life. There is something about food that turns normal occasions into extraordinary memories.
There is something about food that makes it more than just nourishment for our bodies. We are all familiar with the saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I tend to agree. I mean, just yesterday while we were making breakfast at the men's prayer breakfast, all the men were talking about the food. While we were cooking the food, we talked about how we love the smell of bacon.
We talked about how we love to cook the eggs in that bacon grease, which took us down a conversation path of things that we love to eat cooked in bacon grease. Cooking the food wasn't enough. We enjoyed the smells, the process, the taste, the moment it centers around the lethargic feeling of being full and contempt with food. Men, among all the creatures of creation, do seem to have a deep connection with food that moves them in passionate ways. I do not think that man's connection with food is something randomly that has happened or something we just fell into.
I think God established that connection as a way for us to understand something deeper about our relationship with him. Throughout the scriptures, God uses food in his relationships with his people in more ways than just nourishment. So follow me as I take you on a brief tour of the scriptures and the role that food plays between God and his relationship with his people. In Genesis chapter three, after sin entered into the world through Adam, Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves. But God sacrificed an animal and made garments from its skin.
This may not seem to tell us much about the importance of food, but it does begin to teach us that God has a standard. The coverings of their shame with leaves didn't cut it. God made them appropriate coverings of the skin of an animal. And here is the first place we find the use of a sacrificed animal to cover our shame before a holy God. And this standard that God established would play a vital role in the next chapter with Cain and Abel.
Cain offered God the firstfruits of the ground, but Abel offered the firstlings of his flock. We are told that God had regarded Abel's offering and not Cains. This teaches us something about the offering that God prefers. Animal offerings are acceptable, while fruit offerings were not. Even early on in Genesis, we understand the type of offering that would have to be presented to God on behalf of humanity.
An offering that has a body and one that could bleed is preferred over leaves and vegetation. It was around a table that Cain and Abel learned about the proper meals God preferred you. Fast forward to Abraham. When God makes a covenant relationship with him, he binds himself to Abraham and his seed by cooking a feast with a cow, goat, ram, dove and pigeon. And he smoked all the meat with an oven, and he seared it with a flaming torch.
It was around a table in a field that the relationship and promises that God made with Abraham were forged. Later, God speaks to moses and Aaron and tells them that he is about to deliver Israel out of the bonds of slavery in Egypt. And Israel needs to prepare themselves by gathering around a special meal. The spread of this meal is to be fire roasted lamb, rubbed with bitter herbs and served with the side of unleavened bread. The lamb is to be of the finest quality.
In addition, they are to take the lamb's blood and put it on the doorpost as a sign that the bill for this deliverance that is about to take place has been paid. During dinner, God's people may eat to their heart's content, but if anything is left, they are not allowed to take home any doggy bags. They are to send the leftovers up to God by fire. And God likes his lamb well done. It was around the Passover table that Israel anticipated their deliverance from death and slavery.
The apostle Paul recounts the last supper between Jesus and his disciples. There was a spread of fire roasted lamb, rubbed in bitter herbs with bread on the side and served with wine. During the dinner, Jesus gave a toast. He took the bread, he broke it, passed it to everyone at the table, and said, this bread we eat together symbolizes our relationship to each other. That I am in you and you are in me.
Every time you eat this bread, remember me. Then he raised his cup and said, this wine symbolizes the bill you incurred in your sin, which has been paid by my blood. Every time you drank this wine, remember me. It was around a table that Jesus disciples learned how to maintain a connection to their savior and how to remember all that he has done for them. It is by Emile that Jesus wants his followers to feel connected to him and remember the moment that Jesus displayed his greatest act of love for them.
For whatever reason, God has used tables and food throughout history to initiate a relationship with his people and to commemorate the actions that he has taken to redeem them. The survey of food and meals between God and his people prepares us to understand what it is that Jesus says to the Jews in our gospel lesson today. So, having maybe a better understanding of the importance of food and meals, the concept that God has and how he uses them in relationship to his people, let's hear again what Christ says in John chapter six. To his people, Jesus says, I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
And the bread also, which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I ingest him. As the living father sent me, I live because of the father, so he who eats me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever. In these seven verses, we learn that unless you eat this new meal of Jesus body and blood, no one has true life in themselves.
This new food that Jesus gives will bring resurrection and eternal life to them. Jesus true food and true drink that sustains our covenantal relationship with him. His body given for us and his blood shed for us is how we can know that we abide in a relationship with Jesus. Those who feast on Christ will have their life sustained by Christ and that life will continue for all eternity. This bread that Jesus offers us now is more filling than the old manna bread that was so special to the people of Israel in that it fills us so we never hunger again.
We must understand that just like when we prepare our own food to eat around our tables for fellowship and sustenance, so too Jesus prepares spiritual food and drink that is served around his table. To those who believe in him, he is the spiritual meal that keeps our relationship with him intimate and our new lives in him growing. He wants us to feast on him, and by feasting on him, he keeps us in his life. So the Bible seems to affirm that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Jesus therefore, tells us that we should feast on him so that he can come to dwell in our hearts and give us life.
The more we feast on Christ, the more he grows in our hearts. You have heard it said that you are what you eat. Then feast on Christ so that you might become more like Christ. For all who feast on Christ will taste and see that he is good. Those who develop a taste on their palate for Christ will find that their hunger and their thirst will be filled and satisfied.
What is on your menu in your life? What food is feeding your life? Will you feast on Christ so your heart can be filled with more of him? Will you feast on Christ so that your life will be joined to his? If you are what you eat, will you feast upon Christ so that you can become like him?
Only true food and true drink can give you true life. Christ invites you to come and eat and find life in him. Let's pray.
Christ, you present to us some very astonishing words in your gospel this morning. And you speak to us about food and that you are our food and you are our drink. And those who do not believe in you have a hard time understanding this. But those who have your spirit do understand the significance of what this means. And yet it's still a mystery.
We do not fully grasp or understand all of what you're meaning here, and so we don't spend much time assuming things, but we just linger on your words and we take them in. We feast upon them so that they might become effectual in our hearts. Jesus, I pray for your people here who are gathered to worship you this morning, to hear and listen to your word spoken to them, that their lives would be a meal that is feasting upon you for their livelihood and to maintain connection with you. I pray for those who have been finding food elsewhere would only come and find true food and true drink in you and that you can sustain their life. May we come and feast upon you, Christ, and taste and see that you are good.
And it's in your name we pray. Amen.