Well, it’s hard to believe, but it will soon be time for kids to go back to school again. We all realize how important education is and how essential it is to study and to learn in order to make a living for ourselves and our families in this world. And so we don’t give our children the choice whether to go to school or not. We don’t ask our children whether they want to get an education or not. While children would prefer that summer vacation last all year ‘round, school starts up in the Fall, and they will be going back. This is not only because it’s the law, but it’s also for their own good.
And yet, while we are so concerned that children get an education at school, it seems that we are less concerned that they get an education in the Word of God. Why do we give our children the choice whether to come to church or not? While we are good at making sure they study their English, math, and history, we fail at making sure they study God’s Word. We fail at this, because we ourselves do not study God’s Word as we ought to. If we don’t study God’s Word, we won’t teach our children to study God’s Word either. (survey taken at VBS re: Bible poss. vs. reading it) And so, while we are educating our children in the things of the world, we are producing children who are ignorant of the Word of God.
The Jews in this text are an example of children who had grown up ignorant of the Word of God. This ignorance was due in part because they had had bad teachers, but it was also because they had refused to study. Even when God Himself was their teacher, they still didn’t learn their lessons. Such was the case when God taught them about His Son by giving them manna from heaven. If they had studied this lesson well, they would have learned that God was not just concerned about their physical needs, but also about their spiritual needs. They would have learned that He was not only concerned about providing them with food to sustain their temporal lives, but that He was also concerned about providing them with food that granted them eternal life. And this was no new teaching. They would have known this about God had they studied His promise to Adam and Eve regarding the coming Messiah as well as His promise to Abraham that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The manna from heaven wasn’t the only bread God was going to give His people; that bread pointed beyond itself to the true Bread from heaven that God would give them - Jesus Christ, of whom if a person eats he has eternal life.
But the manna was only one of many lessons by which God was drawing His people to Jesus. All throughout the O.T. God was drawing people to His Son: through His Word, His many acts of salvation, and even through the daily sacrifices of bulls and sheep that pointed to the once for all sacrifice of the Lamb of God for the sin of the world. The Apostle Peter writes that the spirit of Christ was at work in the prophets of the O.T. pointing them and the people to the sufferings and glory of Christ to come. And Jesus says that the Scriptures all point to Him. Yet most of the Jews in Jesus’ day rejected Him. They hadn’t learned their lessons. They thought they knew God; the leaders of the people could certainly quote many Bible passages by heart. But in spite of this they were ignorant of God. Jesus told them that they had never heard the Father’s voice or seen His form. He said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is these that bear witness of me.” Even though the Father had borne witness of His Son in the Scriptures, which the Jews professed to know, Jesus says they didn’t have the Father’s Word abiding in them, because they rejected the One to whom it all pointed. It’s as if you had read a book, given a report on it, but forgotten the main character and central plot. You know how kids often only read enough of a book to pass a test? It seems that the Jews only knew part of the book. They knew the Law and the commandments, but they didn’t know the Gospel and the promises. They knew the stories about the manna and the water from the rock which God provided for His people in the wilderness, but nothing about the Bread of Life or the living water which flows from the Rock of our salvation.
Now, Jesus says here that no one can come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws him. First of all, this takes away any ability on our part to claim that it’s by our doing or effort that gets us to God. The Apostle John begins his Gospel account by saying, “As many as received Him [that is, Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Salvation from beginning to end is all God’s work and none of ours. The reason why any of us are able to come to the Father is because He has drawn us. But secondly, the way God draws us to Christ is by His Word. Again, just as Jesus says, the Scriptures speak of Him. The more we know the written Word, the more we’ll know the incarnate Word; the more we know the Scriptures, the more we’ll know Jesus - and that’s the whole book, not just parts of it, Law as well as Gospel. God gave us the whole Bible for a reason, not so that we would exclude any of it. It’s everything God wants us to know for our salvation. The whole thing points us to our Savior, Jesus. And if the Jews had learned not only the commandments but also the promises of God they would have received Jesus as the One of whom the Word of God speaks.
But it’s because the Jews didn’t know the Word of God as they should have, that they were offended when Jesus started talking about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Bread which the Father gives from heaven, the Bread which gives eternal life to those who eat of it. Even many of the disciples who followed Him were offended by Jesus’ words when He began talking about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. “This is a hard saying,” they said. “Who can listen to it?” Even many Christians today have a hard time with this saying. They can accept that Jesus is talking about eating of Him by faith, but not the bodily eating and drinking which happens at the Lord’s Table. But this is what happens when we don’t know the Scriptures or when we put our reason and experience over them. We say things like, “Jesus couldn’t possibly mean what He’s saying here. At least it can’t be taken literally.” At that point we cease to be students of the Scripture and we become judges of it instead. We no longer let God draw us with His Word, but we fight against it and resist Him.
But when we fight against God’s Word and resist Him, that’s when we will miss the Jesus that God wants to give us. Instead, we’ll construct jesuses that come not from the Word of God but from our own imaginations. These are jesuses with which we are comfortable, because they never act unreasonably, they never confront us with our sin, and they can be controlled. The Jesus of the Scriptures, however, isn’t controllable. This Lamb of God often pounces upon you like a lion and kills you with His words of Law. He heaps cross after cross upon you and appears to expect you to bear them alone, while He seems to make Himself scarce and distant. But then He points you to His bloody death on the cross, where He suffered with you and for you, bearing your sin and shame, so that you might be clothed with Him and His righteousness through Baptism. And then with His very body and blood along with His Word He feeds you, so that you might have eternal life, even in the midst of your trials and testings, suffering and dying in this life. He absolves you of your sins and comforts you with His words that He will never leave you or forsake you, that He is with you always, that He causes all things to work together for your good, and that He will raise you from the dead on the last day. The more you study the Scriptures, the more you’ll know these things, the more you’ll know Jesus and will not be offended when He says or does something to you that is unacceptable to you.
You may not always understand why God does what He does, but the reason He draws you to Jesus is not in order to judge and condemn you, but to show you mercy and to give you life. In the beginning, after Adam and Eve had sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit, they were ashamed and tried to hide themselves from God for fear of Him and what He might do to them. But God came to them and called them to Himself not in order to condemn them. Yes, there would be some temporal consequences, but God would send His Son to take care of the eternal consequences. While Adam and Eve thought God was going to pour out His wrath on them, instead He comforted them with the promise of a Savior, the true Tree of Life, of whom they could eat freely without fear. Through the eating of the one kind of food there resulted death. But through the eating of the food from heaven which the Father gives to the world there results life.
This food is the flesh of Jesus Christ, which He says He gives for the life of the world. To Him, His cross, His words, and His body and blood the Father draws you not to pour out His wrath on you, but to have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and give you eternal life. Like the father of the prodigal son, your heavenly Father runs to you to embrace you in His arms as His child and to take you into the feast He’s prepared for you. That feast He gives you today as He draws you to the table of Christ to feed you on this Bread of Life.
So, it’s time to go back to school. In fact, when it comes to the Word of God, school is never out. Always be a student of the Bible. Learn its lessons well. It’s not a good thing to be ignorant of the Scriptures. Hear and read them for your benefit and the benefit of your children and grandchildren, because the words of the Bible are the words of your loving heavenly Father who is drawing you through them to Jesus, your Savior, the Sacrifice for your sins. Come and feed on Him again today with your ears, with your heart, and with your mouth, and know that whoever so feeds on Him, the Bread of Life, has eternal life just as He promises. Amen.