"Drawn by the Father to the Son"
John 6:41-51
8/27/06
Well, it's already time for kids to go back to school
again. No more sitting around the house doing nothing but
watching T.V. and playing on the computer. No more hanging out
all day at the beaches or wandering the malls or just riding around the
neighborhood on bikes and skateboards. Time to get busy with
school work again. Time for reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Time for learning and studying. And for what
reason? Why do we need all this education? Because without
it we'd be a bunch of morons. Without instruction of some kind,
we would not be able to function in our society: we could not
find jobs, we couldn't even read or balance a check-book, we'd end up
homeless or living off of someone else.
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
Œround, 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 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. 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 also because they had
refused to study. Even on those occasions in their history when
God Himself was their teacher, they still didn't learn their
lesson. Such was the case when God taught them about Jesus 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 earthly, temporal life, but also about their eternal
salvation. If He gave them food to sustain their temporal lives
and to keep them from dying physically, how much more would He give
them food that gave them eternal life, so that they would not die
spiritually and could look forward to the resurrection from the
dead? And this they would have known about God had they studied
both the promise He made to Adam and Eve about the coming Seed, who
would crush the devil's head, and also the promise He made 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 in the promised Seed. And so, like 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, and like the
Passover lamb which the people roasted over fire and ate and whose
blood protected them from the wrath of God, the daily manna also
pointed to Jesus, the Bread of Life, who gives eternal life to all who
eat of Him and whose blood sprinkled upon us at our Baptism protects us
from the wrath of God to come.
All throughout the O.T. God was drawing people to Himself
by drawing them to His Son, Jesus Christ, through His Word and His many
acts of salvation on behalf of His people. 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 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 certainty quote many Bible
passages by heart. And yet, in fact 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
from us any ability to claim that it was our doing or effort that got
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. Secondly, how does God draw
us? By way of His Word. Through the written Word, the
Bible, the Father draws us to the Word enfleshed, Jesus. 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 become judges of
it. We are no longer letting God draw us with His Word, but we
are fighting against it and resisting 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 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 tame at all. 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.
Finally, why does the Father draw you to Jesus? It
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.