Trusting and Reconciling – John 6

A text – John 6:56-69

6:56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. 6:57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 6:59 He said these things while he was teaching in a synagogue at Capernaum. 6:60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 6:61 But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 6:62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 6:63 It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 6:64 But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who were the ones who did not believe and who was the one who would betray him. 6:65 And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” 6:66 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 6:67 So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 6:68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 6:69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

A reflection:

We have a line from Paul’s 2^nd letter to the Corinthians: “God is reconciling the world to himself.” We can kind of see that happening in the first verses of our gospel lesson for this week. God the Father sends Jesus, and Jesus lives because of God the Father. Whoever takes part in Jesus’s life and ministry will live because of Jesus. In this way humans who trust in the Lord become part of the very life and mission of God. In this way God is reconciling the world, which always wants to break away in many directions, reconciling the world back to God’s embrace. But more than an embrace: to God’s very self.

Jesus is using bread, and especially eating, gnawing on bread, in this passage to underscore how complete and physical Jesus wants our reliance on God to be. We eat the bread, it affects our teeth and our stomachs as we eat, and it becomes part of our actual body. Just like eating, following Jesus affects our very cells in the same way. But Jesus is also saying it affects God’s cells too – we are taken up into the life of the Triune God when we receive the gift of believing and trusting in God, through knowing Jesus.

Jesus says if we want to be taken up into the very life of God and live eternally the way God does, we  trust in him and take him into ourselves, and just like that, we are a part of God forever. Believing, trusting, eating – they have big consequences. Being in relationship with God blesses just everything.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us the gift of eternal life because we trust in you. Thank you for loving us so much that your son has reconciled us forever. Nothing could be more eternally important. Help us remember to pass this good news to those who don’t know it.  Amen.