THE ‘I AM’ SAYINGS OF JESUS - 1. THE BREAD OF LIFE

After last week’s brief introduction, we begin this morning our look at the first of the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus in St. John’s gospel. ‘I am’, says Jesus, ‘the bread of life.’ The passage or ‘discourse’ containing this first saying stretches from verse 22 of chapter 6 to verse 58. 

The questions we need to ask ourselves are these. What does Jesus actually say here about himself? What did he mean by it? And what is its significance for you and for me in terms of our understanding of Jesus and our discipleship of him?

Now of course anyone is free to make of what is said here whatever they like. Indeed that is not just a modern phenomenon in our increasingly self-oriented society where people will make of something whatever pleases or suits them, it has been true, sadly, even of very influential people within the Church herself and throughout her history. This very passage has been interpreted by certain wings of the Church to justify certain developments in faith and doctrine, creating new mythologies about the sacraments and about the eucharist or Lord’s Supper in particular. 

The fact that these developments have caused over the centuries not only great divisions but horrendous loss of life ought at the very least to warn us about ‘reinterpreting’ or ‘developing’ understandings and practices of the Christian faith which have little or no justification from what Jesus actually said or did. 

As I hope you will be able to see, it was precisely because Jesus saw that this was going on in his own day – that people were misunderstanding what it was God wanted from them in terms of their religion – that he gave this piece of teaching that we are looking at this morning.

Sadly, already well before the end of the first century, when John was writing, people were reverting to the comfort blanket of ritual rather than developing right relationships in the practice of Christianity, at the same time creating out of the sacraments, such as baptism and the eucharist, something that simply was not there in the teaching of Jesus. ‘Do these rituals, say these words, and all will be well.’

The sacraments fairly soon began to be seen as ‘efficacious’, that is, possessing in themselves the means of God’s grace, rather than, as Jesus taught, quite simply ordinances or practices designed to lead people to a closer relationship with him, and through this to more faithful and effective discipleship. 

We can see Jesus getting increasingly frustrated with the crowd who keep asking him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ The crowd have it in mind that as long as they perform certain rituals or practices and keep certain rules, all will be well. What they cannot see is that the ‘works’ God wants them to do are those inspired by belief in Jesus and by a loving response to his agenda.

The mistake we all too often make is thinking that because we have come up with an idea for a good work it must be what God wants; when actually what God wants is for us to first work out with Jesus what it is he wants us to do.

The Church often fails in its calling to discipleship because Christians plan their agenda of good works without actually first consulting Jesus through prayer and bible study; often, I am sorry to say – but I have to say it – with results that do not bring glory to God or enable other people to appreciate something new of his truth and love.  

If I may just quote from a prayer in the 1662 Prayer Book that makes this very point; ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works...... and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ 

This is why the Christian engages in good works; not to glorify ourselves – perish the thought! Not even simply to help those in need; but to ‘glorify our Father which is in heaven’. That is to say, that people must be made aware in some way or other of the motivation for our good works. And such works are best and most effectively done when they are done in relationship with Jesus and out of evident, demonstrable, love for him.

I don’t want to say any more about ‘good works’ at this point except that, just as the sacraments are not of themselves means of grace or in any way sufficient to bring us to eternal life but simply ways of leading us to a closer relationship with Jesus, so ‘works’ or ‘good works’ are not in themselves capable of gaining us acceptance by God unless they are unashamed expressions of our faith and love for Jesus and designed to bring glory to God.

So, when Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life’ here, he is not talking about the future Lord’s Supper or eucharist. He is talking, using the highly appropriate metaphor of eating, about the fundamental necessity of our having a personal relationship with him through faith, a relationship which leads to eternal life.    

 And yet because people have read into it, for their own purposes – political, emotional, cultural, or whatever, far more than the words allow, the eucharist has become, for some, far more than was intended when Jesus introduced it; indeed a reversion to the very reliance from which Jesus was trying to wean his audience! The fact that you or I may like ‘doing church’ in a particular way that suits us does not mean that it is necessarily correct or what our Lord intended. Indeed we ought always to be questioning how we ‘do’ church and if how we do it is not only deepening our faith and making us more effective disciples but also helping others to come to an experience of God’s love and knowledge of his truth.

 By this I mean that the way we do church can sometimes – more often than we perhaps care to realise – get in the way of our being or becoming more effective disciples of Jesus and also of helping others to come to know him. That we happen to have done church in a particular way all our lives, or that we can point to certain long standing traditions or practices, or that we can name certain eminent churchmen on our side is not the point. 

This was so largely the obstacle that Jesus faced and was tackling here in this discourse. His audience had certain agendas, religious and political, that were effectively preventing them from understanding who Jesus was and what was their proper response to him.

If we come to Jesus or to Church with a particular agenda – however hallowed by tradition, however emotionally uplifting, however righteous it seems in our own eyes, it makes it more difficult for us to hear what Jesus actually tells us and expects of us. And the Church as a whole at times in different periods of its history has been astoundingly successful at creating an institution and practices that have not served well the task her Founder gave her. 

This is why understanding correctly passages like this is so important.

To make it lot easier I am going to tell you now the essential point that Jesus makes here. But this doesn’t mean you may then doze off for the remainder!

This passage has been argued over and interpreted in many different ways depending on the prejudices and agendas of different scholars. Essentially what we need to understand though is that Jesus is not here talking about the eucharist or about how the bread and the wine of communion become his flesh and blood. 

Yet nor, as some on other wings of the Church have claimed, may we deduce from this that the eucharist is unimportant. What he is saying here is that what you and I need, indeed must have, in order to discover real life in this world and everlasting life in the next is him, the real ‘bread of life’ v35, which, or who, is appropriated by faith v47. We must appropriate him into our innermost being. ‘Eating’ the flesh of the Son of man is a very striking metaphor to express this, and really not so bizarre. 

After all, we say that we ‘devour’ books, we ‘swallow’ stories, we ‘drink in lectures’, we ‘chew over’ a problem or matter.

Now when we remember that Jesus was trying to get the people to move away from trusting in rituals to forming relationships as the true and only way to know God; and given, as we discovered last week, that John’s Gospel is essentially an evangelistic tool to help the Jews of the diaspora come to belief in Jesus , what this metaphor does, in a very down to earth sort of way, is to link Jesus in their minds with the manna from heaven in the wilderness, verses 31 & 49, and to Moses v32, but in such a way that they are left in no doubt that Jesus is here claiming to be superior to both! 

And if the Jewish readers had observed or heard of, as almost certainly they would have, the commemorating of the last supper with its breaking and sharing of the bread, they would be able to see in this metaphor of bread and flesh not only that Jesus himself is now the central object for a person’s faith in God but that he fulfils the sacrificial necessity fundamental to our understanding of Christianity as well! 

He is the bread that fulfils in our earthly and heavenly lives: he is also the atoning sacrifice for our sins who makes eternal life possible for us – indeed for the whole world v51. So all this talk by Jesus about being ‘the bread of life’ is not John introducing or justifying the eucharist, the Lord’s Supper; rather, the eucharist, as it was and ought to be understood and practised, is about what John is describing here in chapter 6: that knowledge of Jesus, in the believer’s personal relationship with him, is what is supremely important and what the euchaist points to and encourages in the believer.

You see, already when John was writing, the danger was, then as now, that people believed the Lord’s Supper to be a rite which, by their mechanical repetition of receiving bread and wine, secured them salvation, eternal life; a sort of magic formula almost! The same can be said today about baptism – judging by some people’s commitment to their promises after the baby has been ‘done’ – as a kind of one-off insurance policy. 

John seems to share the frustrations of Jesus that people are hoping to get away with going through the motions of ritual rather than welcoming the risen Jesus into their lives and allowing him to change them. And of course the Gospel is not just about receiving eternal life it, is about gaining freedom from sin for his service, service that leads, as Jesus promises, to ‘the reality of life’.

Unfortunately, as the years went by, the sacraments came to be understood by many as conveying grace in themselves – eat the bread and God’s grace is conveyed to you; once again the rituals taking the place of the relationships. Of course human beings find the doing of ritual easier than the making of relationships – it’s less messy, less risky: yet this was the very thing Jesus was trying to drum out of them. 

Move away from reliance on your rituals; those days are passed, a new world, a new creation is here. 

But the Church has preferred its rituals and effectively reversed Jesus’ teaching. As someone once put it, using Jesus’ first sign or miracle at Cana to illustrate such ecclesiastical revisionism, ‘Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine; but the church has performed the greater miracle of turning it back again!’.

The comfort blanket of ritualised religion is no substitute for a living personal relationship with Jesus through prayer, bible study, and active discipleship. It is not that we are not free to chose from the many different ways in which we may meet with Jesus and worship him BUT that these must not become ends in themselves, nor must they delude us into thinking that being baptised, attending church, taking the bread and the wine, or singing hymns - whether ancient, modern or both, will in themselves gain us eternal life. 

It is only as these things lead us into a deeper personal relationship with Jesus himself that we are saved.  So in answer v29 to the age old question ‘what must we do?’ Jesus replies ‘believe in him whom he has sent’. And then v40  [READ] This essentially symbolic nature of ‘bread of life’ and related expressions in this discourse is disclosed by the mingling of metaphorical and non-metaphorical elements. 

Jesus is the bread of life, but it is the person who ‘comes’ v35 and v 37 to him who does not hunger, not the person who eats him. Similarly, it is the person who ‘believes’ v35 in him who does not thirst, not the person who drinks him.

There is so much more that we could say about and learn from this passage – and I am sure we will be able to do so through the bible studies and notes in due course - but I want to end by saying a few words about our last verse v51. 

Certainly v51 calls to mind the institution of the eucharist; but the focus here is not on the taking of or the efficacy of the bread and the wine: the focus is squarely on Jesus as the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. ‘the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.’ 

It is as you and I, indeed as anyone, place our faith in Jesus that we are reconciled to God, forgiven all our sins, and granted the gift of eternal life. What can we do but thank and praise and serve him in all that we do in this life: this is ‘glorifying our Father in Heaven’, this is discipleship.

THE ‘I AM’ SAYINGS OF JESUS - 2. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

I am sure that most of you here have seen William Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Light of the World’ representing the words of Revelation 3: 20. 

It’s a wonderfully romantic vision of Jesus in all his Pre Raphaelite splendour holding a very Victorian looking lantern and preparing to knock on an overgrown and long unopened door of a house in a little clearing. The closed door represents ‘the obstinately shut mind’ and there is no handle on the outside because, as Holman Hunt often had to explain, it is up to you and to me to open the door of our own lives to Jesus from the inside. The original resides in Keble College, Oxford, and a later version in St. Paul’s cathedral.

This morning we are considering the second of the ‘I am sayings’ of Jesus in John’s Gospel, a series of astounding claims on the part of Jesus which, when properly understood, answer any questions there may be about his true identity. Not only that, but the answers serve also to put the reader or listener firmly on the spot, forcing him or her, you and me, to make a decision about Jesus. 

The ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus leave us no room for sitting on the fence: indeed as Jesus himself says elsewhere, (Matthew 12: 30) ‘those who are not for me are against me.’ We cannot be disinterested; we cannot be indifferent to Jesus and his claims upon us. Jesus calls everyone to make up their minds about him and then to act upon their decision. The choice is ours.

Now if we have read the prologue to John’s Gospel (chapter 1), we have already learned that the ‘life’, Jesus, the Word of God, was ‘the light of men’/of mankind, of humanity – whichever you prefer! This light picture or metaphor is steeped in Old Testament allusions: for example - Psalm 27 ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation’. Psalm 119 ‘The word of God is a light to guide the path of those who cherish instruction’. 

Indeed our gospel passage this morning shows very clearly the intimate connexion there is between God’s light and God’s word. Isaiah 49 ‘The servant of the Lord was appointed as a light to the gentiles that he might bring God’s salvation to the ends of the earth’. The dawning of the promised light in the coming of Jesus is already a significant theme in John’s Gospel; but we are told too that this light is in mortal combat with darkness – the darkness of evil and of human pride.

John here, wanting to combat his Jewish readers’ attachment to their received traditions (Remember, he was writing his Gospel with them particularly in mind), portrays Jesus as the true light of the world, a claim that must challenge the claims today of atheists and secularists who believe that this light should be kept well out of politics and even indeed of morality. And although you and I, as Jesus’ disciples, called to be ‘light to the world’, his light, will find it increasingly difficult and dangerous to do so as atheism and secularism increase their atrophying stranglehold on the life of this country, we need to remember chapter ; that ‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’

 So the next time you are faced with a challenge or an opportunity to be the light of Christ in a situation at work or at leisure, remember that his light is unquenchable; you are already on the side that has won the war against darkness. The Devil is beaten but he won’t lie down just yet; and there are many who either knowingly or unknowingly still play by his rules and desperately need to see God’s light and to learn of his love for them. 

Again, as we learned in John’s letters, that confidence assuring truth that ‘He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world’. We have a lot going for us! Don’t be duped or deceived by the lotus eaters in the media and elsewhere who claim that God is no longer relevant to the life of this country, to your life: they are, though they don’t know it, a dying breed.

For Jesus to make a claim like this was indeed nothing short of blasphemous: but he doesn’t let the statement just hang there on its own; there is an immediate consequence to recognising that Jesus is the light. 

It requires that we follow him; and as a result we shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life, i.e. the light that produces life – or genuine living; not the poor but temptingly attractive substitutes offered by the world, by those opposed to God and his kingdom, to which we all too easily give in and allow to rule us.

This is really as far as the theme of ‘the light of the world’ is taken in this chapter and the interest now turns to the authority of Jesus in making such a claim. But one thing we really must learn from this passage – verses 28, especially 31, 51, 52, 55 is how intimate and important is the connection between God’s light and God’s word. 

You see, we cannot walk in the light of Christ unless we have first opened the door of our lives and invited him in to banish the darkness and the artificial lights flickering away there with all their deceit and inherent danger; and we cannot walk in the light of Christ unless we submit our lives – our priorities, goals, and principles to the light of his word, allowing it - proactively rather than just by wishful-thinking accident! - to ‘direct and rule’ our hearts and minds. 

Now I know some people think that bible study is an optional extra, something for the ‘keenies’, the bible-bashers, or the professionals; but to expect to walk in the light of Christ without spending time mining the riches of his word is like trying to sew without needles, bake without flour, or play golf without golf balls. 

We simply cannot do it. You and I are called to be salt and light in the world. But we cannot know how to be these things effectively unless we steep ourselves in God’s word.

Another thing one can perhaps glimpse from this passage is just how debilitatingly strong can be people’s attachment to tradition and custom. Even when presented with the truth and with compelling evidence for the truth, they still refuse to accept Jesus. Why? Because their minds have become so calcified, so cemented, by their prejudices and preferences, they will not recognise the truth even when he is standing in front of their noses. 

As I have said before, I simply do not buy the argument that ‘I would believe if Jesus were here now’ or ‘I would have believed had I been there with Jesus’. Whether a person accepts Jesus as Saviour and Lord depends upon their openness to the truth and their readiness to welcome it even at the cost of everything that has sustained them spiritually or socially up until ‘seeing the light’ – to use that little phrase in jest, as many do - not realising that the joke is actually on them!

But just look at these claims of Jesus: no wonder he offended the religious establishment! ‘I am the light of the world’ v12, ‘whoever keeps my word will never see death’ v51, ‘Before Abraham was (before he existed) I am.’v58.

In Ch 9 you can read about the outworking of Jesus’ claim to be the light depicted in a miracle by which a blind man is made to see, while others who think they see remain blind to the light. It is actually one of the funniest pieces of theatre in the whole bible – the newly seeing blind man innocently showing up the religious experts. 

Do read it; it will certainly raise a smile, I’m sure.

‘I am the light of the world’, says Jesus. Do you know this light from personal experience? Is it burning strong in your life and so making a difference in the lives of those to whom you are his light? 

Or has the light grown dim and do you therefore need to refuel? Remember! He stands at the door and knocks. Whether we welcome him and his light in or back in is our choice entirely.

John Chapter 11 verses 17 to 44 - Back to Church Sunday

First of all good morning to you all and welcome, especially if you’ve come today because it’s Back to Church Sunday.

Over the past three weeks we’ve been looking at John’s Gospel and focusing on a series of seven I AM statements which Jesus made about himself.

This morning we’re looking at Jesus’ claim to be the resurrection and the life which we come across in verse 25 of today’s gospel reading, which you’ll find printed on your service sheet.

Sometimes people make very bold claims. Some sportsmen for instance have claimed to be the greatest or the best in their particular field.

Sometimes like Usain Bolt they can back up their claim as they hold both the World record time and the Olympic title. Their track record verifies their boast.

Sometimes however it doesn’t and rather embarrassingly they are brought down to earth with a bump.

In this passage today Jesus makes a very bold claim. He says “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me even though they die, will live - and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Now either Jesus is telling the truth or he is very deluded indeed, so this morning I’d like to look at this claim of Jesus and see what light this story of the raising of Lazarus can throw on it.

Firstly there are 3 pieces of background information we need to be aware of when looking at this passage. Campbell has already mentioned these but we need to be reminded of them to fully appreciate what is going on here.

Firstly John’s gospel is an eye witness account of Jesus life and ministry.

John saw and touched and lived with Jesus, and his gospel is based on the time he spent with him and what he experienced.

So John was there when Lazarus was raised from the dead and he has recorded for us at first hand what occurred.

Secondly John wrote his gospel as he says in Chapter 20 “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

John’s whole gospel is aimed at persuading you – sitting here today - that Jesus really is who he claimed to be, the Christ, the Messiah, God made flesh, so that you can experience the eternal life which he came to give you.

And thirdly, the words I AM that Jesus uses in this passage, are very significant as these are the words that God used to describe himself to Moses.

In Exodus chapter 3 God says to Moses, when Moses asks him who he should say had sent him; "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.”

So when Jesus uses the words I AM just before raising Lazarus, he is using exactly the same words which God used to describe himself, and John records these 7 I AM statements that we’ve been looking at over the past few weeks, precisely in order that we ourselves might recognise Jesus as God.

Let’s look at the passage. Firstly John wants us to be sure that Lazarus is well and truly dead by the time Jesus gets to him. Thus he records Martha’s words in verse 39 when Jesus asks for the stone to be rolled away; “Lord, already there is a stench, because he has been dead for four days.”

4 days is significant because there was a Jewish belief that for 3 days the soul hovered near the body in the hope of re-entering it, but after 4 days the soul departed and the person was well and truly dead.

Martha knew that her brother was dead and that after 4 days it was likely that the body would be starting to decompose.

Jesus however is undeterred by Martha’s incredulity. We see in the previous verses of this chapter, that He knew when he first received word that Lazarus was ill that he would be raised back to life.

He says in verse 4 “This illness does not lead to death. Rather it is for God’s glory so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Jesus knew that his beloved friend would be brought back from death to life.

So the stone is rolled away and then Jesus looks up towards heaven and prays out loud to his heavenly father.

He wants all those who are witnessing this event, including us here today, to understand the intimacy of his relationship with God the Father in order that we will believe that he has been sent by God.

He says “Father I thank you that you have heard me. I know you always hear me but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus talks to his Heavenly Father out loud so that those watching and reading this story will realise that he is talking to the God of Abraham, the creator of the universe, the one who lives in him and in whom he lives.

Now this may sound a bit confusing but in John chapter 14 Jesus explains a bit more about his relationship with his heavenly father in answer to a question from Philip, who says; “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’

In other words Philip says to Jesus, show us God and then everything will be clear.

Jesus says to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? 

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

“The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.”

So in this account of the raising of Lazarus we see God himself in the person of Jesus raising a dead man back to life that we might believe in him.

We see the author of life speaking words of command to a dead man to reveal his true identity to us, so that we might recognise who he is, and believe in him.

We see the one who claims to be God and to be the resurrection and the life demonstrating that he has the power and authority to summon a man back from death.

Jesus simply speaks a few words of command; “Lazarus come out,” in the same way that he spoke words of command when he healed people – “be healed,” and in the same way that he spoke words of  command to demons – “come out of him”, and in the same way that he spoke commands at the creation of the world.

But what does Jesus mean when he says that he is the resurrection and the life, and that those who believe in him even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in him never die.

Firstly he is saying that there is neither resurrection nor eternal life outside of him. He is the only one who can raise the dead to life and he is the only one who can give us eternal life.

You can look for resurrection and eternal life elsewhere but you won’t find them except in the person of Jesus.

The resurrection Jesus is referring to is the final resurrection of believers at the last day.

The bible teaches that those who have believed and placed their faith in Jesus will be resurrected at the last day. So this resurrection is a future event.

This resurrection is a sharing in Jesus own resurrection. Just as he overcame the power of death and burst forth from the tomb so will those who place their faith in him. On the last day we will be raised up with him, clothed with immortality and imperishable bodies.

However the life that Jesus is referring to is eternal life, the life of his kingdom. And this is something that we posses as soon as we put our faith in him.

And this eternal life will never end. Unlike ordinary mortal life which ebbs away, the life that Jesus gives will transcend death, so whoever lives and believes in him will never die.

The life of the relationship we have with Jesus as we come to believe in him, will carry on into eternity.

The bible teaches that until we come to believe in Jesus we remain spiritually dead.

Although our bodies and souls are alive we are cut off from God and the life of his kingdom. 

We don’t really know God or experience fellowship with him.

A useful analogy is radio waves. Radio waves are all around us but in order to listen to them we need a radio with a functioning aerial.

Once these are in place we can tune in and listen to different stations.

Until we come to believe in Jesus our spiritual aerials are missing. However as we put our faith in him and invite him into our lives, he imparts eternal life to us, the life of his kingdom.

We experience a spiritual birth. This why Jesus spoke of being born again and said unless a person is born again they cannot see the kingdom of God.

At this point we start to experience life in 3 dimensions rather than just 2. Rather than just experiencing physical life and the life of the soul, we also start to experience spiritual life, the life of God’s kingdom, the life that Jesus came to impart.

We become aware that a spiritual realm exists – an eternal realm, that is inhabited not only by God and angelic beings but also the devil and demonic beings.

We become aware that this spiritual realm impacts the physical realm in which we live, and that actually there is a battle going on between good and evil, between God and the forces of evil.

We become aware that we are called to join forces with God and seek to lead people towards Jesus, the only one who can save us and protect us.

This is fundamentally what CS Lewis’ Narnia books are about. The children in the books become aware of a parallel world where they are called to fight for Aslan against the forces of evil.

As we come alive spiritually we come to recognise that Jesus is God and the bible will start to make more sense to us.

Jesus teaching and parables start to become clearer and Paul’s letters make much more sense from this spiritual perspective.

We experience life with God’s Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus living within us.

The Holy Spirit is very gentle and unobtrusive – sometimes frustratingly so – but as we focus our lives on following God he imparts power and love to us.

Power to start to live in a way that is pleasing to God, and love for those around us.

When we pray even though God can sometimes still seem distant we know in our hearts that 

He is listening to us.

Life takes on a new dimension and we start to see the world through a spiritual lens.

This is the life that Jesus is talking about, life in relationship with Him.

So to conclude John presents us with this eye witness account of the raising of Lazarus in order that we might believe that Jesus truly is God, just as he claimed to be.

And we see God made flesh telling us clearly that He alone is the resurrection and the life.

The raising of Lazarus from the dead is a miraculous sign that points towards the truth of Jesus claim for those who will accept it.

And this raising of Lazarus foreshadows Jesus own mighty resurrection and the eventual resurrection of those who will put their faith in him.

In the name of the living God. Amen