Gluten-free BREAD and WINE - (4)

John 6 & Matthew 26:2,17-29– Part 4

“The Passover is two days away –

and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Matthew 26:2

Read the story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2026:%202,%2017-29&version=NIV

Listen to story here:  http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/niv/Matt.26.2

Jesus spoke to the people by comparisons.

Jesus gave bread to the crowd.         Then he said:

I am the BREAD of life

When the Jewish crowd asked him for a sign, he said:

          I am BREAD FROM HEAVEN (manna)

There was one more comparison from the passage we’ve been reading in John chapter 6.  Jesus fed the crowd just before the Passover* Feast.  And later he told them: “This bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.”

When the people got offended at him for telling them they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he could just have said:

          I’m not talking about cannibalism, guys!  I’m telling you that

          I AM THE PASSOVER LAMB.

But they weren’t ready for that.**  He led them right up to the edge of that understanding.

He didn’t say it straight out UNTIL it was time for the Passover Feast at which he would actually suffer.

And he revealed it first only TO those closest to him – the ones who believed him.

While they were eating, Jesus took BREAD, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take and eat;

THIS IS MY BODY

Then he took a cup (of WINE), and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you.

THIS IS MY BLOOD

Jesus was now revealing for the first time that the entire 1,300+ year history of the Jewish Passover celebration was God’s object lesson,*** preparing them for the REAL deliverance of Israel:

GOD’S PASSOVER LAMB IS JESUS

What a master teacher Jesus was!  As the twelve friends ate the bread and drank the wine, they were told that they were actually receiving into themselves God’s deliverance.  They would never forget that moment.

How about you?  Have you received God’s deliverance?  It is Jesus.

*[The Passover, for those of us who aren’t Jewish,

was God’s deliverance of Israel from the Egyptians.]

**[Since they hadn’t believed that he had come down

from heaven, how could they accept he was sent

 to earth on a deliverance mission from God?]

***[The Passover itself was a figure of speech!

A figure of speech is a comparison of something known

(Passover was well-known to the Jews)

to something new (Jesus is the Passover Lamb)

so that it can be understood.]

GLUTEN-FREE BREAD TO EAT - (3)

John 6: 1-69 – Part 3

”Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” John 6:58

Read the story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%206:35-69&version=NIV

Listen to story here:  http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/John.6

Everyone wants to live forever.  So why – as soon as Jesus said: “Whoever eats this bread will live forever”—did the crowds desert him?

It was because of one simple word: eats.  Jesus’ Jewish audience was very careful with what they ate and with how they ate it.  There were ceremonial food laws that covered all the “dos and donts," and Jesus was breaking several of them. 

First off, Jesus switched from saying “eat this bread” to saying “eat my flesh.”  That is where his faithful Jewish followers got off the train. They had very strict rules about eating flesh.  Some meats were kosher and some were not.  What Jesus seemed to be proposing wasn’t kosher!

Second, no Jew would consume the blood along with the flesh, because the life was in the blood.  And here was this man telling them to “Drink my blood.”  What was he, a vampire!?

And finally, was this man insane!  What person in his right mind would insist that people must “eat his flesh and drink his blood.”  If he really did mean this as a figure of speech, then why did he keep repeating it and driving home the point?  He KNEW how angry and upset this audience would become if they took his words literally, so was he trying to drive them away?

Good question.

No, Jesus wasn’t driving them away, he was separating them.  He knew that many in the audience didn’t believe him, and that is why they kept grumbling and arguing. They were offended and scandalized, when they should have been amazed and transformed.

First, they got offended when he told them he came from heaven.

Then they were scandalized when he seemed to be proposing cannibalism.

They weren’t really listening.  If they had been, they would have heard and accepted his explanation: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are spirit and life.”

The ones who had already written him off, left; the ones who really believed who he was, stayed.

Which one are you?

GLUTEN-FREE BREAD FROM HEAVEN - (2)

John 6: 1-69 – Part 2

“I am the bread that came down from heaven.” John 6:41

 

Read the story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%206:1-51a&version=NIV

Listen to story here:  http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/John.6

I am bread.  Every age and culture understands that bread is physically life-giving. It has been called the “staff of life.”  So the comparison we talked about in Part 1 – I am the bread of life – was a universal metaphor:

But today’s metaphor comes from an ancient Jewish story that everyone in Jesus’ audience knew: God fed Moses and the Israelites in the desert a bread that fell from the sky and collected on the ground every morning.  Bread from heaven, literally.

Jesus and the crowd of people who had been supernaturally fed by him just the day before had a long discussion, and that story was background to the discussion.

So, the crowd had followed him because they got their bellies full.

But when Jesus had fed the 5,000, and given them an object lesson so they would experience his desire and ability to care for their needs, he wasn’t focused solely on the physical needs.  These people were.

After they tracked him down, he instructed – “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you”

He had the big picture – eternity – and he kept trying to get them to look deeper, to look UP.

Instead, they asked him for his credentials!  The irony of their request, after he had just fed 5,000 of them with one small boy’s lunch, didn’t derail Jesus from the point he was making.  He tried another angle.  Hey, remember that bread, that “manna,” God gave the Israelites in the desert so they wouldn’t starve?  That’s me.  I am “the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (v33)

At first they seem to get it, because they say: “Give us this bread always!”  But really, they are still just focused on physical bread.  The minute that Jesus stops speaking in figures of speech and states directly: “For I have come down from heaven,” they turn on him. 

They are offended because he is equating himself with God.  They grumble: Who do you think you are!  We know your parents, Mary and Joseph! Ha! Like you really came down from heaven!

He knows that they are grumbling and many don’t believe him, but then he clearly states the spiritual lesson of the bread: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Wow.  At that point I’m wondering why they didn’t bow at his feet in gratitude and amazement.  Everyone wants to live forever. 

Instead, they desert him in droves.

In tomorrow’s blog, find out why.