It is remarkable that our Lord kept up this conversation as long as He did. He said it plainly enough. “I am the bread of life.” The Jews even understood what He was saying and questioned it. “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?!” Even His own disciples said to Him that this was too hard and who can listen to what Jesus was saying. But this was no intellectual discussion. It was and is the most practical thing of all. It is about truth and lies.
If Jesus is wrong about His flesh in this Eucharistic bread, He is wrong about everything else. But if He is right about everything else, then He must also be right about this Eucharistic bread and wine being His body and blood. We think that this is a small thing and that churches and people should be able to overlook differences about how they understand what Jesus has said. Our Lord, however, did not speak in riddles. He speaks plainly and bluntly enough. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever feeds on Me will live forever because they are receiving my flesh and blood given for the life of the world.
We want to believe that there is a common core of Christian that is all we need to agree on and we can disagree about baptismal regeneration or about confession and absolution or about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We want to think that when folks come either without understanding or even rejecting the Real Presence, that should be no barrier to kneeling together at the altar. We want to believe that doctrine is portable – things are what you think they are and they are not what don’t think they are. This is the stuff of falsehood and half truths and lies. If there is anything we learn from Revelation it is that the lukewarm and those tepid about the truths of God find no friend in Jesus.
Some are already offended by these words. That is how it was then. Jesus actually asked His disciples: “Are you offended at this?” Of course they were. Of course we are. We live in a world of fairy tales and happy endings but Jesus lives in the real world of sin and its curse of death. He has not come for symbols. He has come for real food and real drink, for real bread that feeds eternal life and real blood that cleanses us from all our sin. He has come not for a core of Christian truth but for the whole truth. He has come not so that we might understand or accept Him or the truth of the cross and empty tomb but so that we might believe it. At some point in time you begin to realize that you believe not because it all makes sense but because there is no other truth that saves; everything else is lies.
That is what we confess as we stand to see the Gospel book raised up and the Gospel proclaimed. This is the word of eternal life. This is the truth that saves. This is what we confess as we come to this altar. This bread is Christ’s body and this cup is His blood. This is what we confess to the world – we have believed and come to know that Jesus is the Holy One of God in whom there is salvation and there is salvation in no other.
We have been taught to believe that the real danger to the faith is in those who reject this Gospel. We have been conditioned to believe that the enemies of the faith are the real threat to us and to the Church of God. But there is a greater danger and more profound threat. That is from those who say it is not about truth or lies but about versions of the truth and versions of the faith and no one of them is better or worse than they other. This is the real threat to Christianity. Faith will not die because enemies overpower it but because we are underwhelmed by it. As soon as we begin to think that no church has the whole truth and every church has some truth, we betray Christ and His Word. As soon as we allow that everyone is a little right and no one is all wrong, we disarm the Gospel and it is no longer about truth but about opinion.
When Bible study became about what we think about this Word and not about what it says, we made the Gospel mere opinion. When we made preaching about how well the preacher captures and keeps our attention, we made the Gospel into entertainment. When we made worship about what makes us feel good, we made ourselves the center and judge of everything. Jesus is clear. It is about truth and lies – not about versions or opinions but truth and lies. When it becomes about something else, it becomes about nothing at all.
All around us churches have sacrificed the Word of the Lord and the truth of God that saves to the what will sell in the marketplace of ideas or what will appeal to the desires of people. All around us churches have surrendered the truth that endures forever to the truth that is defined by the individual alone. All around us churches have replaced the call to repentance with the demand that God affirm what we think or feel. We as people sit and listen to it all and wonder what could be so bad about letting people think what they want or feel good about themselves or do what they desire. We have abandoned the idea that Jesus is truth, that His Word is truth, and that it is only the truth that saves. Until it sounds positively narrow minded and judgmental for any Church to insist this alone is the faith.
My friends, the disciples admitted what we are afraid to say out loud. Jesus’ words are hard. Jesus’ truth conflicts with the desires of our hearts and the reason of our minds. But they have also taught us to confront these things and bring them to the Lord. His Words are spirit and life. He alone has the truth to rescue us from the threatening peril of our sins and bring us out of the shadow of death to everlasting life. Simon Peter said out loud what we struggle to admit. It is not about which faith appeals to us but which faith has the power to save us.
“Who else can we go to, Jesus? You have the words of eternal life.” This is not about which truth fits us or makes us feel better but which truth is true and which is a lie, which truth forgives, redeems, and saves, and which lies condemn, which truth can only be approached by faith and which lies are manufactured by our minds and fueled with our own sinful desires. Here you have it. Jesus is the living Bread comes down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. His bread is not an idea to inhabit our minds but His flesh which is real food and His blood which is real drink. There are no versions of Christianity or versions of this truth. There is only truth and lies. This is hard and offensive and shocking but this is also the word and promise of Jesus. Let not the objections of your mind or the desires of your heart steal away from you the truth that saves, the truth preached to you, and the truth you feast upon in this Holy Eucharist. It is not about what food you want or how much you want it. It is about which food feeds you everlasting life. That is Christ alone. Amen
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