Bread of Life

JOHN 6:26-58

On the eve of Memorial Day when we honor those who have given their lives for this one nation under God, let’s look beyond political boundaries to focus on our King, God’s Son, who gave His life for the holy international nation to which we, by God’s grace, now belong. In 1 Peter 2:9, we read that we are “a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” Citizens of God’s holy nation, adopted sons and daughters of the ultimate King, that is our eternal identity and deepest allegiance, and our Savior instituted a graphic, symbolic way to memorialize the price He paid to purchase our freedom from the terrible tyranny of sin and death.

In our text, Jesus said that He is the ‘Bread of Life’ given by God to the spiritually starving people of the world. He said that everyone who feasts on Him will find true satisfaction and nourishment for their souls. So, how do we spiritually ingest the Bread of Life and have Him become an integral part of us? Or, as the original audience asked it when Jesus told them to stop working for perishable bread, “How do we do the work of God?” Jesus’ answer is the ‘work’ of God is to believe in, and thus receive the benefits of, the finished work of Christ. Jesus, the Bread of Life that we die without, is the priceless free gift of God that we could never earn and cannot possibly repay. All we can do from our position as spiritually bankrupt beggars with “no life in ourselves” is hold out our empty hands and ask to receive Him. Thankfully, God is glad to give Him to everyone who turns from trying to work their way into His favor in order to get favors from Him to instead trust in Jesus’ finished work in order to find saving satisfaction in God Himself.

Lest our relentless pride find a way to convince us that we deserve some credit for receiving God’s gift of God, Jesus then explains that even our coming to and believing in Him is a work of God that can not rightly be credited to our account. While this God-honoring reality is humbling, it is a source of great assurance to those who feed on it by exercising their God-given faith in it. I think this is a reason Jesus emphasized it during this conversation. He described a secure gift cycle in which God the Father gives helpless sinners to His Son, who gladly receives every one of them as a precious gift from His Father. The Son, in turn, gives His life for the people His Father has given Him and gives them His word that He will raise every one them up on the last day. The security that comes from resting in the irrevocable acceptance we have in Christ and the hope that comes from treasuring our absolutely secure inheritance in God’s Promised Land gives us fresh supplies of spiritual nourishment to strengthen us as we walk with God through the wilderness of this world. We may have 40 years or 40 seconds before God takes us home, but we can trust Him to use whatever wilderness time we have to nourish our faith in His faithfulness and to grow us together toward maturity as we feast on His fresh mercy every day.

Life Light

JOHN 5:31-47

JOHN 8:12-30

Twice in a fairly short span of John's Gospel we find Jesus detailing and defending God-given witnesses that testify to His divine identity. Given their similarities, I thought we would consider them together.

Jesus boldly declares to the offended religious leaders of His day that He is "the Light of the World" and that whoever follows Him will "not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." That is quite a claim. We have had time to grow accustomed to thinking of Jesus as such, but imagine being in the original audience and hearing an ordinary looking man declare "I am the (not a) Light of the World." Naturally, they wanted some supporting evidence and thankfully Jesus gives them some. He tells them to look at God's witness, works, and word.

First, Jesus directs them to John the Baptizer. He tells them that, unlike them, He is not looking for the praise that comes from men, but nonetheless John had it right when he declared that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It is interesting to note Jesus' purpose in directing them to John. He specifically said that He was doing it "so that (they) might be saved." That is important for us to remember when we who by God's grace are being saved by trusting Christ are discussing our Savior with those who currently reject Him. We are not debating to win an argument. We are presenting and defending truth with love for our lost neighbors, even the combative ones, in the hopes that God will grant them exit from death's darkness and entrance into Life's Light.

Next, Jesus calls their attention to His miraculous works. It is one thing to say that you are God's Messiah. It is another to publicly tell people known to have been lame for more than thirty years to get up and then after they do so to claim to be the Messiah. Jesus told the weather what to do, and it obeyed Him. He told sick people to be well, and they obeyed Him. He told demons to leave people, and though they protested, they obeyed Him. He even told dead people to live, and they obeyed Him. Jesus told the unbelieving religious leaders to take a long, hard, serious look at His works, which demonstrated His divinely given authority over the spiritual and physical realms, and most of them foolishly disobeyed Him. Why? Jesus said the main hindrance was their vain glory. "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" - v. 44. How much religious performance flows from our desire for other's approval and admiration! We need to regularly seek God's humbling illumination to see our hidden motivations more clearly, and when He shows us our vanity, we need to sincerely repent to enjoy His restoration.

Finally, Jesus directs them to God's written word. They were quite familiar with God's written revelation, but they were missing the proverbial forest for the trees. To avoid doing the same, we need to be aware that the entire Bible is God's unified revelation. It is not just a collection of disjointed accounts of God's interventions. It is the unfolding story of God's redemption, and His redeemer, Jesus, is centrally featured throughout both testaments. After His resurrection, Jesus walked with two disappointed men on their way back to the town of Emmaus. In Luke's account of their walk with Christ (Luke 24:25-27), we learn that Jesus began with Moses and explained the many Scriptural references to Him. I would have loved to have heard that Bible study! There are many, many Old Testament references to Christ, but let's close by looking at just one - Isaiah 53, and let's help others see the life-saving Light of the World there too.

A Mother's Care

Psalm 127 reads, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from Him…Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” Well, Jim Bob Duggar is a very blessed man. He and his wife, Michelle, are currently expecting their 18th child! If being a good mother is strictly based on quantity, Michelle wins. Of course, it's not just the quantity of children cared for that determines a mother's excellence. The quality of care a mother gives each of her children makes the difference. Let's look at a difficult moment in Jesus' mother Mary's life and consider a mother's care.

“Standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.” – John 19:25-27

First, let's look at a mother's care for her child. As a parent, it is extremely difficult to see someone insult, exclude or bully your child. It is even more painful to witness a group of people do so. We want others to love and accept our children like we do. With this in mind, try to imagine what it was like for Mary to watch a mob publicly humiliate, torture and murder her Son. It is difficult to do. Additionally, it appears that Mary was a single mother by the time Jesus was an adult. It is speculation, but most Bible students suspect this because Joseph is completely absent from the gospel accounts of Jesus' adulthood. So again attempt to put yourself in the place of a widowed single mother watching her firstborn Son, the man of the house after the father's death, undergo such extraordinary cruelty and rejection. I am asking us to do so to help us appreciate the depth of a mother's love. A godly mother's love is so great that she knows her place is with her child no matter what it cost. "Standing by the cross of Jesus (was) His mother...." - v. 25. What an example Mary provides, and what an expression of unfailing love God shows us through loving mothers who are there for us no matter what!

As excruciating as it was for Mary to go through this with Jesus, we have no record of her working to prevent Him from faithfully carrying His cross. As parents, we rightly want to protect our sons and daughters from pain, but we cannot allow our desire to protect them prevent them from faithfully following God's sometimes painful path. That is over-protection, and it undermines growth in Christ-likeness. We are called to go through providentially ordained pain with our children when following Christ gets them teased or even tortured, but we are not to spare them or ourselves the discomfort of faithfulness by encouraging them to just quietly go along with a wayward world. Not that she could have, but where would we be if Mary had talked Jesus out of going to the cross?

A mother's care for her child is not all we see in the scene recorded in our text. We also see a Son's care for His mother. Even in the middle of offering Himself up as the atoning sacrifice for humanity's sin, Jesus is not too busy to take care of His mother. I think this has implications for us, particularly in light of His call for us to "take up our cross and follow Him." Think of how His heart must have gone out to His mother as He looked out from the cross and saw her there witnessing His execution. In that moment, He made arrangements for her to live with one of His disciples, likely John who wrote this Gospel, and apparently she did so from then on. Sons and daughters, we have a divine obligation to care for our parents, who have cared so much for us. All of our parents, and all of us as parents, have fallen short in some ways, but no matter what, we are called upon to rise to the occasion and take good care of our mothers and fathers. In our culture, we often think of that as involving assisted living centers and such, but it does not have to. I was privileged to see my mother take great care of her mother by moving her into her home after my grandfather died. Caring for her mother required significant sacrifice on my mother's part. We can not all do exactly what she did, but we can do everything in our God-given power to care for our aging parents, no matter the sacrifices it requires of us. Here again, we are not called upon to avoid discomfort, but to grow in Christ-likeness by denying our selves for our mothers' care.

100 years ago Anna Jarvis, who did not marry and had no children of her own, honored her mother, who had died three years before, by championing the first official Mother's Day at a church where her mother taught Sunday School. They celebrated simply by giving each mother a single white carnation to symbolize the pure, unfailing love of mothers. I pray today our appreciation for our mother's care will grow and show. Thank you Father for our mothers - In Jesus' name.