What do you want?

 February 27 2022

John 6:25-59

         Have you ever thought about how life is a series of just figuring out just what it is that you want? Its time for breakfast, what do you want, eggs or cereal? Then you have to figure out what do you want to do, do you want to watch TV, or a movie or instead just read a book, again, what do you want? On and on it goes, from what to wear, to where to be employed, to what to do with your life, the question remains, what do you want? Once you figure out just what it is that you want then you can at last go and make a game plan as to how you will get just what it is that you want. As you keep asking yourself just what do you want you will also find that some of the things that you want are going to conflict with other things that you want and then you will have to decide just what it is that is most important to you of the things that you want. So, you see it is easy to see that life is a series of decisions that ultimately all comes down to just what is it that you want.

         In our scripture for today, it isn’t hard to see that the people who come to Jesus are on a mission to get what they want. Just one day earlier these same people had eaten at the all-you-can-eat buffet Jesus had whipped up for a few thousand of his favorite friends and out of that experience these people had decided that what they wanted was the secret to making this all-you-can-eat buffet a daily event. So they sought out Jesus, finally finding him on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. It might not be clear from how the story is translated in John’s gospel but the gist of what it is that they wanted is the right formula so that they could do miraculous works just like Jesus had done when he took five barley loaves and two small fish and somehow managed to lay out a banquet in the wilderness for more than five thousand people. After they had feasted there, when these people asked themselves just what it was that they wanted, they answered by saying that they wanted the inside scoop that Jesus had so that they never had to worry about being hungry ever again. They wanted Jesus to give them the five easy steps to get God to work for you. Now as crass as this might sound, the truth is that this is a common way that people come at their relationship to God. When they ask themselves just what it is that they want, there are people who answer by stating that what they want is a life that’s comfortable. They want a life that has no worries about food, about money, about the very security of life and they want God to get on with making that happen. You see, what they want is for God to bring the blessings of heaven into the world that’s on this side of heaven. In other words, what they want is heaven but they don’t want to wait for it. Now, this sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it, to experience the security and joy and blessings of heaven, right here and right now but if this is what you want, be forewarned such a life is fraught with danger. You see, such a life that only seeks only to be comfortable will end up being a life that becomes consumed with protecting those things which make that life comfortable, a life that becomes more and more ingrown upon itself. What is forgotten in the euphoria of a life of blessing is that at some point this life will end. Just as the food that we love to eat spoils and rots if we aren’t careful so too this life will fulfill the maxim that you are what you eat, something that likewise will perish. As Jesus told his disciples as recorded in the eighth chapter of Mark, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but in the end end up with a life that will spoil and rot just like the food that was used to sustain it? You see, when we desire to have the life of heaven now, when we are unwilling to wait for the security, joy and blessings that are promised for later, then life will become defined as just staving off death for as long as possible. We have to ask ourselves, is this all that life is really about? Is this the life that we really want?

         Jesus is desperately trying to get these people who had come to him in search of the way that could manipulate God to bless them now, to see the tragedy of their shortsighted desire. So, you are blessed by God for a time, then what? After you have labored and worked to make a comfortable and secure life, then what, what will be the meaning of all of it? As we ponder the answer to this question, we hear Jesus offer an alternative. Instead of stuffing our faces with food that is basically dead, Jesus asks us if we might want food that is full of life, food that is life-giving.  This food is the food that Jesus, the Son of Man, wants to give to us. Jesus himself is the presence of the life which has been ongoing for all time, from before the very foundations of the world. Where Jesus is there is the God-three-in-one, God the Father having set the seal of the Holy Spirit upon his life and it is into this ever flowing fountain of life and love that Jesus invites us into.

         Yet, is this life that Jesus is holding out, is this what we really want? Those who had come to Jesus could not see that what he offered them was so much greater than what they had asked for. No thanks, they seemed to say, we are just interested in figuring out the way to be blessed now, this is what we really want. So Jesus turns their request on its head and he tells them that what God is working at is not going around filling random lives with blessings to make those lives more comfortable and secure but rather what God is working at is to work in the lives of people to get them to have faith in Jesus. Incredibly, the next thing that these people who had come to Jesus state that they wanted is a sign, something that would prove them that Jesus was in fact legit. You have to wonder if they could hear themselves. I mean, just one day earlier they had been there, out on that vast plain with thousands of people and they had eaten their fill with leftovers beside and now what they want is a sign? Are you kidding me? They say that they need a sign, something that they can lay their eyes on, in order for them to have faith in Jesus. Come on Jesus, do something spectacular, so that we can at last trust you! This is, after all, what Moses had done, isn’t it? Wasn’t he the one who had made it rain down manna every day so that our ancestors did not starve in the wilderness? It was because Moses had done this spectacular miracle, this is why our ancestors trusted Moses and followed his leadership. So, Jesus what is it that you are going to do so that we can trust you? This is what these people were getting at when they said that what they wanted was a sign. After Jesus had listened to their argument, he decided to correct them. First, as Jesus pointed out, it was not Moses that had given them manna from heaven as a sign that they should trust him and follow his lead. No, Jesus says if that’s what you got out of the whole manna business then you totally missed the point of the whole exercise. No, as we are told at the beginning of the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, God humbled his people and he let them experience hunger so that he could feed them with manna, the bread from heaven, a way of sustaining them that no one had had ever experienced before or since. The whole reason as to why God had done so was so that his people might understand that people should not live by bread alone but instead life is found by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God had told them that he would send bread from heaven to feed them and true to his word, this is exactly what happened. God told them that if they tried to horde manna, taking two days worth instead of what they needed for the day then it would be found to be full of worms when the woke up the next day. Sure enough this is what happened just as the word of God said. When they were told that they could gather two days worth on the day before the Sabbath so that they would not have to work on their day of rest, they found that only then did the manna not spoil, just as God had told them would happen. So, day by day, week by week, God’s people were sustained by God just as he had told him that he would do. This is what the whole manna business was all about. So, when Jesus corrects these people who had come to him, he tells them that it was their Father who had given them the true bread from heaven, the true bread. This true bread that Jesus referred to was the life of God’s people that they experienced through obeying what God had spoken to them. Life comes through every word spoken to us by God and thus we are reminded as to just how John describes Jesus in the beginning of his gospel, that Jesus is the Word, the Word who was with God and the Word who was God, in this Word was life. This Word became flesh and pitched his tent in our neighborhood, John tells us, and it is this Word that speaks to us about our life lived day by day just as the word of God spoke to his people in the wilderness, how they were to live day by day. Yet, Jesus did not come that we should live life believing that life is merely staving off the inevitable death for as long as possible; no, this life is given so that we might hear the words of God and find in them a life anchored in eternity.

         The words of God are words which speak of a promise, a promise that if we look upon Jesus, if he is the only sign that we need from God, the only reason to trust the words of God, then Jesus promises that we will be raised up on the last day. Yet, the good news is that we do not have to muster up this trust of God as if we even had the ability to do so. No, Jesus tells us that it is our Heavenly Father who draws us to his side because we are simply unable to do so on our own. Now, we have to wonder just how does God draw us, in the Greek it literally says that God drags us into his life! The answer is found in the Greek version of the Old Testament, from the thirty-eighth chapter of Jeremiah, where we read that God loves us with an everlasting love and he draws us with compassion. So, it is the love of the Father which overwhelms us and destroys all of our defenses, a love and compassion for us that captures our hearts. This is a love which causes us to have a new answer to just what it is that we want because when we experience the reality of God’s love for us, then what we want is a life with this God who loves us.

         This life with God is the life of Jesus which Jesus wants us to experience. Jesus came to us from the very heart of the Father all so that we might experience the Father’s love so that we too might be drawn into that same place. As Jesus and his Father know each other intimately so too the Father who searches our hearts wants us to know the depths of his heart. This is why he speaks and teaches us. We can’t but help but hear the words of Paul found in the second chapter of First Corinthians, where he tells us that the Holy Spirit searches everything even the depths of God and it is through the Spirit that we can come to comprehend the thoughts of God. This is the life, the very life of Jesus, the very life that has eternally existed, this is the life Jesus wants us to experience. This is a life that will, Jesus promises again and again, that will be raised up on the last day. This is telling us that this life is one where the security, comfort and blessing that we hunger for and thirst for will finally be given to us. The question then becomes, is this what we want, to wait for these to be given to us at some later date?

         You see, if this is indeed what we want, then at last we will have a life that has meaning. We need to understand that what Jesus is pointing us to when he begins to speak of when he says that the bread that he gives us is his flesh, that the life of Jesus is one where his very flesh and blood was offered up to give the world life. What this points us to is that this laying down of the life of Jesus was not just about what Jesus has done for us but rather it is about how this describes the life which Jesus is offering us, a life which is now ours to live. You see, once we understand that our life is anchored in the life and love of the Father then we are free to follow Jesus in doing the greatest acts of love, the freedom to lay down our life because we have the assurance that we will be raised up on the last day. So, rather than our life just being our attempt at seeing how long we can stave off death now life can be understood as our opportunity to love extravagantly, to love as Jesus loved, to love in the greatest way possible. Now we can understand that instead of wanting a life full of blessings with which to comfort ourselves now we can have a life where we pour ourselves out to be a blessing to others, in love being a source of life to those in need. In the death of the flesh of Jesus, in the pouring out of his blood, here we find the source of our life of sacrificial love. When we love like Jesus, then we can be assured that Jesus lives in us and we live within the life of God. The life of the Father which flowed through Jesus flows through us as we pour out our life in the service and love of others. This is the grand purpose which gives our lives meaning. 

         So, the question again is what do you want? Do you want a life of blessing, comfort and security here and now, a life which turns more and more inward, a life which is nothing more than striving to live the most days possible? Or do you want more, do you want the life of Jesus? Do you want a life where you are dragged out of your complacency by the love and compassion of your Heavenly Father? Do you want a life where the God who searches hearts, the God who knows all about you, desires to open himself to you so that you might know the depths of the heart of God? Do you want a life anchored in the eternal life of God which sets you free to love in great and extravagant ways? Do you want a life which fulfills the great purpose that it was created for, to be a life which is a conduit of the very life and love of the God who created it? The bottom line is this, do you want to be like Jesus?

         You see, Jesus promises us that when we want to be like him then we have the hope that we will be those who will be raised up to life on the last day. But it is difficult to imagine just what that day will be like. Here again, John in his letter to his church helps us to grasp the wonder of what that life beyond this life will be like. In the third chapter of John’s first letter we read, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when Jesus appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as Jesus is pure.” You see, when we are like Jesus now, when his life is our life, when his love is our love, when his willingness to find his joy beyond the shame of the cross is the way we too live our life then guess what? On that last day when he comes, and we are at last raised up, we can be assured that if we have lived and loved like him then when he appears we will be like him. This is our hope, Jesus, he is our hope of glory. When we know this then doesn’t it just make sense that when we consider just what is it that we want that we would answer, I want to be like Jesus. If I hope to be like Jesus on the last day then I should want to be like Jesus now. I should want to know Jesus as my very life, the daily bread of life, the life marked by no regard for flesh and blood but rather a life that is ours to give away as we bring life and love to others. This is a life which glorifies our Heavenly Father and if we glorify him now we know that he will glorify us on that last day. The question that only you can ask is this: Is this what I really want? To God be the glory! Amen.