This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Lord’s Supper” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 1, 1995.

Reading from John’s Gospel, we are in the sixth chapter, the twenty-second verse. Give your attention here to the reading of God’s Word, John 6:22.

The day following, when the people who stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except the one in which his disciples had entered, and that Jesus did not go with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples had gone away alone, although other boats came from Tiberias near to the place where they had eaten bread after the Lord had given thanks, the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor were his disciples. They also took shipping and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. And when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them and said, Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

For him has God the Father sealed. Then they said to him, What must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. They said therefore to him, What sign do you show then, that we may see and believe you? What do you work?

Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, always give us this bread. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I say unto you that ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but shall raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. You have to admit your bewilderment.

But at the same time, you are drawn to this Jesus. You have to admit your bewilderment. But at the same time, you are drawn to this Jesus. He most definitely excites your curiosity, but more, he engages you at the level of the deepest religious inquiry. He compels you in the interests of a common discussion, one in which you see him and yourself absorbed with the same religious preoccupations. So you, with literally thousands of others, five thousand men besides women and children on this occasion, had followed him. You saw the signs and wondered if he might not be the Messiah you had longed for. The Christ come for his kingdom.

You caught up with him east of Bethsaida, on the grassy slopes along the Sea of Galilee, and there he once more astounded you by feeding you, by blessing, multiplying, and distributing a young lad’s lunch so that everyone had enough. You with the others conferred and began to develop your plan to seize him and make him your king.

But how strange! Before you can reach him, he withdraws from you into the mountains. Leaving you, your enthusiasm still quite high, you are left with a faint impression that he might not approve of you or your ideas. His disciples departed that evening by boat. You watched them go. But you, with the multitude, kept vigil, waiting for him to appear. In the morning, however, you could not find him. And you wondered again, yes, faintly, your enthusiasm still quite high, could he have bypassed you?

Had he somehow joined his disciples? Had he somehow come to them without your knowing? There will be a day when the multitudes in Judea and Jerusalem will be unaware that Jesus has rejoined his disciples. But now you, on those grassy slopes on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the question does cross your mind: How could he ignore us? How could he ignore such a loyal, adoring crowd?

At any rate, you finally decide to make for Capernaum in search of him, making use of the boats from Tiberius—those which bear the Caesar’s name and had washed ashore from the storm the night before. Despite your questions, which are mounting in your mind, you are obsessed with finding him, which you finally do at the synagogue in Capernaum. There you confess that his movements are a mystery to you. You ask him when he came to Capernaum, but he seems more interested in why you have come. He tells you that you seek him because he filled your stomach. And he intimates that you have no idea what that means.

You work, he says, for food that perishes, when it is eternal food that you need. Work for the food, he goes on, such as the Son of Man can give you. But the irony now of Jesus’ words escapes you, as he mingles language about your effort, your work, and the Son of Man’s gift. You cannot hear him. And you respond by asking what work you might perform that gains for you the approval of God.

There is an edge to your words at this point, because things are beginning to heat up. You are the one who tracked after him the day before. You are the one who spent the night outside on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. You are the one who has been questioning him all along. What is wrong with him anyway? Things indeed are beginning to heat up as he challenges you.

Approval from God is gained by believing in the One He has sent. Now you are angry. You are angry because Jesus keeps bringing this discussion back to Himself, focusing it on His own person, and keeps pressing you in directions that, for reasons that do not seem quite clear to you, you religiously resist. But now, in your anger, you lash out, and by your lashing out, you unknowingly disclose the very core of your religious posture. Having seen signs, you had followed Jesus, as it is written in chapter 6, verse 2. You had seen the signs, and you had followed Him. And now, having seen a further sign in the feeding of the 5,000, you still desire more. You are not satisfied.

And it is almost as if the religion that is at the very heart of you is a religion of profound dissatisfaction. And that, even though the previous day you had been filled with bread and fish, despite that filling from Christ and all that it signified, you remain empty and crave more. And such a condition defines the religious works that you espouse, the religious works that gain your attention, the religious works that you pursue. It defines the entirety of your religion.

Emptiness is a universal condition, answered only by effort—your effort. If not God’s, He works as well, you know. If not Christ’s, He must work. What work do you do? But you must understand this in your mind, in your thoughts. These efforts, these works, must always be measurable. They must always be visible, perceived by the senses, to satisfy you. The work, the effort, must operate at the level of what is obvious, at the level of this world, and at the level of provision in this world. This is, in fact, how you interpret the Old Testament, your own past history. That is the significance of verse 31 in that sixth chapter.

Bread from heaven, given to the fathers in the wilderness, was a supernatural provision, to be sure. But from your perspective, that miraculous bread was intended to provide you with a continuous supply of earthly provision so that you might endure in this world. Jesus, you are telling him, must give you bread like this if you are to believe in Him.

But Jesus now tears, yes, subtly but directly, into the foundations of your entire religious framework. The true bread, the heavenly bread, is not what the fathers ate in the wilderness, but what the Father gives now through the Son. And the bread of God is not meant to fill the belly for perpetual life in this world, but to give eternal life to the whole world by saving it into an environment of a completely different order. Yet still, you are not listening, as if you cannot hear. When Jesus speaks of bread for the life of the whole world, you continue to hear Him through your own categories, so that you say, “Lord, give us this bread always,” verse 34.

But your request betrayed you to him, even though you do not know it. Yes, you want this bread, because it must provide you with a continuous supply for provision in this world, and also because, in receiving it, you believe that you will have control over it, and thus over the whole world. Why, you will be the new Joseph, presiding over the storehouses of Egypt, and all the world will come to you in order to be fed. Here is the weapon you have always sought, and the domination that you have craved.

Indeed, more, ever more, give us this bread. Bread is power. Such bread, as you described, seems to be infinite power. But now Jesus drives home his point. He is the bread of life. We have a problem of feeding on him, but we also have a problem with such bread as far as the world is concerned. How do you distribute it? So now, Jesus, you are beginning to speak nonsense. He says, I am the bread of life, the bread from heaven.

According to him, anyone—wait a minute, there goes the control factor—anyone who genuinely comes to him and believes in him will be perfectly satisfied. And if they are perfectly satisfied in coming to him, they will not need you, the kind of bread you crave, nor will they be interested in distributing it. Jesus is very pointed now. He tells them that they have seen him, they have come to him in a sense, but they do not believe. Verse 36. You might have thought that Jesus lived at your level and was thus easily manipulated by the things that you are manipulated by. After all, you are part of a fairly impressive entourage that has been tracking after him. Certainly he will capitulate to you, will he not? Certainly if he knows what is good for him, he will capitulate to you. He would not dare alienate you.

That would be an act of foolishness. How can he expect to succeed if he alienates those who have a vested interest in what he has to say? And surely he does himself no favor if he goes about alienating Jews or Israelites. But now he says to you that everyone given to him by his Father will come to him, and he seems utterly unperturbed by the pressure you have brought to bear upon him. He is unimpressed. These, he says, he will give not perpetual life in this world, for that was never the goal, but eternal life. He says he will preserve them, and that he will raise them up on the last day for life elsewhere.

Those with whom Jesus is presently engaged have no real interest in life elsewhere. In the subsequent debates between the Church and the Synagogue, the Church would be face-to-face with an enemy that had no real interest in life elsewhere. Those who stand opposite Christ, who stand opposite his church, cannot see that far.

What about you? How far can you see? Is your real and true interest eternal life in the courts of the Lord? Do you believe in Jesus? Particularly now, that Jesus has been presented to you from this passage this morning, do you believe in that Jesus? Here is the word of encouragement to you if you do. You have been given to him by his Father. You will most certainly never be cast out of his grasp and his embrace. You will not be lost to him, but on the last day you will be raised up in your body, and that for the purpose of dwelling with him bodily forever, in perfect and complete satisfaction.

But marvel of marvels: The word from Jesus is, if you believe that the eternal life to which you aspire has already begun for you, and the satisfaction that so many seek, that so many see, is already found in him. Jesus is the fullness of the inquiring heart and the searching soul. He is perfect satisfaction.

We who believe know that this is true, and because we do, we come and partake in the sacrament, feasting upon Him so that we may be refreshed by the satisfaction that has been granted to us. Praise His name. Amen. Our God, we would not be those who continue to praise even beyond what You have given. For if this is true, it reveals in us a soul that will not be satisfied with the Savior and the salvation that He offers. We rejoice, O God, that You have granted us satisfaction in Him. Truly, we who believe do not hunger and do not thirst, but are satisfied with the provision that is mediated to us through our faith, the provision that comes from heaven. We rejoice in Your grace and love, Lord, and ask that we might not be led astray so as to chase things that promise satisfaction when in fact they can deliver none.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.