14^th Sunday after Pentecost at Epiphany on September 6, 2009

John 6:60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" ⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? ⁶² What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." ⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ⁶⁷ "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

Hard words

The bride-to-be was upset because I wouldn’t let her have “The Wedding March” as she walked down the aisle because the song doesn’t glorify God. A family member was offended because I wouldn’t preach for her wedding in her Catholic church. Lutheran and Catholic theology are not even close, and I wouldn’t give the impression that we are. I’ve had visitor cry through a worship service and I’ve had another visitor storm out of the sanctuary cursing loudly with a string of four-letter words all because of our practice of close communion. Both people were distressed even though the biblical practice of close communion is for protection for their spiritual health. One woman was displeased because I wouldn’t give her God’s blessing on an unscriptural divorce. One guy was angry because I confronted him with coming to Church Council meetings drunk. Another time I was physically threatened by a really big member who didn’t like the fact that I was at his house to discuss his failing marriage.

All of these people eventually left our church. They didn’t like the words I was giving them.    

Words. Words are simple. Words are powerful. Words are what our sermon text is about this morning. Words from the mouth of the One who is the very Word of God in human flesh. Words that are Spirit and Life. Words of eternal life. Jesus’ words.

Jesus had just finished delivering His words in the synagogue in Capernaum. He said He was the Bread of Life, Living Bread come down from heaven, sent by the Father for the life of the world. And the people who heard Him began to murmur at these words. Jesus said that the bread that He would give for the life of the world was His own flesh. And the people again grumbled at His words. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said His flesh is real food and His blood is real drink, and whoever eats of Him, believing in Him, will live forever.

Now it was the disciples’ turn to complain. “This is a hard word,” they said, “who can hear it?” Not “hard” in the sense of difficult to understand. Jesus’ words were simple enough. Bread, flesh, blood, eat, drink. Simple, one-syllable words. Nothing hard about them. Hard in the sense that it is an unyielding, demanding, shocking word. It resists any attempt on our part to make it soft and sweet and spiritual and sentimental. This is the difference between faith and unbelief. Either take Jesus at His word and live forever or reject this “hard word” and die. There are no other options.

This hard word is also a rejectable word. Jesus forces His word on no one. Many of his disciples withdrew after the Bread of Life sermon and no longer followed him. The miracles were fun and the teaching was great. But this talk of flesh and blood was simply too much. Not what they bargained for. Best go messiah shopping somewhere else.

The Father forces His Son on no one. He force feeds no one with the Bread of Life. God doesn’t save at gunpoint. “Are you feeling lucky, punk?” In love He sent Jesus Christ to die and to rise for the life of the world. And He invites the entire world and everyone in it to die and rise with Jesus. He offers, delivers and applies Jesus’ death and resurrection absolutely free through the “hard word” of the Gospel. He even works in us repentance and faith, breaking down our hard-hearted unbelief and giving us the ears to hear this “hard word” and to believe it. But if after all that, you still prefer death to life, hell to heaven, soft words to the hard truth, God will give you that, too. But don’t blame Him for it; it wasn’t His idea.

God even came to unbelieving Pharaoh through His messengers Moses and Aaron. With the staff turning into a snake, the Nile turning to blood, and the firstborn family members turning into corpses, God was calling Pharaoh and all the Egyptians to turn to repentance and believe. Yet Pharaoh rejected the Lord’s words and hardened his heart. He chose the gods of the Egyptians over the one, true God. He rejected the God of salvation for idols of wood and stone.

If not the one true God who chose you, then choose your idol. If not Jesus the Christ who died for your salvation, then you choose the god of your damnation.

“No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” Not “enabled” but “granted.” Given. Granted. Being a baptized believer is not the outcome of enabled choices. You don’t decide to follow Jesus, you are given to follow Jesus. You were given to come to Him when He came to you in your Baptism and when He comes to you in His Word of Absolution and in the Holy Sacrament. It’s all a gift, and you are at the glorious gift-receiving end of all that God has to give.

“The Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing.” Our flesh can’t save us. Jesus’ flesh can, but not ours. Ours is dead. St. Paul says that nothing good dwells in our flesh. It’s set against the Spirit of God. It does the things that damn us: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealously, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, etc. That’s a hard word to hear. We think we can shape this old flesh up – do a little spiritual nip and tuck and present it to God, and He’s supposed to be thrilled at the makeover. Wrong.

“The Spirit gives life.” He’s the Lord and Giver of life. He’s the Breath of life that breathed life into Adam’s clay and our own. And here Jesus says, “My words, the words I have spoken to you, these hard words you find unbearable to your ears, are Spirit and they are life.” Do you want the Holy Spirit? Then hear Jesus’ words – they are Spirit. Do you want to live? Then hear Jesus’ words – they are life.

With His words He created everything, sustains everything, upholds everything. With His words, He heals the sick, raises the dead, causes the deaf to hear, the mute to speak, the blind to see. Jesus speaks a word and a sick child is instantly healed 27 miles away. Jesus tells a paralyzed man, “Get up and go home,” and he does.

He says to you, “You sins are forgiven,” and they are. He baptizes you with a splash of water and His words and you are reborn. He feeds you His body and His blood with the words, “given and shed for you, for your forgiveness.” Hard words? You bet they’re hard. They resist any of our puny attempts to analyze or rationalize. They are to be heard and trusted from the lips of the One who died and rose for you.

Capernaum was a turning point. Many disciples packed their bags and left. They no longer followed Jesus. His words were too hard for them to hear, too much for their ears to bear. And does Jesus go chasing after them saying, “Please come back, you misunderstood me. Let me say it another way”? No. He turns to His Twelve, and He asks them, “Are you going to leave too?”

It’s every preacher’s nightmare, besides the nightmare of waking up on Sunday morning thinking its Saturday. It’s the nightmare of the sermon that chases the people away, the sermon they can’t bear to hear. The sermon that brings phone calls and letters on Monday morning. As preachers, we are tempted to pull our punches for fear of offending. We are enticed to soften those hard words of Law and Gospel. Sweeten them. Tame them. Domesticate them. But we do our hearers a great disservice if we ever do that. We don’t need religious mush in our ears, we need hard words that are Spirit and life.

Yet there are many church bodies and pastors who put their finger in the air to test which way the religious winds are blowing. That determines their teaching, not Jesus’ teaching. God has hard teachings in His Word – fellowship, roles of men and women, Baptism, Lord’s Supper, premarital sex, homosexuality, divorce, commitment to discipleship, predestination, hell. As a pastor, do I want to please people or please the Lord? Do I appease people who I want to like me or appease the eternal Judge of heaven and earth? Am I here to grow this church or grow God’s kingdom?

I have a great comfort in knowing that the words I speak in worship or in Bible Class or in counseling are not my own. They are the Lord’s words. People who reject me are really rejecting the Lord. The Lord’s words are coming through the words of His simple messenger. Hard words? Yes. But rock solid words – words from Jesus to you, to save you.

The kids were excited. The carnival was in town with rides and the fun things to eat – like cotton candy. The big spool of cotton candy seemed like lots for little money. It was pretty and sweet, too. They didn’t need to chew because it dissolved into near nothingness.

Too many are satisfied with “cotton candy” theology – sweet to the taste but is near nothingness to life’s realities. Satan uses the world and our flesh to crave “cotton candy” rather than craving God’s eternal Word and Christ’s flesh. Because many neglect God’s Word, they are incapable of addressing moral and spiritual conflicts at home or in the academic world or in the political realm. We need the meat of God’s Word more than the cotton candy of worldly philosophy.

Jesus asks His close friends, “Are you going to leave me, too?” Simon Peter makes the great confession. “Lord, where else are we going to go? You and you alone have the words of eternal life.” We bring our sin. Jesus brings His words. We call that worship. His words may not be the most entertaining or uplifting words every Sunday. They will not satisfy the flesh’s constant craving to be entertained, amused, uplifted and intrigued. “New and improved” is not a label you can hang on Jesus. But remember, when it comes to death and resurrection, Jesus is the hands down expert in the field. No one does death and resurrection like Jesus. In fact, no one else does death and resurrection. And no one else has the words of eternal life.

We are here not to be entertained, amused or even emotionally uplifted. If that is why you came, you will likely leave as disappointed as the disciples who left Jesus in disgust. We are here to die and rise with Jesus. To die to our sin and to our selves and to be raised up out of our sin and death to eternal life by the forgiveness of sins. That’s the only item on the agenda and no one calls the shots here but the Lord. Jesus’ words are at work here. They are doing what they say. Forgiving sin and bestowing life and the life-giving Spirit. They are the words of eternal life. They are the words of the Holy One of God who died for you and He will never lie to you or deceive you with his words.

That’s faith. Faith delights to hear even the “hard words.” Especially the hard words. Those are solid and sure words. You can take those words to the grave with you, and with those words, Jesus will raise you up on the Last Day. You can take those words of forgiveness and use them against your sin. You can take those words of promise in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper and trust them for all they’re worth. They are Spirit and life from the mouth of Jesus into your ears. Simple words. Powerful words. Hard words. The words of life. Amen.