August 16, 2015

It is hard for humans to understand God. Where is God? What is God? Who is God? Why is God? Is God necessary? What does God look like? Does God know that I exist? Does God care whether I exist or not? Does God answer prayer? -- I can understand why people like idols. You can see an idol, touch it. It may be made of stone or wood or metal, but it is not an invisible spirit or ghost. And so people think they can control an idol by prayers and offerings and various activities. The thing about God as revealed in the Bible is that humans cannot control God. Because people cannot see or control God, there are perhaps two reactions. One is to reject God: either by unbelief or by ignoring God. The other reaction might be a faith that is vague and intangible. People might talk about the Man Upstairs or something. People might think that since they cannot control God, why pray or worry about the way they live? How can a person relate to someone or something that cannot be seen, touched, heard, smelled, or felt? How can you or me or anyone believe in such a god?

And so God sent his Son Jesus Christ to the world. This is called gThe Incarnationh which means gGod Taking on Human Fleshh or gGod in the Flesh.h God has a form in the Person of Jesus Christ. People can see and hear and talk to and touch and be touched by God. In Jesus Christ, God is not vague and intangible. This is part of what Jesus meant when he said, g51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.h Jesus declares that he is God from heaven. He gives the means/the way that we can live forever. It is bread that gives eternal life. This bread is his flesh. It is his body. This is the body that was born at Christmas, that suffered and died on the cross, and that rose on the third day. This is God in this world, on this earth, doing things that people can see. Jesus is not a spirit or ghost. His body is so real that it could be eaten, but we are not cannibals. His body was so real that it could die. His body was so real that in his resurrection he proves that our bodies too can rise!

This is why our Christian religion is not just spiritualism. Our religion is concrete in this world. Because Jesus had a body in this world, we know that he cares about this world. And so we too are concerned about the things of this physical world. The expression to love your neighbor is more than how we feel in our hearts; it is how we put that love into action. God loved this world and so he put that love into action. John 3:16, gGod so loved the world that he sent his One and Only Son.h It is the love shown in the suffering and death of Jesus. It is the love that forgives our sin.

And so a Christian lives in this world. When we have problems and fears and temptations and sins and doubt, we would love to escape this world, we would love to escape the physical world and meditate in spiritual solitude, or even together with other people in spiritual ecstasy. And it is a fact that in prayer and worship and song that we do find refuge and peace and comfort in God. But it is not that we escape what is real, we rather go to what is really, truly, the ultimate reality. We go to God.

In todayfs Gospel reading, Jesus talks about how it is necessary to eat his body and drink his blood. He said,

gTruly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.h@@

He was preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum that day. Many people who heard him could not understand his message. He said that people must eat him, that this was the one and only way to have eternal life, that he was the Messiah sent from heaven by God his Father. Besides, drinking blood was against the Law of Moses. It was hard for the people to understand and believe Jesus, and so after that most people stopped walking with Jesus as he traveled from town to town.

hen Jesus asked his Twelve Disciples how they felt.

67So Jesus said to the Twelve, gDo you want to go away as well?h 68Simon Peter answered him, gLord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.h@@

gLord, to whom shall we go?h I would like to translate Peterfs words like this: eLord, to whom ELSE shall we go? Where ELSE can we go? There is NOWHERE ELSE to go. Lord, to whom else COULD we go? YOU, and ONLY you have the words of eternal life. YOU are the Messiah, the Savior sent by God. We not only believe it, we KNOW it!f

"You have the words of eternal life." In the Book of Acts, in Chapter 4:12, when St. Peter was on trial before the Jewish leaders he spoke of Jesus and the resurrection and said, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Where else can we go, you have the words of eternal life. It was a clear teaching of the Apostles that only Jesus can give eternal life.

There are not many paths to heaven. Jesus taught that in Matthew 7:13, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

It is the true joy of Christians that we follow Jesus. We are following someone who is real, and that makes our life real and meaningful and worthwhile.

Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

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