Bread of life (again) John 6:35,41-51

John 6:35,41-51 Gospel reading for Sunday 12th August 2012

Spare a thought for the audience listening to these words of Jesus as articulated by John.

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live for ever.This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Take away the huge advantage that we have as we hear these words standing on the other side of the cross and surely we too would think that this bloke is some kind of crack-pot. Bread - flesh - eating his flesh? Has he lost his marbles?

As I said last week ... tough job being God, trying to get through to the people.

John obviously wrote in a style and with imagery that was difficult to decipher ... but let's not forget the context of John's Gospel. It is easy to overlook the fact that it was probably one of the last books of the New Testament to be written. All of Paul's thirteen epistles for example, were written around 40 years earlier! John was writing at a time when the people were lost and struggling to believe in Jesus and furthermore it was life-threatening to be associated with Christian people and beliefs.

There is actually an uncanny similarity between the situation and context that John was writing for with that of our Lutheran schools today. It is still a tough job trying to convince the world that there is substance to this Jesus stuff (... thankfully not yet life-threatening in this country). We will hear more about the reaction of the people in the next two readings ... so I'll leave it sit there for the moment.

In the meantime, let's not play down the significance of the power of the real bread that Jesus offers through the instigation of his Holy meal ... there-in lies a tremendous source of strength for us to genuinely and seriously go about the task of showing people Jesus in our schools. When did we last celebrate Holy Communion together as a whole group in our school community?

Nev