February 23, 2025 A Hunger for the Gospel | John 6:35-51

Today we will wrap up our series on what we hunger for, by reflecting on John 6:35-51, A Hunger for the Gospel. Jesus gives us a picture of the gospel message in this short passage. Jesus gives life as the bread of life, he comes from heaven to claim his people and they will have eternal life. Jesus is both fully human and fully God and so he’s the only one able to give us life and forgive us all our sins. Death and sin are part of the world, but Jesus is returning to restore and reconcile all creation to himself.

Transcript

A Hunger for the Gospel

John 6:35-51

This morning we’re wrapping up our series on things that our hearts and souls’ hunger for, reflecting on having a hunger for the gospel for the good news of Jesus Christ. All through history, people have searched for good news, for hope, and a reason to keep on going when things feel dark. The majority of the news today feels bad. Our hearts long for good news to counter the bad and fill us with hope. That good news was already celebrated this morning in the Lord’s Supper as we celebrated Jesus, the Son of God and how he made us right with God, bringing new life and hope. 

As I reflected on our passage, I heard the echoes of the doctrines of comfort found in the Canons of Dordt as we hear Jesus offering us his good news. Jesus doesn’t lay it straight out in a logical systematic way; he tells us his gospel news through telling us who he is and through the story of Israel. Just before our passage, John tells us how Jesus fed 5,000 plus people with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 small fish. After feeding the people, Jesus went off by himself while the disciples jumped into a boat to go to the other side of the lake. In the night, Jesus joined his disciples by walking to them on the water. Jesus is the creator and controls the elements of creation from bread, to fish, to the water he walked on, echoing back to the beginning of John’s gospel where he reminds us that all things were created through Jesus. 

The next day, on the other side of the lake, the crowd finds Jesus again. Jesus now has this conversation with them; the people were looking for more bread and it’s easier to ask Jesus for it than work for it themselves. They’re looking for Jesus to provide them with bread like God did with manna for the 40 years they wandered in the wilderness. Jesus reminds them that the bread they ate didn’t come from Moses, but it came from God, Jesus’ Father. This is true bread from heaven that gives life to the world. 

Now Jesus declares, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus goes on to say that those who come to him will never go hungry, and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty. This is life nourishing language, this is God providing language, showing us how he gives life, nourishes life, because he is the “I Am,” echoing back to God’s meeting with Moses in the burning bush. To those who are hungering and thirsting, this is good news, gospel news. We hear echoes to Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well when he offered her living water, pointing to the gift of the Holy Spirit being poured out on God’s people. Jesus reveals himself to her as the promised Messiah, the one who has come to save his people. 

Jesus tells the people in the crowd, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” Jesus is declaring here that he is even more than the promised Messiah, he’s actually the Son of God! 

Jesus comes from heaven because after he and the Father created everything very good, sin entered into creation through the temptation of Adam and Eve by the serpent. They weren’t wise enough to know the good and very good they had in trusting God, and so they fall for the serpent’s slippery words, bringing the curse of death, as God had warned them about when he gave them one rule, “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” God doesn’t reject Adam and Eve, he gives them clothes to cover their nakedness and allows the consequences of their sin play out, but he also promises them a Messiah who will come and crush the head of the serpent, save his people, bringing new life into creation, and renewing and restoring it again; good news, gospel news! The crowd hears this, they understand what Jesus is saying, but they have a hard time accepting it, “At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” 

As we see Jesus challenge the crowd, we hear the comfort of what we call the doctrine of unconditional election when Jesus talks about how he will lose none of the ones his Father gives him, the ones the Father chooses to save. We know through the story of Scripture that the Lord chooses us not because we deserve it, but out of his own gracious will. In choosing us, God is showing the nations his amazing grace and good will. We hear Jesus tell the people that he’s not going to lose anyone the father gives him, the doctrine of perseverance of the saints. The perseverance isn’t on our part, it’s God’s perseverance in not giving up on us, his people; he refuses to let go of us, reassuring us that we cannot lose our faith because it’s a gift given by him. It’s not our perseverance that leads to our salvation; it’s Jesus’ perseverance that leads to our salvation and new life; to eternal life with Jesus. it’s all Jesus.

There’s also an acknowledgement here by Jesus that not everyone is going to be saved. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” There are those the Father is not sending to Jesus. This is often hard to hear. In our compassion for others, we wonder how can it be that a God of love would not send everyone to Jesus to be saved and raised up on the last day when Jesus returns to reunite heaven and earth and renew all things. 

Jesus helps us understand this in parables like the one in Luke 13, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth.” We read this as the people on the outside of the door weeping in sorrow, but the words Jesus uses give us a different picture. 

In the Old Testament, gnashing of teeth was an expression of anger reserved for the wicked and for one’s enemies. In the New Testament, gnashing of teeth is connected to future punishment and the wicked people’s refusal to repent before God’s judgment and acknowledge the justness of God’s judgment. We read in Revelation 16, “They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him…. and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.” They refused the offer of a relationship with God and Jesus and instead kept choosing themselves and their heart desires. This is about God’s justice, and having walked with those who been abused and persecuted, part of their healing was being reassured by Scripture that their abusers would have to stand before God’s justice even if they managed to escape justice here. This is about Jesus claiming his people and his creation back from Satan and casting Satan and his people into the lake of fire.

Jesus’ atonement for our sin is great enough for all sinners, but is only given to those who are chosen by God and accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. In Acts 10:43, Peter, when he goes to Cornelius’ house, even though he’s a Gentile, tells the household, “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Paul says something very similar in Romans 10:9, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Salvation comes through having a relationship with Jesus. Jesus talks about raising his people up on the last day. This is the day Jesus welcomes us home and renews us again to the very good of creation. 

When we allow the gospel story to shape our thoughts and how we understand the world, it gives us a strong foundation to walk through life with strength, knowing that we’re given what we need to move through each day, shaped by the gospel story who are willing to walk alongside us and remind us of the good news we live in. This is worldview stuff, shaping what we value and love and when we allow the gospel to shape us. We will love God more than anything, we will love our neighbour so much we can’t help but share the gospel with them so they can know the love of Jesus too. We become more Christ-like.