In the second passage today Jesus blows up his ministry. The teaching around the bread of life, and the fact that they will have to eat Christ, was repugnant.
Cannibalism.
We know Christ was prefiguring the meal of memorial we call communion: when we recall his death until he comes. He also was literally saying that you will only come to God if you claim the promises and the words I said, for (Jesus said) I am God, and I died for you.
And here we run into the first barrier for modern post-Christians and Churchians. They have been taught from the Gospel of Oprah — you are so good, that you will be welcomed into the kingdom. The light of creation flows out through your flaws. You are spiritual, wise, eternal.
You do not need to be humble and dependant. Your life does not live on the words of God. The church has to bend.
And this is bullshit. Worse than ordure, for that can fertilize a field. This delusion blinds you to the need for repentance.
1. This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. 2. Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
30. So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31. Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” 32. Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
48; I am the bread of life. 49. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The response of the Jewish people hearing this was that this was too hard — and they left. Jesus went from thousands listening to but a handful of disciples.
And he did it, for unlike the modern ministry, kept in chain by their fear of disapproval or the human rights organizations (from the ACLU and SPLC to the Human Rights Commissioners) they will not preach the law.
Which we need to do. We need to stand on biblical principles, and not let the fashions of this age change the way we live.
To some extent, we are fortunate, for we have lost one delusion: that the country and powers that be are Christian. They are not: they are functionally pagan. Which means that our first prayer for them should be salvation, and the second that they leave us alone. For we should never ask them for permission.
This leads into an experience from yesterday. One son and I went to Milford Sound, with a tour group. The tour group included a man on holiday with his wife and child: they work in Asia. We then found he worked for the state department, and he was a special agent for them. At this point I found myself toning down my speech: the son wanted to talk economics and American foreign policy. I felt that my words were being weighed.
I should have answered his questions a little more frankly, which would have probably offended the bureaucrat behind me.
But I live in NZ. My main worry is that the Human Rights Commission will consider this place hate speech, or that HR at work will consider this place an unfit activity. (I know HR does consider anything conservative unfit: they are liberal, chicks, and vindictive. I publish so I do not perish).
But we cannot fear. Speaking the truth will drive people away, and annoy those who consider success as some form of measurement. But not preaching the gospel — that is death, both individually and as a community, a congregation.
“Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?”