Without Christ it is not church [Jn 6]

What can one say about this? Christ is claiming to be God. There is no two ways about it. And the Jews are shocked, for as they note, they knew him as a child. They cannot understand how the child of Mary and Joseph claims to be the Christ.

Now, why do we need the bread of life? Because we err. before we get out of bed, most mornings.

One of the things we have to realize is that we need to keep short accounts. It is important that we do so. Otherwise, we might just find ourselves dead.

Tributes are flowing around the world for New Zealand mountain biker Kelly McGarry, who died after collapsing while riding on the high slopes above Queenstown yesterday afternoon.

The 33-year-old, one of New Zealand’s best slopestyle mountain bikers and track builders, was riding with two companions when he collapsed from his bike on the Fernhill Loop riding track.

Senior Sergeant Paula Enoka, of Queenstown police, said the pair performed CPR on McGarry after he came off his bike, but he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics about 4.20pm.

The unexplained death has been referred to the coroner, and police would take statements from his riding companions and partner today.

And we need to recall that God judges differently from us.

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.”

(John 6:41-51 ESV)

One could take this as referring to communion, but there is a deeper implication. That Christ was saying he was God. This led, at one point, to his family trying to lock him away. And it was unthinkable to the Pharisees, who had a model of what their saviour should be.

Jesus was not that model, but God is not tame.

And we should not have an idea that God is going to fit into our models of society, or our models of God: our theologies have truth within but we are limited in our understanding of who God is and what he did for us.

In the end, we should not be too smart about our theology, or to snarky about our leadership. For Christ is in the church, though it be imperfect and full of flawed people, leadership included. And it is Christ who is our leader, salvation, and judge. WIthout Christ it is not church