A Forever Promise

John 6:51-58

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.” 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

 

 

Almost four years ago, my husband Ken and I were standing in the front of a church on our wedding day and said to each other:

In the presence of God and this community,

I, take you, to be my wife/husband;

to have and to hold from this day forward,

in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.

This is my solemn vow.

This was a promise that we entered into knowing that it applied to the days that it is easy to love each other as well as the days when it was less than easy to love each other.  We made this promise knowing that it applied to the days filled with joy as much as it does the days that are filled with sorrow.  We made this promise knowing that it was a promise of mutual relationship.

The gospel text for today continues in the Gospel of John and the Bread of Life discourse.  We have heard about Jesus feeding 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, we have heard of Jesus encouraging those listening to work for food that will not perish, we have heard God using ordinary elements and people to do extraordinary things.  And this week gospel, Jesus offers to us his very own flesh and blood.

In Hebrew, the term “flesh and blood” is an idiom which refers to the whole person, hearts, minds, spirit, feelings, hopes, dreams, fears, and concerns.  Jesus is confronting those around him with the claim and promise that the God who takes on flesh, who becomes incarnate becomes just like us so that we may one day be like God.  Jesus speaks of giving his flesh and blood to tell us just what is at stake for Jesus and how much we are worth to him.

Jesus says “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them”.  This is both an invitation and a promise given to us in Jesus flesh and blood on the cross and every time we share in the meal of Holy Communion.  It serves as a promise that as much as Jesus abides in us we are invited to abide with Jesus.  It is a mutual relationship of abiding.  We are invited into and given the clear promise to share in all of Jesus’ life and his death.  Jesus becomes the word made flesh, given to us in a physical, visible form so that we meet the God who wants all of us forever.  Martin Copenhaver, a preacher and pastor says it this way: For those who receive Jesus, the whole Jesus, his life clings to their bones and courses through their veins. He can no more be taken from the believer’s life than last Tuesday’s breakfast can by plucked from one’s body.”

In this gospel text and in the sacrament of Holy Communion we are given a promise and an invitation that God will be with us forever, that we will remain with God forever, that God will stick with us through the ups and downs that this life has to offer.  A promise that cannot and will not be taken away from us.  David Lose says it this way: “In Jesus, the whole of God meets us to love, redeem, and sustain the whole of who we are, good, bad, and ugly”.

God makes this promise to us; to meet us, love us, redeem us, and sustain the whole of who we are, the good, bad, and ugly knowing that we are broken people.  God makes this promise to us knowing that we will not always be faithful to our promises to God.  God makes this promise to us knowing that there will be days that we will be easy to love and days that it is more of a challenge to love.  God makes this promise to us knowing that it is applied to days that are filled with joy as much as it applies to the days that are filled with sorrow.  God makes this promise to us because God cares about our births, our deaths, our marriages, our jobs, our successes, our failures, and God has joined God’s own self to them and to us through Christ, the Word incarnate, the Word made flesh, and given for us on the cross.

In this meal, God offers us life itself.  In this meal God invites us into relationship.  In this meal, God offers us a promise that will never be broken or taken away from us.  In this meal may we taste and see all that God has invited us into, all that God offers, and the relationship that clings to our very bones and courses through our veins forever.