“I Am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will not thirst.” So says and promises your Savior, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of the living God. He has come down from the Father in heaven, and He has become flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood by His conception and birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in order to give you Life.
And you have come to Him — you are a Christian, and you are here in the Lord’s House on this Lord’s Day — because the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has called you and drawn you to Him. So do you believe and trust in Him, because the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel and opened your heart and mind with His gifts, whereby He also sanctifies and keeps you in Christ.
By no means shall you be cast out. You shall not hunger or thirst, nor lack for any good thing in body or soul. You shall not perish but live. For Christ Jesus, your Lord, to whom the Father has given you in love, shall raise you up on the last day to live with Him forever in His Righteousness.
In the meantime, though, on your sojourn to the Promised Land of Paradise, from the waters of your Holy Baptism in His Name He has led you into this desert wilderness. And in this present case and circumstance there is rather a lot of hunger and thirst, sickness, suffering, and death. Indeed, you are hungry and thirsty, not only in your body, but in your heart, mind, and spirit.
What is more, you suffer such afflictions, wants, and needs in this body and life, not only because of your sins and failings and foolish mistakes, but in some respects precisely because of your faith and faithfulness, because of the fair and holy Name with which you have been named, because you are a Christian, a disciple of Christ Jesus. Instead of sparing you from all the hurts and sorrows in this life, His Word first lays the Cross upon you, putting you to death before it raises you up.
Nevertheless, it is also the case that you are not so faithful and righteous in your heart and mind, in all your words and actions. Instead of steadfast faith and confident trust in the Lord your God, you harbor doubts and fears, frustrations, and discouragements. You nurture bitter resentments, you toy with cynical despair, and you blame God and your neighbor for all your troubles, instead of seeking how best to love and serve those whom the Lord has entrusted to your care. Against those who have sinned against you, instead of the forgiveness and peace that you should exercise in Jesus’ Name, you maintain animosity, you accuse and condemn. Instead of speaking with the grace of the Gospel, you grumble and complain and utter harsh and spiteful words. Thus do you harden your heart against even your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus; whereby you also harden your heart against the Lord Himself, against the Father of all mercies and the God of all comforts.
You do not yet see what your eyes long to see, neither in yourself, in your own body and life, nor in the world and people around you. And you struggle to watch and wait patiently on the Lord. Your belly may be filled and satisfied for awhile, but it’s not long before it growls and rumbles once again; and even when your body is full, your heart and mind still hunger for peace and rest.
So, then, why not just give up and die? That is the question of your fallen flesh, when you’re not striving to make a god out of yourself, to obtain and preserve a life for yourself. You can go from towering pride to the pits of despair in a heartbeat. After all, what’s the use or point in trying?
Your fathers ate their daily bread. Whatever they were like, whether they prayed or not, whether they were evil or good, God the Father almighty opened His hand to feed them, to shower them with sunshine and rain, to give them everything they needed for this body and life. To be sure, your fathers ate their bread, thanks be to God, day by day, year after year. And then they died!
How, then, shall you survive and live? Eat, drink, and be merry; and tomorrow you still die. Or stop eating altogether and starve yourself to death. What difference does it make? Whether you live twenty years or seventy, forty-five or ninety, what does it even matter? No amount of daily food and drink will preserve your life forever. It’s easy to become cynical and despondent, to slip into self-pity and despair, as even the Prophet Elijah did when all seemed hopeless and pointless.
But now, then, rest yourself under the Tree here. For this is where you live and die and rise again. It shelters you and shades you, in any case, even when you’re ready to give up and die in disgust.
Here consider that your dear Lord Jesus has suffered and died for you in tender-hearted kindness, in divine mercy and compassion, and with great love for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.
His Cross and Passion, His innocent suffering and death were not meaningless or pointless, nor without hope. Rather, these voluntary works of His are a sweet-smelling sacrifice and offering, whereby you are beloved and well-pleasing to His God and Father. You know that’s true, because God has raised this same Jesus from the dead, never to die again. This same Jesus — the Lamb of God who came down from heaven and became flesh, who took your sins upon Himself and died in your place — He is risen from the dead. So, then, you also are raised up to live with Him.
What is more, even in your suffering you are not cast aside. You are not abandoned or forgotten. What you may suffer as a consequence of your sins is a discipline for your good, unto repentance and new life in the free and full forgiveness of all your sins. And what you suffer as a Christian in faith and love resounds to the glory of God and for the benefit of your neighbors in His Name.
In every and all cases, the bottom line remains that, baptized into Christ Jesus, you do not suffer for yourself, nor by yourself, and you do not die alone. In Christ you live, even though you die.
He who for your sake died and was raised now strengthens and sustains you here under this Tree of His Cross. Even here in the wilderness of this world, even in the valley of the shadow of death.
He loves you. He has compassion for you, as well as sympathy for all your trials and temptations. He is kind and merciful. He daily and richly forgives all your sins by the Ministry of His Gospel; and as your sins are forgiven, death and the grave are defeated, and life and salvation are yours.
The Father has given His Son from heaven for you, in the flesh, to save you. To give you life. That is His good and gracious will! That is the very thing that God most desires, and He does it.
In the Liturgy of preaching and the Sacrament, the Lord Jesus stretches out His hand to lay hold of you in love, to raise you up from death to life, to enliven your body and soul, to strengthen your heart, mind, and spirit in faith and love, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.
The one Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, here feeds you with His Flesh and Blood, which He has given into death upon the Cross for you and for all people. These He now gives to you and pours out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of your sins, just as He says, and so also for Life and Salvation in and with Him, in both your body and your soul, forever and ever.
Arise, therefore. And here, under the Tree of His Cross, eat His Body from His opened hand, and take up His Chalice of Salvation. The journey that stretches out before you is too much for you to travel on your own, but with this Food and Drink He travels with you every step of the way, by night as by day, through good times and bad. He shall not abandon you in the heat of the desert, but He shall strengthen and sustain you in the one true faith and raise you up in Glory at the last.
So it is that you live and die in peace and confidence. And so shall you also be raised from death and the grave and the dust of the earth to endless joy and bliss and gladness in His presence.
Again I say, arise and eat, as Christ Jesus stretches out His hand to feed you. For on the strength and vitality of this Food, the very Bread of Life, you are brought to the Mountain of God in peace.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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