During a remodeling project, a sign appeared in the library of a large mid-western university:  “Due to reorganization, the basement will be on the second floor, one half of the second floor will be on the first floor, but one half will remain on the second floor.”

       I think that many people approach this portion of the 6^th chapter of John with as much uncertainty as this sign would cause in the average student.  This is a very complex passage filled with rapidly shifting images.  Peter, the focus of our Lenten study, doesn’t even appear until the very end.  But when he does, it’s decisive.

       Jesus has fed the multitude on the other side of the Sea of Galilee and then, during the very early part of the morning, He came walking to His frightened disciples across the wind-swept sea.  We looked at Peter’s attempt to walk on the sea this last week in our small groups.  The crowd follows Jesus across the lake and find Him near Peter’s hometown of Capernaum.   They come to Jesus and ask Him when He got there.

       Jesus doesn’t answer their question.  Instead He confronts them with their motives in following Him.  He says that they haven’t come because they have thought about the spiritual significance of what they have seen and heard.  Instead, they’ve followed because they are hoping for more food.  Like some children, their gratitude consists of a lively expectation of favors still to come.  They haven’t come because of their full hearts but because of their full stomachs.

       Then Jesus tells them to labor for the right kind of food.  He says, “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.”  They reply, “Alright, tell us what to do.  What shall we do that we may work the works of God?” 

       In other words, how do we know how to do God’s will?  Where is the list of rules for us to keep?  We don’t really expect a free lunch, Jesus.  We know there’s no such thing.  What’s the price for this special bread?

       Peter is listening to all of this.  And I believe that Peter is right there with the crowd.  He is willing to follow Jesus.  He’s willing to give His all – especially after that water walking fiasco the night before.  The higher the cost, the tougher the to-do list, the happier Peter will be.  He’s waiting for Jesus’ answer.  “Yeah, Jesus.  What must I do that I may work the works of God?”

       “What must we do?”  That’s our usual, predictable, first response.  That says a lot about us.  We want to be in control.  We want to be the ones who do whatever needs to be done.

       “What must we do?”  The question assumes that we have to do something to earn life’s rewards.  And it assumes that by our deeds we are able to control our own destinies.  Then we can put our trust in our own efforts, rather than trusting the mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ.

       “What must we do?”  If that’s the primary question, then we will have reasons for feeling superior to others who, in our opinion, don’t do as we do. 

       But Jesus says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”

       According to Jesus, the first priority is not to do, but to believe -- to believe in Him whom God has sent -- to believe that the love and mercy we see in Jesus are for us and for all people.  Believing is what changes our lives, and makes us whole. No amount of hard work will ever give us a new view of ourselves as loved and precious people. 

       But there are many who concentrate on the “what” of life -- and even the Christian life, because they don’t like what they are called to do in relation to the “Who.”  What they are called to do is put away their pride and any pretense that they are earning or deserving their salvation.

       Theologian Karl Barth stated the dilemma this way in his Deliverance to the Captives:  “We dislike hearing that we are saved by grace, and by grace alone solely as a result of faith. We do not appreciate that God does not owe us anything, that we are bound to live from His goodness alone, that we are left with nothing but the great humility, the thankfulness of a child presented with many gifts.  For we do not like at all to look away from ourselves.  To put it bluntly: we do not like to believe.”

       And yet Jesus said that “believe” is the first thing we must do.  The people speak about the “what.”  “What must we do that we may work the works of God?”  Jesus answers with “Who.” This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He has sent. Until we make that basic submission of faith we are not in the Christian life -- no matter what “Christian” things we may be doing.

       The people recognize Jesus’ call to faith in the “who” of who He.  And, very characteristically, they respond with another question about the “what.”  We will see this interplay all through this passage.

       They asked: “What then do You do for a sign that we may see and believe You? What work do You perform? You gave us a meal, Jesus, but Moses did that much when he gave the people manna to eat in the wilderness.

        Maybe Peter has an idea at this point.  I can see Peter swinging his hand back and forth and bouncing in his seat saying “Ooh, Oooh” likeArnold Horshack in the old Welcome Back Kotter T.V. series.  “Jesus, show them that walking on the sea you did last night.  That will convince them!”

       Peter is waving his hand.  But Jesus doesn’t call on Peter.  Instead, He answers the request for a sign with an observation about the bread that Moses had provided. He said that it wasn’t from Moses but from God. Then He went on saying that God continues to give this bread.

        Maybe by this time the people realize that they aren’t going to get another sign so they decide to be satisfied with bread. Maybe they are hungry again.  They say, “Alright Jesus, give us more bread -- and this time keep it coming.”

        And at this point Jesus turns the conversation back from the “what” to the “Who.”  He says: “I am the bread of life. I Myself am the sign that you are looking for.”

        I think at this point the people in the crowd get a collective “huh?” look on their faces.  The conversation has just taken a turn that leaves them with mental whiplash.    

       Jesus knows that He is being misunderstood but He doesn’t back away from what He is saying. He is not going to change His message because it doesn’t suit the ears of His hearers. His ministry has come to the great divide. Now He will see who has followed Him for what He provides, and who has followed Him for who He is.  The course He is now charting leads to the cross and beyond.

       Jesus begins to speak once again of Himself as the bread of life.  But now He adds another full dimension. To this point, Jesus’ hearers could have imagined that Jesus was speaking of Himself as the Bread of Life in a sense of imitation -- they would find life if they lived the way He lived. 

       But Jesus is not a “show-er of the way to God.” He is “the way to God.”  Our life in Him is not us doing the things He has done or even suffering the way He has suffered.  It is Jesus doing in us what we could never do in ourselves.

        Now comes that part that really triggers the crowd.

In verse 53 Jesus says, “Truly, truly I say to you (which is a way of emphasizing that what is about to be said is an absolute and important fact) unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.”  Then He adds, “The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.”

       Jesus says something that shocks His hearers.  It is not only the eating of flesh that is required but the drinking of blood.  The Jews from Genesis 9:4 onward were forbidden the tasting of blood.  You couldn’t get a decent prime rib in all of Galilee.  All of their meat was cooked well-done.  Jesus is proposing an idea that is abhorrent – even apart from the image of cannibalism.

       Peter is also thoroughly shocked.  Peter is as kosher as they come.  Later, in Acts 10, Peter is told by God to eat food that Peter has always known to be unclean.  He refuses and refuses again until he finally gets the point.

       I don’t think Peter got the point here in John 6.  Jesus’ words and the images Jesus create disgust him.

       But the image is also necessary.  For flesh and blood in separation is an occurrence that comes with death. Jesus is saying that the people will find life only through accepting the result of His death.

       As Dr. Alexander MacLaren wrote more than half a century ago, “When a man trusts Christ he appropriates to himself, and incorporates into his inmost being, the very life of Jesus Christ. You may say, ‘That is mysticism,’ but it is the New Testament teaching, that when I trust Christ I get more than His gifts...I get Himself; that when my faith goes out to Him it not only rests me on Him, but it brings Him into me, and that food of the Spirit becomes the life of my spirit.”

       With this union between us and Jesus, we have a promise.  Jesus said, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  Moses gave manna but the people still died.  Those who eat of Jesus, the Bread of Life, will never die.

Se we can live now with confidence, hope, and joy.

       That’s a great promise that I have pointed to in any number of memorial services.  But I don’t think most of the people in the crowd remember the promise.  They are get hung up on the flesh and blood part.

       And, to be honest, I doubt that we would have understood it either if we had been there. Easter and the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit have given us an insight that they did not have.

       For the people in the crowd, Jesus is just not turning out to be the Messiah they have been expecting.  They are unable to get at the meaning behind Jesus shocking words about eating flesh and drinking blood. If all we saw was the surface meaning we wouldn’t like it either. Very few of us are into cannibalism – only three or four of you that I know of.

       The people say according to verse 60, “This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it?”  The word translated as “hard” or “difficult” literally means “offensive.”  The people are offended by Jesus’ words.

       And finally, as verse 66 declares, “Many of Jesus’ disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him any more.”  These aren’t just hangers on who are leaving. These are disciples.  The high tide of Jesus’ popularity with the people has arrived and is now past.  It was not just the crowd that leaves, but also many of those who had been considered Jesus’ disciples.

       Then in verse 67 comes one of the most touching moments in scripture. Jesus turns to the twelve, His closest friends, and asks the question He needs to ask, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”  It may truly be said that the church hung in the balance at that moment.

       Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have words of eternal life.”

       Peter has no clear grasp as yet how Jesus can be the bread that came down from heaven, to bring us eternal life, or how eternal life can and must result from Jesus’ death.  But Peter will not leave.  For Peter is very sure that Jesus’ words, even His really gross, cannibalistic sounding ones, though difficult to understand, are somehow vital.  He’ll stay with Jesus until he does understand.

       And more than that, he is not prepared to turn his back on what he had already experienced with Jesus -- how just the night before He had come to them across the waves to bring them to safety.  It is impossible that Peter should leave the One to whom he owes his life.

        Where else can we go?  It is Jesus who holds the words of eternal life.

       My good friend Tony Amatengelo is the pastor of Lifespring Community Church here in town.  One time in a sermon he looked at Jesus’ claims to be the only way to God – and the scandal that causes even today – in light of the modern delusion that all religions are equally true.  Tony said, “Sure, all roads lead to God.  The difference is what happens when you get there.”

       Tony’s right.  Everyone has eternal life.  The question is “where will we spend it?  What do you need to know before you respond to the One who offers you safety. 

       Imagine a person helplessly trapped on the sixth floor of a burning hotel.  The elevators no longer function, the stairways are flaming infernos.  To live, the man must leap into a net which firemen down below are holding ready.  Imagine the trapped man screaming from his broken window, “I will not jump until you give me a satisfactory explanation of several things: (1) How did the fire get started?  (2) Why has it spread so quickly?  (3) What happened to the sprinkler system? And (4) How do I know for sure that net will hold me?  Until you guys can come up with some pretty substantial answers, I’m staying right here in room 612!”

        Well slice it up and analyze it any way you wish.  When we reduce our response to God’s offer of salvation, it comes down to faith – being willing to give ourselves, without reservation, to the eternal net God has spread – leaping while believing that God will do what He has promised.   

       That’s where Peter is.  That’s the choice he has made.  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have words of eternal life.”