I think that it may be a safe assumption to make that when you all came here this evening, you didn’t expect to hear a sermon about grumbling. If you did, boy, someone must have let my secret out of the bag or you hacked into my computer or something……But, in all seriousness, we are confronted with grumbling in our text. Did you happen to notice how today’s Gospel lesson begins? It starts with these words: "At this the Jews began to grumble against Jesus." That’s right, they were grumbling. This verb in the Greek can also be translated murmuring, (which is how some English translations choose to translate this verb). Either way, it means to talk softly against or complain about someone. Why were these Jews grumbling about Jesus? Because of what He had said. They murmured because Jesus said He was "the bread of life which came down from heaven." Their contention was this: "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ’I have come down from heaven.’" These people grumbled because Jesus was making a divine claim for Himself, and they didn’t like it. They didn’t believe it. After all, this was just Jesus. These people knew His father and mother. How could He possible be divine? How could He possibly be God? They just couldn’t see beyond the humanity of Jesus to see the divine nature of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
But we wouldn’t act like that, would we? We wouldn’t murmur over claims that Jesus is the Son of God, would we? We wouldn’t grumble about the claims that Jesus makes, would we? No, we wouldn’t. We absolutely wouldn’t! After all, we have heard and learned what the Bible has to say about Jesus. We know of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. We know of His suffering and death. We know about His resurrection and ascension. And not only do we know about those things - we believe them to be true. No, we would not murmur against Jesus as did these people - murmur as if Jesus were a nobody.
But what if we turn this idea on its head. What about if instead of murmuring against Jesus, we think about murmuring for ourselves? What if instead of saying that Jesus is a nobody, we contend that we are somebodies? It’s really the same thing. The people contending against Jesus did so because they considered themselves significant - important. After all, didn’t they know Jesus parents? And didn’t that knowledge by itself indicate that Jesus couldn’t possibly be what He claimed to be?
And, really, when we contend for ourselves we are also speaking against Jesus. But how do we do that, you might ask? How could I speak in favor of myself, and thereby speak against Jesus? Well, it happens every time we insist on having our way in opposition to God’s way.
Satan has duped you. He has convinced you that you have to take care of yourselves. He has persuaded you that no one will see to your needs if you don’t. And, even beyond that, Satan has even convinced you of what your needs are. That’s why we’re never satisfied with what we have. Why we are always insisting on more and newer.
You see, according to Satan’s line, God can’t be trusted. Perhaps God is busy and has no time for you Satan says. Or, worse yet, perhaps you have so angered God by your disobedience that He is ignoring you. Maybe God has turned His back on you and left you. Maybe God doesn’t care about you. Satan doesn’t care what approach he uses. Whatever works is fine with him. If he can convince you that you’re too insignificant for God to pay attention to, fine. If, instead, it’s the specter of God’s anger over your sins that works - that’s fine, too.
It’s here that this business of speaking against Jesus comes in. Jesus didn’t fit these people’s image of God. "His father is right here, for crying out loud! How can He say that He has come down from heaven." You see the lowliness of God in human flesh offended these people. The same happens very often yet today. What are some of the popular pictures that seemingly pious people have of God? "Oh, He’s an awesome God," they will say. Awesome. This is such a popular notion of who God is that there is a very popular contemporary song out there sung in a lot of churches today called “Awesome God”, perhaps it is a song you are familiar with. In the "He-can-do-anything-He-wants-anytime-He-wants" sense of the word, yes, it is indeed true, God is awesome. God is all-powerful. Omnipotent is the theological term, perhaps its one you learned in confirmation class like I did.
And all of that is true. But let’s think about it for a moment. Does the picture of God as powerful and exalted, regal and majestic - does that picture bring you comfort? Does the picture of a God in the midst of thunder and lightening and earthquakes on Mt. Sinai - does that put your soul at ease? Does a God who covers His creation with darkness at noonday as He did on Good Friday - does that comfort you? Does a God whose voice thunders out of an enveloping cloud bring you peace? It sure didn’t bring peace to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. Instead, they were scared witless. You see, the God who can do anything He wants, who can create whatever He wants, whenever He wants - the God who has no constraints – that God can also destroy whenever He wants. He can destroy you. If Satan can focus your eyes on that God, then you are lost.
If the God of might and grandeur is your God - then you will speak against Jesus because you will be convinced that your salvation depends on what you do to placate God. The Jews in our text were under this line of thinking, and they just couldn’t think of God lowering himself to such lowly human flesh. These Jewish religious leaders had taken the original 10 commandments that had been given on Mt. Sinai, and expanded them to hundreds of rules and laws that had to be strictly kept in order to appease God and earn his favor or merit. They lived in fear of breaking these commandments, even though many of them were not even from God himself, but made by man. It’s something that we tend to fall into even today, quite often when we put too much emphasis on the omnipotence of God and the glory of God, and how insignificant we are and unable to live up to God’s expectations or earn His favor, you fall short every time.
You will speak against Jesus because He appears to be everything that God is not. God is powerful - Jesus is weak. God is aware of all things - Jesus falls asleep. God is in charge of things - Jesus is led around captive. God has total power to satisfy Himself - Jesus is hungry and thirsty. God lives - Jesus dies. It appears that Jesus is a nobody – the very antithesis of God - and Satan would have you believe that to be true.
But why do you think God came to earth in the human flesh of Jesus? Was that the only choice? Were there no other options? No. God came in the person of Jesus in order to make Himself attractive to you. He came in lowliness and meekness so that you won’t be frightened of Him. God lowered Himself to your place because you could not lift yourself to His place. He came as one of us to draw us to Himself. He appears among man, as man, to take man’s place.
The Jesus of Nazareth who dies on the cross is not some unfortunate peasant who simply got himself caught up in first-century politics. That Jesus is your God. He is your creator. That’s what St John tells you. He is the one who numbers the hairs on your head - the One who knows when even a sparrow falls to the earth. That Jesus is the God who loved you before you were even born - loved you before creation itself was born. Jesus is
the God who has loved you from eternity, and does yet today. You are the apple of His eye. He has come to take your sins unto Himself. He has emptied Himself of the righteousness that is His by right, so that He could fill Himself with the unrighteousness that is yours. He is the sinless One who not only becomes a sinner in your place - Jesus actually becomes sin itself so that He can destroy the power of sin. Sin kills, and Jesus
absorbs that death into Himself. He accepts the wages of sin. He willingly wraps Himself in all of that so that you can live. Like a bridegroom who bestows all his possessions upon his bride, while taking all her debts to himself - Jesus gives up His life, His eternal possession, to give you life. Eternal life. The possessions of Christ become yours.
And what is your responsibility in all this? Nothing. Nothing at all. You don’t even decide to accept this salvation. It is simply placed over you. There are so many in our world who find this so hard to understand that there isn’t anything you can do to appease God or you have to do. Maybe this analogy might help illustrate this point. Did you reach out and accept the first diaper your mother put on you? Did you give yourself over to that diaper? Did you decide you needed that diaper? I doubt it. If anything, you probably just cried. So it was when you were baptized. Jesus draped you with His righteousness. His Word, in His water, made you a new being - made you a child of God. And all you could do of yourself was cry out against it!
A certain seminary professor was very insistent with his seminary students. He would say, "Gentlemen, you do not create faith in Jesus by preaching about faith. You create faith by preaching about Jesus." He was absolutely correct. Faith needs an object to believe in. Faith cannot simply believe in itself. If it tries, it evaporates. Only Jesus can be the object of a saving faith.
And now, all of a sudden, the Law of God takes on a new look, doesn’t it? No longer are you condemned by it. That’s already happened. And that condemnation fell upon Jesus. Now the Law simply becomes the pattern whereby you live your lives by serving God through your neighbor. Why don’t you kill people? Because that would bring harm to your neighbor whom God also loves. Why don’t you steal? Because that would bring harm to your neighbor whom God also loves. Why don’t you commit adultery, or lie, or cheat? Same reason. You don’t try to keep the Law because that will make God happy and He will reward you. You have already been rewarded with the gift of forgiveness through the perfect obedience of Jesus. As a Christian you now look to the Law as a pattern wherein you can show love to God by loving your neighbor. There is no longer any coercion. It’s the apple tree story that Luther would often tell. Why does an apple tree bear apples? Because God ordered it to? No. Simply because that’s what apple trees do. Some more, some less. But always apple trees bear apples. So, too, Christians do good works. Some more, some less. But always it happens simply because that is what a Christian does. That’s what you do. And you know what’s truly amazing? You don’t even realize you’re doing them. Those works simply flow out of you because of what God has made you. You have been redeemed. You are forgiven. You are free. You are Christ’s. It’s simply the promise of Jesus in the Gospel this morning lived out. "Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life." May God grant that for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
And Now may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep you steadfast in true faith until life everlasting. Amen
