Midweek Musings for Sunday, August 9, 2015

  

This week's reflection comes from Patsy Glista, Associate in Ministry

Assistant to the Bishop for Operations 

Reflecting and Dwelling in the Word
Prayer of the Day                    

Gracious God, your blessed Son came down from heaven to be the true bread that gives life to the world. Give us this bread always, that he may live in us and we in him, and that, strengthened by this food, we may live as his body in the world, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

 

Gospel:                                        John 6:35, 41-51 (Message)

35 Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.

 

41-42 At this, because he said, "I am the Bread that came down from heaven," the Jews started arguing over him: "Isn't this the son of Joseph? Don't we know his father? Don't we know his mother? How can he now say, 'I came down out of heaven' and expect anyone to believe him?"  43-46 Jesus said, "Don't bicker among yourselves over me. You're not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me-that's the only way you'll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, 'And then they will all be personally taught by God.' Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally-to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father-and you can see me.  47-51"I'm telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread-living Bread!-who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live-and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self." 

 

Reflection

 

Seeing is believing.  We live every day in a world that wants more and more tangible proof of what is real.  We believe something to be true because we have experienced it, someone else has experienced it and told us or maybe we have read it on Wikipedia, so surely it must be true!  Yet - there are many things that have occurred which we would never have known if someone hadn't believed in something they could not see or touch.  A couple weeks ago we saw the first up close pictures of Pluto from the New Horizons probe.  Look up into the night sky.  Which one of those dots of light in the night sky that you can see is Pluto, do you really know?  Yet over 9 years ago NASA scientists believed enough in what had never been done before to launch New Horizons into space with faith that many years later it would somehow send pictures of this dwarf planet millions of miles back to earth - and it was true!  As a non-space scientist I had a hard time imagining that the satellite could even travel the distance to Pluto let alone send us pictures.  I had to see those pictures to believe. 

 

Jesus calls us to believe in God without seeing.  The Jews question this as they know Jesus is the son of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth.  They know his parents, perhaps they watched him grow up or he was a playmate of one of their own children.  How could he possibly be who he says he is - the One sent from God? 

 

Read again Peterson's interpretation in The Message of Jesus' response to their complaining, "Don't bicker among yourselves over me. You're not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge." It is not up to us.  We are not in charge!  We just have to open our hearts and minds to what we can't see, what we can't imagine and have faith that indeed God is in charge.  On our best days and on our worst days, God is in charge, walking with us, guiding, carrying our burdens, sharing in our joys and our sorrows.  We know what those Jews did not know that day long ago, Jesus indeed died on the cross for our sins and He indeed arose on the third day and ascended into heaven - early disciples witnessed it.  Jesus gave his life, indeed He is the living bread come down from heaven.   We can taste and see each time we gather at the Lord's table in remembrance.  Sharing in his meal strengthens us to go out into the world to share the story and love of Jesus.  We are not limited by our past experiences or the limitations of our present day to day life.  We are called to hear God's word.  We are promised eternal life.  God is in charge - imagine the possibilities!  They are as many as the stars in the sky.   

 

The bread that I will give

Is My flesh for the life of the world,

And he who eats of this bread,

He shall live forever,

He shall live forever.

 

And I will raise him up,

And I will raise him up,

And I will raise him up on the last day. (ELW # 485)

 


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