Scandalous!

John 6:58 Jesus said, “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

“Did you hear what he said?” Scandalous! Top scandals always revolve around celebrities, politicians and sports stars. We eat this stuff up, too. We love a good scandal. We love to see the mighty brought low, those who think they’re untouchable exposed. Scandalous. Until the scandal is brought home, then, we don’t like it so much and wish everyone would just stay out of our business. Hmmm. Something doesn’t seem quite right. Even the simplest things can be made scandalous. Innocent pictures, benign letters written, all can be turned into something scandalous.

Jesus turns bread into something scandalous. I think he does it on purpose. I don’t think it was an accident that Jesus took something like manna and bread and made it into something shocking. The people needed to be shocked. They needed a wake up. They needed to have the ordinary turned extraordinary. “And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Yikes! Yuck! What?! Bread becomes flesh? Scandalous. Our precious manna, first turned to Jesus and now, quite literally to his flesh, the meat of his bones.

Yet out of this scandalous talk of flesh, blood, eating and drinking come the words of eternal life, as Peter confesses later. The living Father gives life to Jesus and Jesus, through his flesh and blood sacrifice on the cross, gives life to you and me. These are incredible words of eternal life for you and me today. Despite the scandal of food, flesh and blood, Jesus promises life from them. Jesus says that the words he speaks are spirit and life. They are the air we breathe.

Jesus is still scandalous today, isn’t he? I mean, we can talk about all kinds of things that for all intents and purposes should offend us, but when it comes to talking about Jesus, it can be incredibly scandalous. People are not offended by the amount of sex, drugs, death and violence on TV, but put Jesus on there and “Oh My bleep” Who do those Christians think they are? Scandalous. Spirituality is great as long as you don’t mention Jesus. He’s scandalous, because he says he is the only way to the Father. Does any of this really make sense at all?

I want to take a quick survey, but you don’t have to raise your hand. What are the things that are scandalous to talk about in church? Money, politics, sex? What are the things that are scandalous to talk about in the “outside” world? Jesus, church, faith. Again, HUH?

Jesus is Scandalous. He takes bread, food, and makes it scandalous. He takes the common and scandalizes people with them. And Peter makes a confession that sticks with us today: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God. The words of eternal life are scandalous. They are scandalous because they do what they say. His words spoken effect what they are speaking. When he says, “I forgive you.” You are forgiven. When he says, “This is my body,” it is what he says. It’s scandalous because words represent what they are spoken about, they don’t become the very thing. But with Jesus, they do.

Which leads me to the scandal of the Lord’s Supper. Whether Jesus was trying to clue the world in with this discussion in John is still up for debate. To me, the debate doesn’t matter much. The Lord’s Supper is a scandal in itself. Bread and wine become body and blood, solely based on Jesus’ scandalous words. It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink. That’s straight out of the catechism. This body and blood, this flesh and blood, this living bread is given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, for life and for salvation. That is scandalous.

And all y’all are wrapped up in the scandal. Simply sitting in this place puts you in the midst of one of the longest running scandals in the history of creation. It puts you in the middle of the sinner/saint scandal, of those who don’t live a life that measures up to the scandalous standards of the Father and yet the very same that Jesus died for. How scandalous is it to be a Christian? Jesus asks the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Are you scandalized by me? But you’re here, now, in this place because you are not scandalized by Jesus and his words. You are forgiven, not forsaken. Scandalous!