Jesus Is the Sign (John 6: 25-35) 8/12/12

  

Signs are important. They keep us moving in the right direction and help us avoid the wrong direction. Miss a detour sign and you can wind up on a dirt road to nowhere. In baseball, miss a hit and run sign and your base runner is sliding straight into a sure tag. Signs are important. 

In this passage, Jesus is in the process of revealing his identity. He has already embarked on his ministry. The twelve disciples have been called and several miracles have already been performed. The latest was just the day before. We know it as the Feeding of the Five Thousand. It took place near the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The disciples had left Jesus behind that evening and took a boat to Capernaum on the western shore. The Sea of Galilee is about 7 ½ miles from east to west, and Jesus met them several miles out, but he didn’t use a boat! (That’s a sermon for another day). Capernaum is the site of many of Jesus’ miracles and he also taught there in the synagogue.

The next day, the crowd following this strange preacher got into boats to catch up with him. When they reached the opposite shore, they found him and wanted to know how and when he got there, for it is clear from Scripture that the crowd knew Jesus didn’t take the one boat available the night before. This is the setting in which we find Jesus dealing with this mixture of curiosity seekers, skeptics and followers.

The passage leaves out lots of details we would like to know, but there are still things we can infer. Since the crowd the day before was five thousand men, there would surely have been women and children with them. So this was a very large crowd. Apparently, it was not a holiday. This was an audience that was very probably disenfranchised. They might have been the unemployed, the sick, the widows. They more than likely didn’t have some place they had to be and the day before, their bellies had been filled. But this was a new day and they were hungry again. This miracle man Jesus was worth following, if only for the chance of another meal.

Now that we have the Bible to guide us, it seems pretty simple, but then, it was not so clear. Here is the Son of God offering these people Himself, telling them to trust and believe; to crave spiritual rather than earthly fullness. But these people were hungry; they were away from home and this new prophet was telling them he was their Messiah; the one sent from God. They asked what work they had to do, and Jesus told them just to believe in him as sent from God.  He didn’t talk about physical labor of any kind. Just believe in him. Jesus talked about eternal food. They scratched their heads. “Who is this guy?” they asked themselves.  They looked for signs, and he told them He was the sign. No wonder they missed it. They weren’t ready to think spiritually. They just wanted their bellies full again.

The conflict here occurs again and again in the Gospels. The people were looking for a Savior. They believed he would come. But they assumed he would meet their earthly definition. They would be delivered from Roman oppression. The temple would be restored. The Jews would reign supreme under their savior, an earthly king. They assumed they knew what their Savior would do and how he would act.  They couldn’t read the signs.       

There are all kinds of signs today. We have signs and bumper stickers on our cars and trucks that display our opinions to the world.  I have a bumper sticker that says Rocky Creek Presbyterian Church. I like that one. I used to have one other bumper sticker but it finally wore off. I really liked that one. It read: “If we don’t change directions, we’ll end up where we’re going.”

Think about it for a moment. Are you going in the right direction, because you will end up where you’re going! Are you reading the signs along the path? They are there, but you have to be looking for them. Otherwise you will keep on going down that same road, never knowing when to turn, when to wait, when to get off the bus.

What signs have you missed lately? Have you run a stop sign while your mind was elsewhere? I have. Have you dropped off meals to a relative instead of sitting down with him or her to eat? I have. Oh, not lately, but I have done all these things and more.

The signs are there, but you have to have the discernment to see them. You also need the courage not to avoid them. You might say: “I missed it because I’m just so busy!” Everybody is so busy these days. I once attended a service where the minister distributed thin round wooden wafers to the congregation. The wafers bore the legend "TUIT” on their face. Satisfied that everyone had received a wafer, he pronounced: “Now we can all get a lot more done. Everyone is always saying they will do this or that as soon as they can get around to it. Well, now you all have “a round tuit.”

The crowd following Jesus that day at the Galilean shore was looking for a quick fix. They wanted answers, but Jesus just wasn’t playing their song. Are we so different? We spend hours being entertained by television programs and ads streaming at hundreds of images every minute. We use microwave ovens to heat pre-prepared food that we eat on paper plates served on TV trays. We deplore rises in crime rates, lowered morality and social problems in the schools, and yet we don’t have time to visit the folks who moved in three doors away five months ago. We substitute entertainment items for relationships. And we wonder why our children…or we ourselves, have short attention spans. Relationships take time, and time is hard to come by in our warp speed society.

Those folks on the Galilean shore had had a treat and they wanted more. They looked straight into the eyes of the greatest miracle in the history of mankind and they saw a preacher, or a magician, or a fraud. They missed the signs completely, but they were really little different from the Christians of today.

In America, even in this recession we are now undergoing, we live in a storehouse of plenty. We have so much food; we pay farmers not to grow it. We are founded on principles of religious freedom and yet today less than half the people in the country are members of any church. We are the leading nation of the free world and yet we know all too well that most of us are looking for direction; for purpose. We are like the seekers at Capernaum. We are in trouble, both corporately and as individuals, because we’re not reading the signs correctly.

 Omar Bradley was known as the GI’s general in World War II because of his plain talk and manner. He was once quoted on his thoughts on the atomic age. He said: “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”  General Bradley was commenting on the signs we are missing. What signs are you missing in your life?  

Back in Capernaum, the followers ask Jesus for a miracle. They want a sign in order to believe. They still have their minds on food, though. They point to Moses’ act of sending manna in the wilderness experience of their forefathers. For the second time in this passage, Jesus begins with the words “I tell you the truth.” Another sign. Whenever you see that in the New Testament, you need to just slow down and pay close attention. It wasn’t Moses, he said. It was God.  It wasn’t just earthly food; it was God in an act of saving deliverance, revealing himself to His people. It was grace in action.

The followers are still having trouble getting the big picture.  They are looking for the next meal, a “ham and eggs” sort of miracle, but Jesus is trolling for souls.  He’s talking about heavenly bread. And he says that it is he who comes down from heaven and gives life. He changes the menu from a morning’s fare to an everlasting feast. Life, not breakfast. Now that is a meal that keeps on feeding.  The grace in action of the Old Testament has become the grace in person of Jesus, the Christ. 

Some of those in the crowd say “Sir, from now on give us this bread.” They are really stretching, trying to get the signs right. Jesus answers with the first of seven “I am” statements found in John’s gospel. He says: “I am the bread of life.”

Can you see it? The people on the Galilean seashore that morning were looking for signs, and Jesus said: Look here. They looked for proof and he said: Look here. They wanted to fill that hole in the bellies of their lives, and he said: I have no shelf life. I am all the food you will ever need. He was the living, breathing extension of God’s grace. He was there not to give them a sign. He was the sign.

Signs are everywhere, aren’t they? They guide us to the bathroom, advise us what to buy, how to proceed, even how to be happy. The bookstores have entire shelves devoted to how to, where to, and why to. It keeps us awfully busy trying to read the signs, or read how to read the signs.

There is a story about two men on Mars looking down on earth, watching everyone scurrying here, there and everywhere. “What are they doing?” said one. “They’re going,” said the other. “But where are they going?” said the first. “Oh, they’re not going anywhere. They’re just going.” said the other. The world is full of people who are just going without knowing where they’re going or how to read the signs. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Jesus is the sign.

I started this message by saying that signs are important. Maybe I should amend that to say that there are quite a lot of signs out there. It’s important that you don’t miss the real signs while paying attention to the rest of them. Jesus is still God’s sign.

The apostle Paul knew the real sign. From a persecutor of Christians to a Damascus road conversion to missionary journeys to a Roman prison, Paul learned the real sign. In his letter to the Philippians near the end of his life, he said: “To live is Christ; to die is gain.”  For Paul, as it should be for us, Jesus was the sign.

Carrie Underwood sings a song entitled Jesus Take the Wheel. In it, a young mother spins her car out of control on an icy road with her baby in the back seat. She has missed one more sign in a world that is closing in around her. In her desperation, she cries out these words:

                             Jesus take the wheel

                             Take it from my hands

                       ‘Cause I can’t do this on my own

                                     I’m letting go

                           So give me one more chance

                        To save me from this road I’m on.

Where are you going? Do you know? Do you know the signs that will take you to where you want to go? Certainly, you are on the path, because you are here. That is no accident any more than it was for the people seeking Jesus that day. They had already been found by Him.  God’s redeeming grace had placed them there, was opening their hearts, and was coming in to save them. God came for them in the form of Jesus. They did not get the sign by coincidence. God’s grace opened the door of their hearts for some of them to believe, to get the right sign, but even before that occurred, he had sought them out, just as he seeks us out today. Look at v. 43 in this same chapter: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

You are in the living room of the bride of Jesus and as surely as you are here, you can count on the presence of the groom. He, too, is here and He is calling you to come in and make yourself at home. Like the people who read the real signs at Capernaum, he has already sought you out. He is calling you to open your eyes to a light that never burns dim; to open your ears to the sweet, sweet music of eternal life; to open your hearts to a relationship that will never let you down.

Oh, you’ll still miss plenty of signs along the way, but that’s all right, because if you will let him, Jesus has the wheel.  Jesus is calling you, and he’s the only real sign you’ll ever need.