Following Jesus is hard

John 6:60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" ⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? ⁶² What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." ⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ⁶⁷ "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

I started soccer practice with our WLS boys this week. We practice at Pershing Park down by the lake. The warm-up we do before stretching is to run up a steep hill, then down the hill around the two soccer fields and finish up on top of the hill again. On the second day of practice, on the way up the hill the second time, a 5^th grade boy who was struggling asked me with all seriousness, “Coach, are you sure this is legal?”

I assured him, “Yes, this is legal. I checked it out with OSHA. Besides, I haven’t had anyone die on me … yet.”

Hills, gophers, sprints, hour-and-a-half practices in 80 plus degree weather – training for the soccer season is hard. But, as we hear in our sermon text, training for following Jesus is even harder.

Jesus had just finished preaching His sermon in the Capernaum synagogue. He said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). And the people questioned. He told them, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54). And the people grumbled.

Now it was the disciples’ turn to complain. “This is a hard word,” they said, “who can hear it?” Not “hard” in the sense of difficult to understand. Jesus’ words were simple enough. Bread, flesh, blood, eat, drink. Simple, one-syllable words. Nothing hard about them. Hard in the sense that these are unyielding, demanding, shocking words. Difficult doctrines. Tough teachings.

Earlier in John chapter 6, the people had witnessed Jesus healing the sick and feeding the multitudes. They followed Him because they wanted to make Him their Bread-King. But Jesus in His Bread of Life sermon, is teaching that there is something far better than a free lunch. The meal He provides is not broken pieces of bread and fish. The meal He provides is His body, broken on the cross, and His blood, dripping from His pierced side. Eat His body and drink His blood by faith so that Jesus may be your Savior-King.

Listen to the invocations given at a business meeting or a wedding banquet or even the prayers to close a national political convention. They may mention God and asking for blessing, but they purposely ignore the name of Jesus, who He is and what He has done to save us. They don’t want to offend other people.

But understand this … Jesus is offensive! His instruction is hard. After His Bread of Life sermon, the crowds dwindled and many of His disciples stopped following Him. The miracles were fun and the teaching was great, but this talk of flesh and blood was simply too much.

Jesus resists any attempt on our part to make Him soft and sweet, spiritual and sentimental. This is the difference between faith and unbelief. Either take Jesus at His word and live forever or reject this “hard word” and die. There are no other options.

Just as Jesus faced rejection because of His hard words, so we may also be rejected because we follow Jesus’ hard words. Recently, Bill Nye, the Science Guy – whom many of our children grew up watching – made a video entitled, “Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children.” The video went viral as Nye slammed creationism, saying in the video, “The idea of deep time of billions of years explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your worldview becomes crazy, untenable, itself inconsistent.”

Last month, non-Christians were up in arms against Chick-fil-A because the owner of the family-owned company had come out against same-sex marriage. So politicians in Chicago and Boston planned to ban the company from their cities and protestors planned to boycott the restaurant.

Homosexuality, abortion and contraceptives provided through insurance companies are supposedly political pitfalls in this election. Yet, as Christians, we see them not as political issues, but moral and scriptural principles discussed plainly and clearly in God’s 5^th and 6^th commandments.

Sadly, these kinds of things are happening more and more, but not just on the internet or out there in our nation. These are pressures that you feel on a daily basis. Your co-workers wonder why you belong to a “strict church” like Epiphany and the WELS. Your friends ask you why you believe in such politically incorrect ideas such as closed communion and only men as pastors. Your teenage daughter is upset with you because you censor music, movies and boys. Your grown son won’t speak to you because you don’t approve of him living together with his fiancé. 

Your faith is being challenged … every day … all around you. What are you going to do about it? You face the very real temptation to compromise your beliefs, to conform to the pressures of society, to accommodate for all kinds immorality on TV, in music, with your children. Atheists, pagans and unbelievers cannot understand and do not appreciate Jesus as their Savior from sin. So they work overtime to banish His name from their classrooms, remove Him from their textbooks, penalize, punish and persecute those who trust in the completeness of Christ’s care and compassion. Will you keep silent as the devil’s minions shout down the name of the Savior? Will you allow the forces of evil to push you around? Will you give up on Jesus, like so many of His disciples did?

In the face of the hard words that Jesus presents before you, and in the face of all the hard pressures Satan’s society forces on you, how will you answer Jesus’ question, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”

Let us confess with St. Peter, “Lord, where else are we going to go? You and you alone have the words of eternal life.”

The world teaches evolution by chance. Jesus gives us a caring Creator who made you, bled for you and died for you. The world wants open sexuality so we can have fun without commitment or guilt. Jesus provides us with loving, caring relationships that He blesses. The world thinks that if you do better and work harder, you’ll feel better about yourself and be able to fix all of your problems. Jesus is the only One who is honest with you and teaches, “The Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing.” You cannot shape up your old sinful flesh with a little spiritual nip and tuck. Your sexuality immorality, impurity, idolatry, jealousy, anger, gossip, all damn you. The world wants political correctness where every religion and every god is equal. All those gods are equal – they will equally lead you to hell. Jesus is the only One who can lead you to eternal life, for He says, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”

These are hard words. But they are necessary words for following Jesus.

Yes, following Jesus in today’s society is hard. Overtime pay, sleep schedules, athletic tournaments, unhappy marriages, difficult family life, pressures at work, poor health, harsh and heartless persecution of our faith – all of these make following Jesus hard. But, where else are you going to go? Jesus alone has the words of eternal life!

We bring our sin. Jesus brings His words. We call that worship. His words may not be the most entertaining. They will not satisfy the flesh’s constant craving to be entertained, amused and uplifted. “New and improved” is not a label you can hang on Jesus. But remember, when it comes to death and resurrection, Jesus is the hands down expert in the field. No one does death and resurrection like Jesus. In fact, no one else does death and resurrection. And no one else has the words of eternal life.

We are here not to be entertained, amused or even emotionally uplifted. If that is why you came, you will likely leave as disappointed as the disciples who left Jesus in disgust. We are here to die and rise with Jesus. To die to our sin and to our selves and to be raised up out of our sin and death to eternal life by the forgiveness of sins. That’s the only item on the agenda and no one calls the shots here but the Lord. Jesus’ words are at work here. They are doing what they say. Forgiving sin and bestowing life and the life-giving Spirit. They are the words of eternal life. They are the words of the Holy One of God who died for you and He will never lie to you or deceive you.

That’s faith. Faith delights to hear even the “hard words.” Especially the hard words. Those are solid and sure words. You can take those words to the grave, and with those words, Jesus will raise you up on the Last Day. You can take those words of forgiveness and use them against your sin. You can take those words of promise in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper and trust them for all they’re worth. They are Spirit and life from the mouth of Jesus into your ears. Simple words. Powerful words. Hard words. The words of life.

With His words He created everything, sustains everything, upholds everything. With His words, He heals the sick, raises the dead, causes the deaf to hear, the mute to speak, the blind to see. Jesus speaks a word and a sick child is instantly healed miles away. Jesus tells a paralyzed man, “Get up and go home,” and he does.

He says to you, “You sins are forgiven,” and they are. He baptizes you with a splash of water and His words and you are reborn. He feeds you His body and His blood with the words, “given and shed for you, for your forgiveness.” Hard words? You bet they’re hard. They resist any of our puny attempts to analyze or rationalize. They are to be heard and trusted from the lips of the One who died and rose for you.

Then we take those words and share them. Shout them. Sing them. Confess them. Teach them. Preach them. Live them. The only thing we cannot do with Jesus’ words is keep silent about them.

Why do you think Bill Nye’s anti-creation video went viral so quickly? Because Christians saw it, were upset by it and then shared it so that others will not be taken in by a supposed celebrity scientist. When people tried to economically bully Chick-fil-A, Christians packed their restaurants and lines poured into the streets as people showed their support for a Christian man who simply made clear what the Bible has to say about marriage.  

We stand with Moses “who refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time” (Hebrews 11:24). We stand with Peter who was crucified upside down for what he believed in. We stand with Thomas who was run through by a heathen priest’s spear and Bartholomew who was skinned alive for their faith in Christ. We stand with the other disciples who stood with Jesus after His Bread of Life sermon, and then they died in terrible and cruel ways.

Where else could they go? Where else can we go for the words of life?

Someday, when that 5^th grade boy races down the field to score the winning goal, he’ll receive the cheers and accolades from his teammates and fans … and all the hard work will have been worth it. Someday, when we cross the finish line upon our death, we will be surrounded by the cheers and accolades of the saints and the angels … and all the hard work of following Jesus will have been worth it. Amen.