Jesus: Fulfillment of the Contract - Part 1

                      29th in a series on how men and women in the Bible deal with waiting, disappointment and unemployment

Jesus: Fulfillment of the Contract - Part 1

 Reflections on John 6:25-59

How many times have updates come across your screen and you scrolled through the morass of fine print in order to get to the button at the bottom where you click:

How trusting we are?  Many of us would say that we are skeptical of authority, distrusting of the political machine and wary of smooth-talking salesmen.  And yet, we will not take the time to read contracts which may involve personal privacy, invasion into personal finances or a threat to our cyber security.  

What if the contract we signed either for our home or employment put the onus on the bank or employer?  What I mean is this…if the home did not meet to your satisfaction after 3 months, the bank would refund your money.  Or if the job you moved across the country for didn’t measure up to your expectation your employer would either work overtime to make it up to you or find you another job.  Unheard of, right?  Ridiculous you say?  

In the Gospel of John, chapter 6, Jesus described a reality that the Jewish people should have understood.  Their forefathers had signed on to the contract with Abraham 2000 years before but they had filed away the fine print and forgotten the true identity of the God they worshiped.  A God who promised that if He ever reneged on His promises, He Himself, would cease to exist(see Genesis 15 and fivesolas.com).  

So Jesus, coming as God incarnate, reminds them that Moses did not give them the manna, but “it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven”.  If they could accept this then couldn’t they have accepted that Jesus, the Son of God, was the true bread from heaven?  As the Messiah, the promised one, the one who just fed them physical bread, the one who walked on water, the one who healed the sick, had now, in bold print, revealed that his body was real food and his blood was real drink.  

But they couldn’t make the leap.  This seemed too crazy.  “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?”  And even Jesus’ appearance was a fulfillment of prophecy.  The prophet Isaiah said, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”  The claims of Jesus seemed too extraordinary.  

But were they?  If we would take time to read the fine print we would recognize that Jesus did not come to this earth in an ill-timed, unexpected way.  From Genesis to Malachi God’s plan for our salvation was foretold in great detail.  But as we learn in this passage, spiritual things are spiritually discerned.  The literal(or literary) meaning of Jesus’ words remind us that the words were written in context.  When Jesus said my flesh and blood are real food, the people should have known that his words had another meaning since he did not dole out fingers and toes for lunch.  “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  Language that we now understand referred  to his crucifixion.  

Nicodemus was told that “he must be born again”.  Spiritual language for radical change.  In John 15 Jesus is seen as the ‘true vine’….we must be grafted into him.  In John 10 Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep.” And he was also the good Shepherd that watches over us.  In plain language and in context we can understand the terms of the contract without reading more than what is there or less than what is intended.  

The fine print in our lives can make all the difference.  Also, context.  In my job do I understand the commitment I made to support the company’s mission?  In relationships, “do to others what you would have them do to you”.  In my faith, do I grasp the all-inclusive nature of a commitment to Christ?  The radical nature of following Jesus Christ is offensive to a mindset settled in a worldview that is grounded only in earth-bound thinking.  But if we can pray for spiritual discernment and see life from God’s perspective, i.e. the perspective he gives us in Scripture, then there is hope that we will find contentment and purpose.  

What’s in it for me:

1. Describe a time when not reading the fine print got you in trouble.
2. Have you ever entered into a contract (job, housing, relationship) where the other person went above and beyond the written rules to make sure you were satisfied?
3. Have you, like the Jewish people in Jesus’ day, missed the point of Jesus’ message  by reading your own meaning into Scripture or not hearing as it was intended?  How would you know?
4. What difference will absorbing the truth of this passage make in how you face today?
5. Think about this:  Jesus gave his flesh and blood in a real physical way which enabled us to enjoy spiritual rebirth through faith in Him.  Therefore, what is desirable for you and me?

  

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

Jesus