A midweek reflection for 8th May 2019 Don't give up meeting together

Reflection for midweek service 8^th May.   Acts 8:1-8, Ps 66:1-8. John 6:35-40

We are living in interesting times! It seems to be a Global time of extremes where many are passionate about their point of view, and they punctuate their passion with protests and rallies.  Those who stand for peace and love and understanding are sometimes left discouraged and worn out feeling like they are fighting a losing battle…. Or is that just me speaking personally?

Let me introduce myself briefly.  I’m a girl from a devoted Catholic family, who was brought up in a time and culture where it was expected that I’d leave school with minimal education, get a low paying job until finding a mate to marry, and then be a stay at home mum.   Somewhere in the middle of this journey God interrupted and showed me that he was real and that he loved me.  I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but this interruption shaped my adult life where I felt called to ministry from the time I was 18…. But I was just a girl… and I felt powerless and alone.

In retrospect this feeling of powerlessness is probably the feeling of the apostles after the death and resurrection of Jesus, prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit.  There was hope and faith, but then there was the fear of the authorities who had put Jesus to death.  But we must remember that what made all the difference was the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. 

Our Gospel reading comes to us from the apostle John and the scene is set where those who were questioning Jesus had witnessed him feeding the 5000 and then the apostles had witnessed him walking on water.  Wow… how much proof do we need to believe?  After all this there were some who still didn’t believe and wanted a sign.  I’m guessing that even Judas, who betrayed Jesus, witnessed all these things, yet still did not believe.  It causes me to ponder, what it is that stops people from believing when God really does give them every opportunity to believe.

What stands out for me, though, is this one sentence found in the Gospel reading: “whoever comes to me I will never drive away”.  We can sometimes get so caught up in working out what is right and what is wrong that we forget the central message of the Gospel.  Gospel means Good News and here it is…. When we come to Jesus he will never drive us away.

Jesus declares that he IS the bread of life.  Just as bread broken and consumed gives life to our mortal bodies, the broken body of Christ – that is, His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead brings us life…. And that life he imparts to us is eternal life.  This is what we read in our Gospel… Jesus says, “……everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

Today we can choose to accept this message of Salvation.  In fact each time we come to take communion we are offered the opportunity to accept Jesus and eternal life.  It is an action that calls us to remember that Jesus is our bread of life and we come to him and accept him.  It is an action we do so that we remember…. But the reality is much deeper. 

Natural bread is nourishment that’s effect is limited and we need to take it in again and again…. But the reality of the bread that Jesus is, is once and for all.  Jesus died once and for all and it is only because of our human forgetfulness that we need to be constantly reminded.

While we may forget and even go astray, Jesus will never drive us away.  He has said “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me”.

I’m sure that in the time before the coming of the Holy Spirit and even after, in the time of persecution when St. Paul was still known as Saul, the Pharisee, who was throwing Christians in prison, that it may have felt exhausting and discouraging as though the battle was impossible.  How did these people remain so steadfast in the midst of such persecution?

Those early Christians knew they had the bread of life and nothing could take their eternal life from them.   Neither are we fighting a losing battle. 

 In a very personal way, we often may feel that we have failed.  All humans do.  But over and over the scriptures declare the complete work of Jesus and that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  He will not drive us away and he will not lose us.

We are no longer alone.  Once we’ve accepted the bread of life we are changed.  It isn’t like natural bread that we consume and then become hungry and need to consume again.  The spiritual reality is that we are spiritually transformed and this transformation is permanent.  God is with us and will never drive us away… he will never leave nor forsake us.  We can’t see this change with our earthly eyes, and in our human flesh we forget this spiritual reality, and so we need encouragement to remember and celebrate this deeper truth.

Just like the followers of Jesus, you may feel afraid and discouraged…. But that is why we need each other and to gather together and remember and be encouraged…  And just like the story of the apostles, though everything may look grim, we are not ever alone, but spiritually a transformed people with the same power within us that changed the course of history.

Be encouraged; We are not fighting a losing battle because the battle for our eternal life has already been won.  The only battle is the one within us to remember it.