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This week’s theme is the secret of wisdom as we focus on Solomon, Israel’s wisest king.

The Queen of Sheba’s Visit

Solomon is celebrated in the Old Testament as the wisest of men.  The first few chapters of 1 Kings are very complimentary.  We’ve thought about his prayer for wisdom rather than wealth (chapter 2), and last week we had planned initially to look at one particular instance where he resolved a dispute between two women who both claimed to be the mother of a baby (chapter 3).  And here in chapter 10, with the visit of the Queen of Sheba, we see a woman completely overwhelmed by Solomon’s wisdom and success.  What follows in chapter 4 is a summary that goes like this:  God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.  He spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered a 1,005.  From all nations people came to listen to him, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom  (1 Kings 4:30-34).

So this week we are jumping from 1 Kings 2 to 1 Kings 10, and this is where we will be finishing this short series.  What we’ve missed out is the memorable story of the baby, the building of the temple plus a grand palace, and then in chapter 11 the reference to Solomon’s 700 wives.  In those days, many such marriages were arranged as a way of ensuring peace with surrounding countries.  But over time these arrangements turned Solomon’s heart away from the Lord.

After his death it also becomes clear that he was something of a tyrant, imposing forced labour on his own people to build the Temple, and later the Canaanites who had been allowed to stay in the land, but also a heavy burden on Hebrew families from the northern tribes, and so after his death there is an acrimonious split between those 10 northern tribes (known as Israel) and the two southern ones, Judah and Benjamin (thereafter known as Judah).  So, it begs the question: Just how wise was Solomon?  Clearly he was a shrewd politician.  Quite possibly, like some of our prolific modern writers, he used researchers to come up with proverbs and poems for which he then took the credit!

The two books of Kings were written a long time after his death.  In fact, the timeline from the death of King David to the exile in Babylon covers a period of 400 years.  Now if I was going back 400 years and writing a book about the English Civil War between King Charles 1 and the English Parliament, I would need to do a lot of research.  I used to think it was a straight battle between cavaliers (royalists) and roundheads (parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell), but apparently Cromwell was dealing with issues in his own ranks.  Some of his people, known as ‘Levellers’, wanted even more democracy than he did.  Oliver Cromwell’s statue stands proudly outside Parliament to this day, but he ambushed and shot four of the leading Levellers in order to crush the movement and secure his own agenda.  In fact, it was not until almost 250 years later, in1891, that minutes of a debate that took place in Putney were discovered inside a book in one of the Oxford University libraries, revealing the strength of sentiment among those Levellers.  In them you find the words of one of the generals of Cromwell’s New Model Army, Thomas Rainsborough:  I think that the poorest man in England has a life to live, as the greatest man. I think that the poorest man is not bound to a government that he has not had a voice to put himself under.  What I’m trying to say is that much in our past is either unrecorded, suppressed or lost.  Getting to the truth is not easy, and the past throws up a complex and often contested story.  Historians have a difficult job.

So here’s a writer who is sifting through the various sources, recognising that there were those who thought Solomon was wonderful, and yet others who clearly didn’t.  And rather than take sides, he cleverly allows both voices to be heard and in the process he allows you to draw your own conclusions.  But he’s not neutral, and there’s a phrase in chapter 10 which you could be excused for not noticing, which we must revisit.

The Queen of Sheba’s visit is a celebrated moment in Solomon’s reign.  It’s clearly one of many state visits by the kings and queens of the region, but it’s singled out for special attention.  There are those who have turned it into a romance (e.g. the 1959 Hollywood film ‘Solomon and Sheba’).  So there’s a story that the queen returns to Sheba (somewhere around Ethiopia).  She is pregnant with Solomon’s son, and that son returns to visit his illustrious father 20 years later, only to find that Israel is not what his mother described.  It has become decadent, and no longer worthy to be called the people of the supreme God.  So he steals the Ark of the Covenant from the temple and takes it back.  To this day Ethiopia claims to have the Ark, but they say it’s hidden away.  It’s not the only theory about the Ark (2 Chronicles 35 contradicts the Ethiopian claim, and you might prefer the Steven Spielberg version!), but it’s certainly interesting that the Ark of the Covenant is only mentioned once after Solomon’s reign.

And so to the visit.  The queen comes with a list of carefully crafted questions, and Solomon answers them all.  She is impressed by what she hears and sees, which probably doesn’t include the conscripted labour force from the northern tribes, and what the text of this chapter doesn’t give you either is any examples of the king’s wisdom.  What it says is  …  when she saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed  (10:4-5).  It seems that she was given a tailor-made tour of the best bits.

The text keeps referring to Solomon’s wisdom, but all the examples it gives are about his wealth, and you get the sense that Solomon is one of the world’s great businessmen.  Now you can find numerous books and websites with titles like ‘10 secrets of a successful business’.  We doff our caps to successful people all the time.  They usually rise early, work late and skimp on holidays.  Unlike us mortals, they see an opportunity and exploit it to the full.  We remind ourselves in church that God’s wisdom is different to human wisdom, but in practice we’re often only interested in those people who are successful and wealthy.

So here’s the phrase for you to notice.  This is the Queen of Sheba’s parting shot:  Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel.  Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness (9).  How ironical!  The king’s primary task was to look after his people.  That phrase ‘justice and righteousness’ is a classic phrase the prophets used to reprimand the nation’s leaders: You turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground  …  let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream  (Amos 6:7 & 24).

I wonder what happened when the queen said that.  Maybe Solomon shifted awkwardly.  She was probably saying more than she knew.  If you’d reminded her of her words later, she would probably have forgotten, but the writer has retained them in his final edit.  He lets the words linger in the midst of this celebration of opulence.  God’s kings were to be champions of righteousness and justice, generous to foreigners and good shepherds of their own people, but this king had fallen at the first hurdle.

It’s probably no surprise that the nation divided after Solomon’s death, for he had accumulated sumptuous amounts of wealth for the few whilst exploiting the many.  And Solomon’s glory did not impress Jesus as it impressed the Queen of Sheba: Consider the lilies of the field.  They do not labour or spin.  Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these  (Luke 12:27).

So what do you want from life?  You may not be a powerful leader like Solomon, but you may share his aspirations.  Perhaps we need a new breed of hero, people who are driven more by service than wealth.  Such people already exist, but they are the unsung heroes.

William Carey is one such hero from Baptist history.  Information filtering through about life in India had concerned him, so in the 1790s he went there, where he was confronted with babies being sacrificed in the Ganges River, in Bengal alone 600 widows being burned on their husbands’ funeral pyres every year, and the caste system which still exists to this day.  He worked hard.  It was 7 years before he saw his first convert, and through his 41 years there he only saw 700.  But he learnt umpteen languages, translating the whole Bible into 6 and the NT into 23.  He built a printing press, and when it burned down, he raised money in Britain to build another.  He harassed successive governments until the killing of children, the burning of widows, and the burial alive of lepers were made criminal offences.  He understood the meaning of righteousness and justice.

Almost 1000 years after Solomon, a group of men in search of wisdom came to Jerusalem.  They met the king who had recently renovated the temple, but quickly realised that he was not the source of the wisdom they sought.  So they travelled further until they came to an ordinary house in Bethlehem.  There they found a toddler, and they bowed in worship and presented their gifts.

About 30 years ago former Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, produced a lent series for the Scripture Union.  He entitled it “A king with a difference”.  The substance was this.  Kings have palaces, but this king had nowhere to lay his head.  Kings have territory, but his kingdom was not of this world.  Kings have armies, but when one of his follower attacked the high priest’s servant, this king said that those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and he told us to love our enemies.  Kings have servants, but this king came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and King Jesus offers the wisdom our planet needs.  So may you find what this queen never found.  The way of Jesus seems a very far cry from the chapter we’ve read, but it’s the power of God for everyone who believes.  In the words of the NT apostle: What seems to be God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and what seems to be God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1:25).  May we all invest in this superior wisdom!

This week’s theme is the armour of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). Listen and find out how to be equipped for life’s spiritual battles.

The Book of Ephesians is a letter in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul is an incredibly interesting man who took joy in the murder of Christians before having an encounter with Christ himself and dedicating his life in thankfulness to the mission of God. It is addressed to the Christian community in Ephesus,a significant city in ancient Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), known for its wealth, commerce, and the temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The letter primarily serves to instruct and encourage the Ephesian believers by addressing various theological and practical issues. It emphasizes the nature of the church as the body of Christ and focuses on themes such as unity, grace, spiritual maturity, and ethical living.
The first half of Ephesians discusses God’s plan for salvation and the church; the second half (chapters 4-6) offers encouragement and practical guidance for living out the faith.

The Armor of God
This armour is for a spiritual war against the unseen darkness of the world, we are to be warriors of peace and love and kindness and growth against a darkness of destruction and death and lies and cruelness and unfairness.
This call to prepare ourselves in the armour of God and fight for a battle of peace, not using weapons but using words and acts of goodness is given in the context of Ephesians where Paul is emphasising unity. We are to do this as an army with community and support not by ourselves. I thought to myself when looking at this and thinking of Jacobs baptism I thought its also quite needed for parenting. We need community, we need peace, we need purpose, we need encouragement for all the challenges and joys that raising a family brings us.

Breakdown of each piece of armour
1.Belt of Truth – Importance of truth in our lives – in a world where deep fakes and lies are shared so abundantly we end up with everything being deniable. Nothing being trustworthy. We need to listen to the truths – thruths God speaks over us – such as that when we accept Jesus we become children of God with a heavenly inheritance, loved, accepted and cherished.

2. Breastplate of Righteousness – Guarding our hearts and living righteously in a way where you live for the good of others
3. Footwear of the Gospel of Peace – Being prepared to share and stand firm in the Gospel – walkig peace with us wherever we go
4. Shield of Faith – Protecting ourselves from doubts and challenges
5. Helmet of Salvation – Assurance of our salvation and its transformative power – we are saved through Jesus Christ, the Lord our God prepares a room for us in heaven, we can be sure of that.
6. Sword of the Spirit – The Word of God as our offensive weapon against lies and deception
   C. The role of prayer in spiritual warfare (v. 18)
7. The importance of continual communication with God
8. Collectively praying for one another for strength and perseverance in battles

V. Purpose – Purpose – ‘the reason for doing something or the reason that something exists’

Three things we might accidentally do with this armour aside from fully putting it on and using it– these mistakes are that we either think the armour doesn’t have a purpose – or we don’t, or we wear it and stand still forgetting to actually get out the on the battlefield.
we don’t think it really has a purpose, so we don’t put it on – or we put it on but think we don’t have a purpose.

What’s wrong with thinking ‘there is no need for the armour of God today’?
• We deny the terrible darkness in the world – which is there and if we deny the dark and the evil in the world then are we fully understanding the God who has saved us and desire us to be in the light. Although in our own lives we may see no need for the armour, what about the lives of others less priviledged than us.

What’s wrong with thinking ‘I would wear it if I had a purpose’?
Is that you do have a purpose, you are a beloved child of God, adored and cherished and we read in Mark that Jesus welcomed children with open arms beckoned them to come to him and said the kingdom of heaven belonged to them.

The third possibility is that we can put the armour on and think that we’re done or think we have to wait before we use it.
This reminded me of a discovery that I just found fascinating growing up.
Can anyone name the army that was discovered in 1974?

Once we’ve put on this armour, we do not want to stay still like a statue, frozen in time, not reacting to the world around us, not learning afresh from God, not reaching out to people. We want to be living breathing warriors of peace for god.

When you think there is no need for the armour of God remember we are fighting against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world.

When you think you have no purpose – remember you are a child of god called into community and equipped with the full armour of God.

When you forget the importance of your purpose that God has equipped you for
Pray in the spirit at all times and of every occasion and for your community of believers. Enourage others in the fight as you yourself are encouraged.

I don’t say these thoughts because I think people are bad at them, I say them because I’ve experienced each of these thoughts in my own life.
When I first became a Christian I wasn’t sure why passages like this were relevant today – I would have thought like the top one that there is no purpose today for the armour of God

But as I grew in faith and understood the story of Jesus more and more I then questioned my own purpose in all of this. I felt similar to how I had done as a child – coming out of all those films wishing I had some great quest or adventure to embark upon.

And then when I had realised God’s purpose in the world and his purpose for me I then had to remind myself again and again of the truth that God has equipped me and that God had equipped me for where I was. It was very tempting when I was working back to back shifts in a café and a bar to think – maybe one day if I ever become a vicar that’s when I will live out my purpose, but actually, God was calling me then and there in the café I worked in and in the bar I worked in to help people in the bar get home safely by ordering cabs, to speak with those who were lonely, to pray for healing for my bosses, to share the gospel with customers and to be a witness to those around me. I want to encourage each of you today that you have a purpose as who you are and where you are today, whether that’s as someone who is retired, working in construction, spending a lot of time alone in your job you can be a prayer warrior. now, and God is equipping you for it, not with violence, or fear or judgement, but peace and righteousness and salvation and truth and faith. that doesn’t mean you can’t work towards something else, I did end up becoming doing what I am now but that doesn’t mean I have only just found my purpose.

Before we finish I would like you all to close your eyes and i’m going to ask you to visualise something then while we have still got our eyes closed I am going to pray.

Visualise wearing that armour.
Now I want to challenge you, and this might not be relevant to you, but it might, that if when you visualise that you are alone I want to encourage you to ask the Lord to help you grow in unity. Because we can’t wear this uniform by ourselves its meant for an army, so picture yourself again but in a sea of people, not just people in this church but people in every church, every believer across the globe.

Father God, Help us to be fully equipped in the armour of God and stand in unity more and more each day with our fellow believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen

This Sunday in our morning worship our reading is 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 and Claire preaches about the wisdom of Solomon.

Kingdom legacy

What is your legacy? I wonder if that’s even a question You have asked yourself? It’s probably more of a question that you might ask towards the end of your life. It is a question I guess I’ve been pondering as I leave Ramsgate and move onto a new chapter. If this chapter of Ramsgate was written down – what would be the legacy that’s left. And actually as Christian’s what is the legacy we leave with our friends and family?

When my mum was living with terminal cancer, we befriended a lot of people through the hospice movement and so we did attend an awful lot of funerals. It was amazing having the opportunity to listen to peoples stories to see the legacy that is left behind. There was one funeral we attended, that of a former Navy fighter pilot, mum turned to me and said what kind of legacy do I leave behind? I’ve done nothing of that sort. A bit tongue in cheek I said – I am your legacy. But in many ways that was true. And echoes this quote from Billy Graham – the Legacy one can pass onto one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life but rather a legacy of character and faith.

That’s the legacy I hope to leave behind, one where peoples character and faith is developed and grown. And it’s not a legacy just for those in leadership, but I think it’s a legacy for everyone who believes and trust in Jesus. We’re gonna think about this this morning: what is the kingdom Legacy we leave with people? Not just at the end of our life, but with every encounter we have.

Our Reading today in kings is about a kingdom legacy. David’s earthly life has come to an end; his son Solomon will take over as King. Before David dies, he charges Solomon with this, it’s a bit earlier in chapter 2 of 1 kings. He says: so be strong act like a man and observe what the Lord your God requires: walk in obedience to him and keep his decree and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the Lord of Moses. Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go and that the Lord may keep his promise to me: ‘ if you’re descendants watch how they live and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’

David’s legacy is one of faithfulness to God – if you read David ‘s story you know he didn’t always get it right – But he knew how to repent and his heart was one that was seeking after God.

So this is the legacy that Solomon has to continue – continue to walk with God in his God-given role as king of Israel.

In chapter 3, v3 we see that Solomon does show loyalty to God, he’s obedient. (Deut 6:5 – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.) he worships God through offering sacrifices.

A bit of a sidenote here. Other places in the Bible – offering sacrifices if you are not one of the Levites, one of the Priestly order, is a definite no no. However, in this period history there is no temple at this point and it has been usual to use high places for worshipping God. The wording here is thought to be that Solomon is offering it not performing it himself. There is an abundance in the sacrifice he’s bringing. so not only do we see Solomon’s loyalty, and see him worshipping God, we see him acknowledging God’s faithfulness in v6, and displaying humility (v7-9), knowing that he only has the position he has because of God.

We see here an incredible thing happen . Solomon offers his worship to God and God speaks to him – there is an encounter. And God says: ask for whatever you want me to give you.

I wonder what you would ask for ?

When God asks this question, he promises to answer it and it stimulates faith and character . In the new Testament we’re encouraged to ask. Matthew 21:22 – If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

John 14:13-14 – And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Solomon in response to this question – simply put what can I do for you, asks for Wisdom. This could be a selfish request, but when we come to God’s response to this request, it seems unlikely that that is the case. Wisdom isn’t just knowing the right answers, having knowledge. One commentator says that this is Wisdom, he says: the way the Wisdom books (son of Solomon, Job) In the old Testament will put it is that reverence of God is the beginning of Wisdom meaning that Wisdom is listening to God and doing what God says.

Solomon asks for Wisdom as he begins his life as King, he asks for it in humility and trusts for a response.

Do we expect to encounter God when we worship? Do we feel confident asking God for things? And when I say things in the context of this passage in kings, I mean things that would help to advance God’s kingdom, his legacy?

Do we even think that we’ve got a right to ask things of God – to ask to meet with him in a new way? Do we ask him for specific gifts? Do we ask how our gifts can be used?

We have been doing that in this year of discernment and in the prayer of the year we are asking for things. And as we’ve been asking these questions, we’ve been trying to listen to see a direction forward.

I wonder How do you hear from God? How do you listen? Do we make time? This will look different for all of us, but it’s interesting to share with each other how we do that, how we hear from God how we take direction and guidance.

Some of us might be captivated by part of the Bible we reading and not be able to escape it.

A number of years ago I was serving in Central Asia and the story of Job kept coming up time and time again – it was in the sermons in my fellowship group that I attended, it came up in my own personal Bible studies and I can remember thinking maybe God‘s trying to get me ready for something – that maybe there will be some hardship coming but I know that God is with me through that. it wasn’t long after that I did have three significant losses and I really did feel that God was with me through all of that and he prepared me for it. It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t Painful. But I knew God had prepared me for it.

Other ways of hearing may come through Something strongly resonating in a sermon, through a song, in the liturgy, which gets you thinking and pondering. Do we make space for that. To listen to God, to minimise distractions.

In the context of this passage, if we read on Solomon realises that this encounter happened in a dream – in a vision. It happens rarely but it still can and does happen today .

The important thing when we ask and receive from God is our motivation

Solomon seems to be motivated to ask for wisdom for the good of his kingdom and the legacy he continues.

And we can infer that from God’s response to Solomon‘s answer. God saw that Solomon wanted kingdom Justice. He wanted Wisdom to be able to rule in a way that would bring justice and fairness to others, and that asking for wisdom wasn’t about his own status.

Because of that motivation God gives him more than just Wisdom he promises, prosperity and honour. But actually, it is conditional on his kingdom obedience. Just as in David’s charge to Solomon, when David remembers the promise that God gave him, that his legacy would continue but was dependent on his descendants walking faithfully.

I have to give a spoiler alert here. So although after we have this passage, we see Solomon’s Wisdom put to good use. Solomon actually ends life not pursuing God, he didn’t maintain the kingdom legacy and actually after Solomon the kingdoms break apart and you get the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. Solomon began the decline of the kingdom as it was. And yet there continued to be promises that there would be a renewed kingdom and an extended kingdom.

And this is the kingdom that Jesus came to fulfil Jesus is the fulfilment of the kingdom Legacy. When we look at the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, we can trace through both sides of his family that he was a son of David. He was of a kingly line. Jesus was the perfect example of obedience. his kingdom, brought about by his death and resurrection and Ascension, is one where he reigns forever.

And we are to carry on the kingdom legacy of loving the Lord our God with all our heart soul mind and strength. In Romans we read that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved and then in John 1 verse 12 we read – yet to those who did receive him, those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So for those of us who believe and trust in Jesus, we are his children we are carrying on the kingdom legacy.

That should impact what we say and what we do and how we are.

What is your legacy? my desire would be that my legacy is a legacy of the kingdom – that I’m known as someone who listens to God, someone who obeys, someone who seeks the Kingdom values of loving God with my whole being and looking out for the other, and someone who tells the kingdom truth.

My prayer is that all of us will have the greatest legacy of being able to pass on to future generations the legacy of character and faith that comes through Jesus Christ and that will impact the world.

This Sunday in our morning worship, using John 6:60-69, we see Jesus answering questions from the crowds and disciples in the wake of his radical statements about who he is after feeding the 5,000.

Fifty-one years ago, the day after Britain joined the European Economic Community, Edward Heath, the Prime Minister at the time, made a speech at a banquet held in celebration of the event, with the Archbishop of Canterbury sitting by his side.

(In case you’re worried, let me say that I am not telling this story in order to make any kind of political point. Bear with me on this one – I am only telling this story to shed light on the Bible passage we have just read, John chapter 6 verses 60 to 69, and to introduce three questions and three answers contained in that reading.)

And this is part of what the Prime Minister said back then:

“Today we … have achieved a fresh unity in Europe, a unity for which humankind craves. Whether it is that unity that leads eventually to the nation-state, it is still something greater, something greater than themselves which humanity wants, something in which they themselves can share, which gives them their ultimate goal. And so we are creating a unity of a new kind.”(1)

I said I was not going to be making any kind of political point, and I genuinely mean it, I won’t. We must leave that to the politicians. Yet in speaking about “something greater than themselves which humanity wants, something in which they themselves can share, which gives them their ultimate goal”, the Prime Minister himself seems to have stopped talking politics and started talking theology, as if he were less P.M., more archbishop. At that very point in the speech, the actual Archbishop of Canterbury interjects by saying “hear, hear”. You can see it all on YouTube.

Whatever view we take of the last fifty years of European history, whether we are pro or anti, and whether or not we have a view at all, surely we should all be able to agree that the Prime Minister was claiming far too much in this speech. If it is the case that human beings in their very essence crave something greater than themselves, in which they themselves can share, which gives them their ultimate goal – if that is the case, then it was far and away too much for the Prime Minister to promise that European co-operation would provide the answer to that desire. That would be to turn politics into theology, and to make a man, or a movement, into a Messiah.

In the Bible reading we heard in church last week, a great crowd of people, having been fed by Jesus with bread and fish, start chasing him around in anticipation of obtaining more. He tells the crowd in John chapter 6 verse 33 that “the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”, and then in verse 35 that he is the bread of life, and that anyone who comes to him will never go hungry, and anyone who believes in him will never be thirsty. Finally Jesus says, in verses 53 to 56, that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

What does Jesus mean by saying all this? Well, for one thing, he cannot be talking about receiving his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, for the very good reason that Holy Communion had not yet been instituted. If he had been talking about Holy Communion, something that no-one knew anything about at that time, you might expect people in the crowd to respond by saying ‘This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?’ Yet that is not what they said. They appear to have understood all too well what Jesus was saying. Their response, and the first question of three I want to highlight from our Bible reading today, was in verse 60: ‘This is a hard saying. Who can accept it?’

So what did Jesus mean in saying “I am the bread of life – eat my flesh and drink my blood”? He meant essentially this: There is a unity for which humankind in its very essence needs … a need for something greater than themselves, something in which they themselves can share, which gives them their ultimate goal. That unity is to be found, and that goal is to be reached, by one means and by one means only, which is by being united to Christ. — Hear, hear! — ‘I am the bread of life. Eat my flesh and drink my blood’ means that he is the ultimate answer to all human need, and the true endpoint of every human aspiration.

All this is way past the politics of food supply. All this is from a man who is indeed the Messiah. Yet ‘I am the bread of life’ was a claim that is too big for many people to accept. The crowd were willing to follow Jesus all the while they thought a constant supply of bread and fish was on offer. Not so many followed once it was clear that he was calling for a deeper, closer, personal union: “eat my flesh, and drink my blood, remain in me, and I will remain in you”. I want your whole life, and in return I will give you my life. “From this time”, we read in verse 66, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him”.

And Jesus let them go. In verse 61 he asks the second of three questions in this passage: “Does this offend you?” He goes on to say, in effect, that if they were offended by these words, they would be likely to be even more offended by all those series of future events that would be inaugurated by the crucifixion and would culminate in the ascension.(2) Jesus knew, and said in verse 65, that no-one can come to him unless the Father has enabled him. He knew people well enough not to entrust himself to anyone, we read elsewhere in the Gospel of John, and he knew what was, and what was not, within their hearts (cf. John 2:24-25).

So he let go, those who wanted to go – and the question for him then became whether he would have any followers left at all. That is the third question in the passage, which is directed to the twelve who were closest to him, and appears in verse 67: ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ What kind of leader would he be without followers? There would indeed come a time when all his disciples would flee in fear of their lives, when he was unjustly condemned to death and crucified. At that time he walked a lonely path, forsaken even by his Father as he bore the weight of the sin of the world upon his shoulders. Yet in our reading today, the apostle Peter articulates the faith the twelve had come to share, a faith that would be tested by the cross but renewed by the resurrection; a faith that would build a community of those who did not leave and go their own way, but who stayed put and stayed united under one common confession. That faith is expressed in three answers, given one after the other, which we read in verses 68 and 69.

First we read that Simon Peter answered Jesus, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?’ Yes, I do know that this is another question, but here Peter is answering a question with another question. The answer is in the question: for those that have come to know Jesus, having been enabled by God to do so, there is no other like him to whom they may go. The biblical commentator Leon Morris writes: Why would anyone “who has come to know Jesus’ life-giving word … ever forsake him [?] When a person once knows Jesus, none else can satisfy.”(3)

‘To whom shall we go?’ is one of Peter’s rock-bottom statements, and we would do well to remember and repeat it whenever we are at or near rock-bottom. Even if in a thought experiment we did want to throw in the towel and depart from the path of Christian discipleship, to whom else would we go? Needy people may latch onto anything or anyone that comes along if they think their needs can be fulfilled by doing so, but we, having shared in the Holy Spirit and tasted the goodness of the word of God, cannot be content with that. What do we honestly think our options are? We must know, as Peter knows, that in the final analysis, Christ is all we have, and that we are good for nothing and for no-one else. Or, to state the matter more accurately, we must know that nothing and no-one else is good enough for us, and that is perfectly fine, because in Christ all the fullness of God dwells bodily, and we are complete in him (cf. Colossians 2:9-10).

The next answer given by Peter builds on what has gone before. ‘You have the words of eternal life’. He says this in recognition and acceptance of what Jesus has previously said in verse 63: “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life”. This is a recognition that we cannot gain life on our own. “If Jesus is divine revelation come down from heaven like bread to nourish people, his purpose is to communicate to them the principle of eternal life”.(4) We feed on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving in the Word as much as we do in Holy Communion. Perhaps you know the old saying that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is itself a saying of Jesus Christ. So let us, like Peter, hang on his every word, in the knowledge that all his words are life-giving.

I am not advocating a “mere knowledge of the stories about Christ”, but rather that through reading the Scriptures “we recognise Christ truly as our redeemer and trust in him, so that solely because of his obedience, by grace, we have the forgiveness of sins … and have eternal life”.(5) For the truth is that Jesus does not speak the language of self-help and positive thinking. Instead, he speaks a language understood by people who know from bitter experience that the answers they require do not all lie within their own grasp. It is a language of grace, and of hope, coming to us from the outside. The words of eternal life are, that God helps those who know they cannot help themselves.

Finally Peter says, ‘We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God’. Jesus Christ was as much flesh and blood as anyone else who has ever walked the planet. Yet Peter and the twelve staked their lives on the insight that he was this, and much more besides: that he was God in the flesh, come to redeem the world from sin and death. And it has been given to us to believe this of him.

The title ‘the Holy One of God’ is rare in the New Testament. In fact, it only occurs in two other places, Mark chapter 1 and Luke chapter 4, where a demon-possessed man says to Jesus, ‘I know who you are, the Holy One of God’. Here in John chapter 6, this spiritual insight arises not from the opposition of devils but from the submission of a disciple, and it represents one of the highest points of recognition on the part of the disciples in the Gospels, along with Peter’s confession in Matthew chapter 16 that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Thomas’ cry in John chapter 20, ‘My Lord and my God’.

And it makes sense of everything that has gone before. If Jesus were not the Holy One of God, then there could certainly have been other rabbis to whom the disciples could equally well have gone. If he were not the Holy One of God, it would have been far too much to claim that he had the words of eternal life.

We might say that Ted Heath was right, that there is a unity for which humankind in its very essence needs, a need for something greater than themselves, something in which they themselves can share, which gives them their ultimate goal. It is just that the project he offered, was nowhere near big enough to answer that desire, just as no other political or social project within the sphere of what is humanly possible has ever been big enough to answer that desire. These are human projects after all. Yet what is impossible with man is possible with God, and that possibility arises from union with Christ, we remaining in him and he in us. He alone is the answer to all our questions. To whom else would we go? He has the words of eternal life, he is the Holy One of God.

(1) https://cutt.ly/jegdwdhB
(2) cf. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, pp. 383-384.
(3) Ibid., p. 390.
(4) R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, p. 300.
(5) Kolb and Wengert, Formula of Concord, p. 495.

This week we think about what our motivation is in how we live, and ask ourselves: are we living the wrong life? (John 6:24-35)

Jesus seems superhuman, but is superhuman the right way to describe him?
Is there something more going on? If so, what does that mean for us?

Jesus is more than super-human. But what does that mean?

All Age Intro:
Olympic Top Trumps
Who would win…? In which category?

Usain Bolt
Won 8 gold medals including both 100m and 200m in three successive Olympic games.
He still holds the 100m and 200m world records.
He ran 100m in 9.58s.

Laura Kenny
In terms of her 5 gold medals, is the most successful, female cyclist in Olympic history.

Michael Phelps
Won 28 medals including 23 gold medals,
top US swimmer. Nearest anyone else has come is 9 gold medals.

Categories: cycling, swimming, running

We would describe these people as kind of super human.
Human beings like you and me, but absolutely superb in certain areas,
better than anyone else at cycling, swimming or running.
They can do things beyond what normal human beings can do.
In top trumps, they win hands down in their category.

Jesus, top trumps… (So far in Mark’s gospel)Makes
Mark’s gospel has been showing us the things that Jesus was doing.
Jesus was clearly a human being like everyone else,
but he seemed to be super human,
to be able to do things that went beyond what normal human being can do.
So far Mark has already shown us Jesus:

Making lepers clean,
Making lame walk,
Casting out a legion of demons
Calming a storm
Bringing back a girl from the dead
Feeding 5,000 people with a pack lunch…
and now,
Walking on water…

Jesus seems superhuman, but is superhuman the right way to describe him?
Is there something more going on? If so, what does that mean for us?

Jesus walking on the water
Re-tell the story… With props…?

Three questions:
Why did Jesus make the disciples go off without him?
Why does Jesus walk on water?
Why were the disciples completely amazed?

Why does Jesus walk on water?
Card – turn around – ‘I am…’
Jesus healed people to make them better.
Jesus cast out demons to set people free.
Jesus calmed a storm to save them from drowning.
Jesus raised the girl to bring her back to life.
Jesus fed people because they were hungry.
Jesus did all these things to help people.
But walking on the water did little to help anyone,
if any miracle was done just for the sake of showing off this was it!
So, why does he walk on water?

It seems that at this moment,
Jesus does seem to want to show them something about himself,
to really push their understanding of who he is even further.
So, what is he trying to show them?

Well, the fact is walking on water is not just super human.
Usain Bolt can run incredibly fast, but he cannot walk on water.
Michael Phelps can swim through water at incredible speeds,
but he cannot walk on water.

Jesus is doing what no human being can do unaided.
But that is the point.
Jesus is not acting as a human, but as God.

In the Old Testament,
the part of the Bible that talks about before Jesus came,
the scriptures from which the disciples would have learnt about God,
there is a book called Job and in chapter 9,
Job reflects on how much greater than man God is and includes this line:
“He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea…” (Job 9:8)

In walking on the water, Jesus was revealing that he was not super-human,
rather he was human, but also Divine, man and God combined.
He was pushing his disciples to think more deeply about who he really was.

Some commentators also suggest that the details of the story also point to this idea that Jesus was showing himself to be God.
The fact he was passing them by,
when they spotted him, rather than just coming to them,
shows that he was mimicking what God did when he revealed his true character to Moses, by passing by him.
Some also argue, that when Jesus says,
“Take courage! It is I! Don’t be afraid!”
The words he uses, for ‘It is I’ are literally, ‘I am’, the words used by God to describe his name, when he meets Moses in the burning bush.
Certainly, the only other time he says, ‘I am’ in Mark, is when he is asked directly by the Sanhedrin, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One”?

The disciples main need was not help crossing the lake,
it was help to understand that Jesus was far more amazing than they had
so far realised.
He wasn’t superhuman, he was God with us.

Why were the disciples completely amazed?
Why card… turn around hard heart…
This leads us to the next ‘Why’? Why were the disciples completely amazed.
After all, they had already seen Jesus do some amazing miracles.
Only the day before they had been involved in helping to feed 5,000 people with just a packed lunch.

His answer is that they had not really grasped what Jesus was doing with the miracle of the loaves.
Because in that he was also acting more like God than man.

In the Old Testament, Israel’s origins are bound up with God acting in power to rescue them from being slaves in Egypt.
He forced Pharaoh, the king of Egypt to let them go,
by sending 10 plagues on Egypt.
Then when Pharaoh chased Israel after they had left and trapped them
by the Red Sea,
God made a path through the sea, so Israel could cross on dry land,
but drowned the Egyptian army that followed them.
Then when they were in the wilderness,
God made sure they had food to eat by providing a special food called Manna for them to collect every morning.

So, Jesus feeding masses of people in the wilderness,
should have been a sign to the disciples that he was more than superhuman,
he was behaving like God, giving manna for Israel in the wilderness.
If they had realised the true significance of that miracle,
then they would not be surprised that if Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, who fed the people in the wilderness,
he also has the power to treat the sea as though it is dry land,
as he made it so Israel could cross the Red Sea and escape Pharaoh.
The sea was no barrier to Jesus, just as it was no barrier to the God of Moses,
because Jesus is not just super-human he is the God of Moses.

Why didn’t the disciples grasp the significance of what Jesus had already done?
Mark tells us it was because their hearts were hard.
Even those who had invested everything in following Jesus,
seemed unable to grasp who he really was.
The truth was just so amazing, so out there, so hard for them to take on board.
When it came to understanding who Jesus was,
they were out of their depth, they were all at sea.

But the story continues, the disciples stick with Jesus,
and bit by bit they come to understand who he really is.

You may be struggling to truly grasp the centrality of Jesus,
few people understand straight away.
But, if you keep coming to church, meeting with other Christians,
praying and reading the Bible,
then in the end God will enable your heart to be softened,
and your mind to understand who Jesus really is,
and in him you will find true connection with God.

Why did Jesus make the disciples go off without him?
Why? Rejected crown…
So, to the final, ‘why’.
Why did Jesus make the disciples go off without him?
After all they end up quite helpless without him there with them.

Notice that he did so before dismissing the crowd.
He wanted to separate them from the crowd,
then to move the crowd on.

In John’s gospel, we are told that the crowd wanted to make Jesus king,
and that would not be surprising after seeing him do such an amazing miracle.
Here was someone who seemed super-human,
surely he could act as our political leader and solve all our political problems?
The disciples might easily have gone along with this idea,
even later on it seems to be the kind of thing they are hoping for.
Without the full understanding of Jesus’ divinity,
it is easy to try and use Jesus’ superhuman powers,
to fit into your agenda.

Do you come to Jesus in order to make you feel better or improve your mental health,
do you come to Jesus, because you think it will make you richer,
do you, as some do, try and use Jesus to bolster your political cause?

When we see Jesus as just super-human we enlist him for our cause.
When we come to understand that he is the Almighty God,
we realise that he has come to enlist us to his cause.

Even Jesus, realised the pressure on him to fit into people’s expectations.
So, Jesus does not ride the wave of his success,
he does not play to the crowd.
He dismisses the crowd
and goes up the mountain by himself to pray,
to commune with God,
to embrace his divine nature and divine purpose.

When we find ourselves, excited by our success or pressurised by those around us to fit into their agendas,
we need to make prayer a priority.
Like Jesus, we need to turn again to God in prayer,
in order to re-orient ourselves and seek his direction
and his purpose for our lives.

How do we view Jesus? Superhuman or God with us?

If we see him as superhuman, then we just view him as a better version of ourselves:

a good man,
a great teacher,
a miracle maker.

These are all admirable characteristics, just as Usain Bolt, Laura Kenny and Mark Phelps have admirable characteristics. We may admire him, even want to learn from his teaching. But ultimately he is just another man,
we have no reason to follow him instead of other great human teachers, religious or otherwise.

But, when our hearts are no longer hardened, when we come to realise that Jesus is not just superhuman, but the God who created the universe, come to live among us,
then we see that his life, his teaching, his death and resurrection are not just good stories, but the transformational moment in human history.
We see that a relationship with him has the power to utterly transform our very existence.

Then even if like the disciples,
life feels like a hard slog and that we aren’t going anywhere,
we can discover that Jesus is still with us,
and as the Divine God, we can be confident that the future is in his hands.
we can hear his words to us:
“Take courage! I am! Do not be afraid!”