The Courageous Gospel. Robert Allan Hill

Wrong He, Wrong Tense, Wrong Bread. My Real Father Really Gives The Real Bread. The People who ate manna died: those who come to me will never die. Jesus gives life to the world.

      This chapter sets the model for Christian liturgy. Wisdom feeding (readings) plus sacramental feeding. Luther and Calvin emphasized the Eucharist. Their followers did not. Likewise, the Roman Catholics lost sight of the sermon. The two traditions here are dividing unnecessarily. (RB thinks the split was unnecessary).

      Even some of the disciples object. Ignatius says Jewish Christians did not believe in the Eucharist! For some it is more about fellowship than about power. There are clearly some tensions, conflicts, and problems in John’s community. John has a very exalted view of the Eucharist. The Eucharist was a point of contention in the early church.

      9 / Two Beggars

      John 9

      “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

      This year we are scaling a great promontory, the highest peak in the Bible, which is the Gospel of John. With every cut-back trail, at every rest point, atop every lookout, with every majestic view, this spiritual gospel will address you with the choice of freedom, with the ongoing need to choose, and—in choosing—to find the life of belonging and meaning, personal identity and global imagination.

      In John 9 we reach the summit. Here this morning is the crucial chapter within the Fourth Gospel. In it we see clearly the two level drama of faith that John acclaims.