4/10/55

Scripture: Read John 6: 32-40.

Texts: John 6: 35; “I am the bread of life.”

Matthew 5: 6; “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Easter has come again! Through the Lenten season, we have tried to prepare ourselves for it. Through the activities of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, we have approached it. Out of our remembrances of Easter past, we have anticipated the next Easter; and here it is! Articles in the press have kept our attention focused upon it. Merchandising in the stores has featured it. People have remembered the approach of Easter in their gifts of flowers, in messages by card, by letter, by telegram. Winter’s clothing has been laid aside and spring outfits have made their appearance, with Easter as a deadline or goal.

There are those who will say that Easter is a time when everyone goes to church to see what everyone else is wearing; or that everyone goes to church on Easter whether or not he ever gets through the door of the sanctuary again for another year! -- That going to church on Easter is the thing to do and so one must needs conform to custom.

Well, if any of these none-too-dignified reasons for being in church on Easter day fits any of us in any particular, let each of us offer what reason we may to God and conscience.

But I am one of those who believes that, in the main, we all get to church on Easter for deeper reasons than “show” or “conformity” or “curiosity.” We come to worship, as we do on the other Sunday mornings of the year. And those who may be erratic in church attendance part of the time, do tend to converge at church on Easter Sunday, so that we are all here on this day, in numbers that would pack the fellowship 52 times a year, if we made it a habit of regularity.

I am further convinced that we come here because we are hungry for something that only Easter and a Risen Lord can supply. Here on this day, we hope for the bread of life above all else. And here we usually find it, as I trust we do today!

Recently, I have tried to discuss with you those great sayings of Jesus which we call the Beatitudes. And I shall continue the effort for several weeks yet to come. Today our attention turns, only briefly, to the saying of Christ that: they are blessed who “hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Some such hunger as that brings us to the house of God on the Day of the Risen Lord. And here we seek to be filled.

1) We may not always approach life’s basic hungers in the right order. Often we do not. We are not a little prone to consider physical hunger as being primary in our list of needs. When we come to the fact, it would seem that very few of us in this room have ever known literal hunger of the body, as millions of the earth know it. All our lives we have lived in sufficiency, in plenty, or in abundance, so far as necessary food is concerned. Only occasionally have we been so late to a meal or otherwise been separated from food, long enough to know real hunger. We have not known, most of us, the slow insistence of starvation. But even so, we do regard food as a basic necessity, together with the means of keeping sheltered and keeping warm, and whatever else brings physical comfort. We have been not a little inclined to assume that people’s stomachs must be satisfied before they can be offered the food of ideas and ideals.

2) And then, too, we know the hunger for righteousness. Most of us want to be right -- at least in the sense of being correct. We think it essential to repeat the Ten Commandments and to make a reasonable attempt to observe them as a rule of life. We set a fairly high estimate upon ourselves if we can say that we have dealt fairly with all people, have taken care of our obligations to others, and have tried to live lives of moral uprightness.

3) But this kind of feeling does not yet satisfy the deepest needs of our being. For our greatest hunger is spiritual. We long to live --- not merely to exist. We hunger for life that has an eternal quality, not just the transitory satisfaction of the moment or the day or the decade. We are hungry for the leading, the inspiration, the reality of a Living Master, to be our Teacher and our Savior. And that is what brings us to Easter worship.

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However, we are only vaguely aware of him unless we have found that his standard differs from ours, and his order changes ours. For Jesus puts the spiritual hunger of our natures first. It was one day while he had watched a woman drawing water from a well, that he perceived that she had a need, a thirst, much deeper than any that could be quenched by the water in her jar. And he talked to her of the water of life that could really satisfy her thirsty being. It was not that he derided or belittled the liquid that she carried from the well back to the house in the city. As a matter of fact, he wanted some of that himself. And he was so matter-of-fact about the need of nourishment and drink that he made these things a part of his prayers and his teaching. But first of all he wanted the immortal souls of people fed! And then the search for correct conduct, and for physical sustenance could fall into proper place.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness,” and then all these other things “shall be added unto you.” [Matthew 6: 33]. That was Jesus’ order of importance in the hungers of mankind. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” said he, “for they shall be filled.” And He feeds us!

Most of us expect to go home after church to Easter dinners. And that is a blessing for which our hearts should overflow with gratitude. But, more essential to us, is the nourishment we seek here in worship of the living Lord, who fills the hungry souls with good things.

Do you remember how Job wrestled with the problems not only of the body, but of the mind of man, grappling with the problem of right and wrong? It was he who rose above the mere measure of what might seem just in the eye of man to the place where he could say of God: “Though He slay me yet will I trust Him.” [Job 13: 15]. It was that same Job, who said, elsewhere, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” [Job 19: 25]. Remember that it was away back then, centuries before Christ on earth, that Job laid hold in trust on One greater than himself. He expected to see God, and to be seen of God, not only then in his sorrows, but also beyond his vale of sorrows.

You may be aware that, in the vocal solo we heard earlier this morning, the composer, George Frederick Handel, cites this expression of confidence and expectation on the part of Job. And then he leaps clear forward to the Christian era, wherein Paul writes glowingly to the people at Corinth: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.” [I Corinthians 15: 20].

I don’t see how one could be more highly nourished, more fully rewarded in his soul, more assured of real life, than in the knowledge of a risen living Lord, who offers eternal being to all who choose and love and follow Him.

Is not the thing that brings us here on Easter morn the hope that we too may find the stone of deadness and doubt rolled away from the tombs of our hopes and ideas and ideals; that we may know life eternal for ourselves, beginning right now in our Risen Lord.

Beloved, our earth is in an awful state. And precious parts of many of our own lives have been laid in tombs. But the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. And we are fed by the manna of Christ, risen and triumphant. Alleluia!

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 10, 1955.