“What Do You Want?”

Text: John 6:51-59

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            “What do you want?” It’s the first question Jesus asks in the Gospel of John to those who would be His disciples. When John the Baptizer pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world to two of his own disciples, they started following behind Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them and asked, “What are you seeking?” which, more simply means, “What do you want?” And He periodically checks on that with His disciples too. To His Apostles James and John, He asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” when they come to him asking for a blank check favor. In His conversation with blind Bartimaeus He asks, “What do you want me to do?” And again, here in our Gospel reading today, after the crowds turn away from His hard teachings about eating and drinking His body and blood, Jesus asks the Twelve Apostles, “Do you want to go away as well?” He’s always asking those who would follow Him what they want.

            But Jesus doesn’t ask this so that He can become some sort of genie, granting wishes. He asks this because it’s an extremely revealing question. It’s a cutting question: “What do you want?” It exposes us, because the things that we want tell us exactly who we are, once all the outer layers we present to the world are stripped away. After all the pretense and pretend, the things we want are what reveal our hearts, for it’s in our hearts that we desire things.

            So when Eve reached out and ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it was not just an infraction of some arbitrary rule that God had given. No, we read that the fruit was “desired to make one wise.” It was the desire of her heart to be like God, to replace His Word and promise with what she wanted instead. That’s what was her and Adam’s fall was actually all about—a wrong want. When King David sprinted down his path of adultery, lies, and murder, it was all because he desired Bathsheba; he wanted what had not been given to him. And here too, in our Gospel reading, when the enormous crowd that has been chasing Jesus all around the Sea of Galilee leaves Him, it’s because He’s not giving them what they want—another miracle of free bread and fish, satisfaction for their hungry stomachs, an easy religion of simple answers and mere wish fulfillment. And even more distasteful to them, He tries to give them something that they don’t want: a Messiah that defies their expectations, a Teacher who doesn’t spoon feed them the answers they assume they already know, a miracle worker who tells them that He has even greater signs and wonders beyond what their imaginations can conjure. He doesn’t line up with what they want, so they leave. “This is a hard saying, this is difficult teaching, this is hard to understand, it’s weird, it doesn’t sound like what we’ve heard everyone else say; who can listen to it?” Out of the crowd of over 5000, most of them left. So Jesus turns to the Twelve who stayed by His side and He checks in to see if that’s what they want too. “Do you want to go away as well?”

            What do you want from Jesus? I’m not asking you what should want from Jesus, the good Sunday morning answer. What do you really want? A miracle of bread, filling up some gap in an earthly thing that you’re worried you’re short on? A good reputation with other people, approval from parents, coworkers, fellow students, friends? Good standing in whatever community you think will respect your mechanical religious behaviors? Do you want to rack up a little credit with God so that you can cash it in for some sort of comfort, some sort of reward, something you can weigh and measure and count later on? Just a good fuzzy warm feeling? Or perhaps it’s just as important to ask what it is that He’s offering that you don’t want. Do you not want His challenging teachings? Things that the world says are outdated and foolish? Structure and boundaries for the best way in which your life can thrive? Gifts that can’t be shown off to the world, but are appreciated only in the light of faith, only seen with your eyes at the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come? Is what you’re wanting from Him only so much bread that perishes? Is what you don’t want from Him the hard sayings, the things that challenge your preconceived ideas about what God should do, how He should be, as the fallen world and your fallen nature see it?

            You know what it is that you’re setting up in your heart as a little idol to be desired. It might not be on the pedestal above God, but you know deep down that it’s right there next to Him. And that’s not good. It’s not safe. That’s what leads people away from Him: Adam and Eve in the Garden, King David on his palace roof, the Israelites longing for the food of their slavery in Egypt, the crowds in Capernaum, and believers today. And it’s likely that you know it ought not be that way. But, as they say, the heart wants what the heart wants.

            Your Lord knows this. And He does something about it. He knows that our wants will all too often lead us away from Him, so He takes it upon Himself to draw us to Him. “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father,” Jesus says today. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” He sends the Holy Spirit, not just to give you some data and information about Jesus, not just to get Him in the running alongside all your other wants. He sends the Holy Spirit to completely renew your heart, to overhaul it so that you do want what He offers, so that you believe what He’s setting before you is more valuable anything else, that nothing else can even come close to what He’s giving you: life, to the fullest. He redirects you so that you want Him as your only God and Messiah. It’s exactly as St. Paul described it in our Epistle reading today, “At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” So you do want more than the world’s trinkets. You want truth. You want something strong and deep and challenging, yes—something you can continue to put roots deeper into, to learn more and more, never exhausting the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. You want light. You want life. And Jesus gives them to you. “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” His life pours from His veins, from His lips, through water and blood and body and speech, whether it’s read in Scripture, or preached to encourage you, or received at the Communion rail or font. It’s all His life-giving Word so that you abide in Him and He abides in you, and you will live because of Him.

            Awake, O sleeper, and give thanks always and for everything—including your faith and renewed heart—to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For you have been transformed and made new. Your wants have been lifted to heavenly heights, and that desire for life and light has been met, satisfied, and perfectly fulfilled in the Son of Man. Receive Him now and be filled with His Spirit and eternal life. In the name of Jesus, the Bread from heaven. Amen.