If you go out to eat at an average restaurant, you’ll find two kinds of dishes. There are main dishes. And there side dishes. I suppose there are times when we choose a restaurant solely because it has our favorite side dish. For example, you might choose Olive Garden just because you love the bread sticks and the salad. But most of the time we choose a restaurant because of the main dish. We are there to eat the entrée. The side dishes are nice. But what we hunger for is the main dish. For many of us, a satisfying meal consists not just of a side dish but of a main dish. We can think about our lives in a similar way. There are side dishes. And there are main dishes. There are things that are not terribly important. And there are things that are extremely important. We all have our side dishes and our main dishes in life. This is even true when it comes to what we would probably call our spiritual life. Spiritually, some things are more important to us than others. This morning and in this new series we’re exploring what it might be like to let Jesus be not just a side dish, but the main dish of our lives. We are exploring what life might be like if didn’t just take a slice of Jesus, but we took all of Jesus.
It seems that large numbers of religious people today want Jesus as the main dish. There is a growing call in the Christian world for the Christian faith to focus more on Jesus and less on other things.
A wildly popular video captures this enthusiasm for making Jesus preeminent. In January of this year, a poet named Jefferson Bethke created a video entitled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.”[1] It’s a monologue trashing religion and upholding Jesus. Here’s part of what Bethke says in the video: “I mean if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars; Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor…Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice; Tend to ridicule God’s people, they did it to John The Baptist; They can’t fix their problems, and so they just mask it; Not realizing religion’s like spraying perfume on a casket; …Because if grace is water, then the church should be an ocean; It’s not a museum for good people, it’s a hospital for the broken; Which means I don’t have to hide my failure, I don’t have to hide my sin; Because it doesn’t depend on me it depends on him…Which is why Jesus hated religion, and for it he called them fools; Don’t you see so much better than just following some rules…Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention; How Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrum; See one’s the work of God, but one’s a man made invention; See one is the cure, but the other’s the infection; See because religion says do, Jesus says done; Religion says slave, Jesus says son; Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free; Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see” Since its posting on January 12, the video has been viewed over 19 million times on YouTube.
Its popularity, I believe, is due to the fact that it expresses what many Christians today are feeling. We seem to truly want Jesus as the main dish. We seem to want to make everything else a side dish. What we appear to truly hunger for is Jesus. But I wonder if that’s really what we’re asking for?
In Jesus’ day, large numbers of spiritual people also seemed to want Jesus as the main dish. This becomes very clear in John 6. Notice this description: 1After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him… 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him… (John 6:1-5 ESV). According to v. 2 and vs. 5 a “large crowd” is “following” Jesus and “coming toward” Jesus. They seem to be hungering after Jesus. What they appear to want more than anything else is Jesus.
We read something similar a few verses later: 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” (John 6:24-25 ESV). Once again a “crowd” is “seeking Jesus.” They seem to be hungering after Jesus. What they appear to want more than anything else is Jesus.
But I wonder if that’s really what they’re asking for? It appears that these spiritual people want Jesus as their main dish. But it turns out that what they truly wanted was Jesus as a side dish. Listen once more to vs. 2: And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. They’ve seen or heard of the official’s son whom Jesus healed in John 4. They’ve seen or heard of the invalid whom Jesus healed in John 5. John calls these “signs.” These miracles are sign-posts pointing to the deity of Jesus. The crowd has seen or heard of these signs. And that’s what this crowd truly wants, according to John. They aren’t coming to Jesus because they want Jesus. They are coming to Jesus because they want the healings and the miracles. Jesus is actually their side dish. The main dish is really the miracles. What they are truly hungry for, what they want as an entrée, are the miracles and healings.
The same thing is true of the crowd mentioned later in John 6. Jesus points it out in vs. 26: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” This crowd is a little different than the first crowd. They aren’t hungry for signs and miracles. They are hungry for more of the food Jesus just provided. A few verses earlier Jesus fed this crowd with five barley loaves and two fish. And Jesus perceives now that’s the real reason they are seeking him once more. They aren’t coming to Jesus because they want Jesus. They are coming to Jesus because they want another good meal. Jesus is actually their side dish. The main dish is really the food.
In fact, we read that just after Jesus provided the meal, in vs. 15, this same crowd tries to take Jesus by force to make him king. What they really want is the political and cultural change someone like Jesus can bring to their desperate nation of Israel. Overwhelmed and overshadowed by their overload, the Roman Empire, they see in Jesus an opportunity to finally end Roman rule and usher in a new era of economic prosperity, health, and a golden age. Jesus is just a side dish. The main dish is the political and cultural change he could bring to their country.
I suspect sometimes we’re just like these crowds. We say what we really want is just Jesus. We say we want everything else to just be a side dish. But I suspect that sometimes what we truly want is Jesus as a side dish. For some of us, what we’re really after is healing. We want healing for our marriage. So we turn to Jesus. We want healing from our cancer. So we turn to Jesus. We want healing from a loss. So we turn to Jesus. This isn’t a bad thing. Jesus has the power to heal. Highland is filled with people who can testify to Jesus’ power. But what if Jesus, for some reason, won’t bring that healing? Will you still want him? Will Jesus alone be enough? Or does it have to be Jesus + healing? If, for some reason, Jesus doesn’t heal your marriage and it falls apart, or doesn’t heal your cancer and it gets worse, or doesn’t heal the loss and you get depression, will you still want Jesus? Is Jesus really your main dish? Or is the healing the main dish?
In his book Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis writes the fictional dialogue that takes place between demons who are trying to divert people away from the Christian faith. At one point the demon Screwtape writes to the demon Wormwood:[2] “What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’. You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order…” These were things that would have been important to Lewis’ readers in the early twentieth century. Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin) writes that “Today, Screwtape’s list would doubtless look different. The currently tempting formulas might include ‘Christianity and coolness,’ ‘Christianity and self-affirmation,’ ‘Christianity and self-improvement,’ ‘Christianity and personal progress,’… ‘Christianity and popularity,’ ‘Christianity and success,’ ‘Christianity and power,’ Christianity and social status,’ ‘Christianity and reform,’ even ‘Christianity and tradition.’”[3] His point is that most of us have an “and.” Very few of us truly hunger for just Jesus. There’s an “and.” There’s something else that Jesus is the means to. That something else is really our main dish. Jesus is just the side dish.
Jesus challenges this when he says this to the crowds: 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. (Jn. 6:27 ESV). What I’m here for, Jesus is saying, is something much deeper than just these side dishes. The crowds misunderstand Jesus and they get into a debate about the bread and fish again. At the end of the discussion they beg Jesus in v. 34 to keep giving them bread, to keep filling their physical hunger. But Jesus wants so much more than this.
He puts it this way: 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst… 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever… 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (Jn. 6:35-56 ESV).
Do you hear what Jesus is saying? He’s saying something like this: “I am the main course. I am not just a side dish. I am the bread of life. If you eat me, you don’t need anything else. If you consume me, you will be fulfilled. If you have chewed me up and swallowed me down, it will not matter what else you haven’t eaten. If you make me the main dish, you won’t even need the side dishes.”
This is a difficult teaching. Jesus is essentially saying that all these “ands” don’t really matter. He is suggesting that all these side dishes aren’t necessary. He’s promising that if all these “and’s” and all these side dishes were taken away, and all we had was Jesus, we’d still be fulfilled. We’d truly be fulfilled.
But not everyone believes that. Listen to what happened to the crowds at this point: 41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”… 66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6:41-42, 66 ESV).
Some in Jesus’ day were not satisfied with Jesus as the main dish. Strip away the healing, and many walk away. Strip away the meals, and many walk away. For many, Jesus alone simply isn’t enough. He’s not enough to be the main course. He’s a great side-dish. He’s a wonderful slice of bread on a plate filled with other things. But if everything else is stripped away, and he’s all we really have to eat, we’re just not sure we’ll be satisfied.
But the point of this text is that we can be satisfied with Jesus as the main dish—especially when side dishes disappear. Jesus is challenging us. Be he’s also comforting us. He’s saying that when you get to those hard times in life when all the “and’s” are removed and many of the side dishes are gone, you can still find fulfillment in him.
A friend and I are studying the lives of two Christians: Saint John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.[4] Both lived in Spain in the 1500’s. Teresa experienced many hardships. Her mother died when she was twelve. Shortly after becoming a nun she suffered a paralyzing illness that left her an invalid for three years. She recovered but then came under attack by spiritual mentors and leaders for her actions and teachings. Their critique had such an impact on her that for two years she could not pray. For twenty years she wrestled with self-doubt. She writes that, in the end, the only way she survived these hardships was that she learned that Jesus alone was enough. Her health disappeared. Her good reputation disappeared. Her self-confidence disappeared. She had no side dishes left. But she did still have Jesus. And she learned that he was truly enough. She wrote a poem which expressed her conviction. It is often referred to by its first line: “Nada te turbe – Let nothing disturb you.” In English the poem reads, Let nothing disturb you; Let nothing make you afraid; All things pass; But God is unchanging, Patience is enough for everything. You who have God lack nothing. God alone is sufficient. As each side dish was removed from her life—her mother, her health, her standing—all that remained was Christ. And in the end, she realized that he was sufficient.
Tullian Tchividjian wrote a book entitled Jesus+Nothing = Everything.[5] In it, he writes of a troubling time in 2009. The Florida church he planted was merging with declining church nearby. But members of the declining church protested Tchividjian’s leadership. Blogs were written and letters were circulated with false accusations against Tchividjian. A petition drive was started to remove him from the pulpit. He writes, “Never had I experienced anything so tough. I could hardly eat, had trouble sleeping, and was continually battling nausea. I felt at the absolute end of myself.” Just as the conflict climaxed, he left on vacation. He writes: “In my misery I told God that I wanted my old life back. The answer from God…was simple–but sobering: ‘It’s not your old life you want back; it’s your old idols you want back, and I love you too much to give them back to you.’ You see, I never realized how dependent I’d become on human approval and acceptance until it was taken away. For the first time, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being deeply disliked and distrusted. I was realizing just how much I’d been relying on the endorsement of others to validate me–to make me feel like I mattered. In and of itself, human approval and acceptance are not bad things. They are, in fact, a gift from God. But I had turned them into idols by making them my primary source of meaning and value and worth and significance, so that without them I was miserable and depressed.” He had made acceptance from others his main dish. And Jesus had become his side dish. But when the acceptance was stripped away, he was forced to allow Jesus to be the main dish. And suddenly, for the first time in his life, he realized that Jesus was enough. He slowly began to realize that Jesus + nothing = everything. Jesus became the bread of his life.
Ultimately, that’s what this whole series is about. We’re exploring the “I Am” statements of Jesus. Seven times Jesus reveals who he is in a statement in John’s Gospel that begins with “I Am.” And every one of these statements relates to the idea of “life.[6] One of the key words in John’s gospel is life. It is used at least thirty-six times. The seven I am statements all relate to John’s theme of life in Christ. If you want life, all you need is Jesus. Jesus called himself “the bread of life” and “the light of life.” He is the door of the sheep that enables us to find “abundant life.” He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life so that we might have life. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus told Martha. To the disciples He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” Jesus is “the true vine” which brings life to us, the branches. These I Am statements are many different ways of saying one thing: Jesus is life. Jesus is enough. So often we make him our side dish. We just want a slice of him. And we make everything else the main dish. But Jesus wants us to know that he, alone, is enough. If we’ll make him the main dish of our life, we will always be fulfilled. Even when everything else is stripped away from us—our health, our dreams, our career, our loved ones, our finances—we’ll learn that Jesus is enough. Jesus + nothing will = everything. He is the bread of life. Will you let him be yours today?
As we stand and sing, I want you to think about your side dishes and the main dish. What is one thing that you’ve made a main dish but truly ought to be a side dish? While we are singing, if it would be helpful, I invite you to write that thing down on a card and bring it up to this table and place it on the small side dish. It will be a tangible way of beginning to treat it truly as a side dish and not as the main dish.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY
[2] C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters – Special Illustrated Edition (HarperOne, 2009), 153.
[3] Tullian Tchividjian Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Crossway, 2011), 38-39.
[4] Gerald G. May The Dark Night of the Soul (HarperOne, 2004), 15-40.
[5] http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/jesus_nothing_everything/
[6] Warren Wiersbe Jesus in the Present Tense (David C. Cook, 2011), Kindle Edition, 305.
