There's documentary called “Supersize Me” filmed by a man named Michael Spurlock. Spurlock lived for a whole month on nothing but McDonalds food. From Egg McMuffins to Big Macs, from french fries to apple pies, Milkshakes to pancakes, every meal every day for thirty days at McDonalds. This would have been my dream diet when I was about 12, but it didn't work very well for Spurlock. Here's how one newspaper described Spurlock's condition afterwards:

“Mr Spurlock, who was 6 feet 2 inches in height and in good health, weighed 185 lbs…he had put on 25 lbs. However the overall effect on his health proved to be far more worrying than his increasing size. Doctors who examined him, including a cardiologist, were shocked at how fast his body deteriorated. Within a few days, Mr. Spurlock was vomiting up his meals. His liver then became toxic and his cholesterol level increased significantly. He experienced headaches, depression, …and poor skin. He also said his knees began to hurt because the extra weight was going on so quickly.”

It was amazing to see how fast Spurlock deteriorated. He was feeding completely on things that his body was not designed to eat. Naturally it broke down. Your body requires fuel, but it requires the right fuel. Filling up with the wrong stuff will break you down.

The bible teaches that what is true for your body is also true for your spirit. You were designed for a certain kind of food. Absent that food you will break down. With that food you will thrive and grow.

The problem is that often what is worst for us tastes the best going down. I'll bet those Big Macs and French fries tasted great. Spiritually speaking what feels good immediately is often the worst stuff for you. You get a great rush, a fantastic high, an exhilarating thrill, but over the long term that you see and feel the destructive effects. But God has given you a spiritual diet perfectly designed to keep you growing and thriving for a long time.

Turn to our gospel lesson for today beginning at verse 53, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will have no life in you.”

Notice the lack of variety on the menu. There are not thirteen or fourteen meals listed. There's only one meal, one food, that gives life, Jesus Christ, and if you don't feed on him, he says, “there's no life in you.” But, Jesus says in the next verse: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood  has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day..”

Every single human being has a hunger for Jesus in their spirit just like you have hunger for food in your stomach. Everyone was created with a spiritual appetite. But just as in the case of real food most people get confused or waylaid or deceived by things that taste good and provide immediate gratification. So every human being is designed to run on Jesus, but few ultimately recognize that the lack of Jesus is the source of hunger.

This last Easter I watched Emma and Aedan with their Easter baskets. They stuffed themselves full of chocolate. They ate Hershey's Kiss after Hershey's Kiss and then they both had chocolate bunnies and then, not only chocolate, they had those bunny shaped marshmallows covered with colored sugar. Who knows how many calories they sucked into their little bodies, probably enough to keep them from starving for a week, but by lunch time they were hungry. Guess what they wanted? More chocolate. You see the chocolate was very good going down, but no matter how much they ate, it didn't satisfy.

The same thing is true spiritually. People stuff themselves with everything but Jesus and inevitably get hungry or thirsty again. Only Jesus gives life. This is his point in verse 58: “Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Who remembers what Manna was? God freed the Hebrews from slavery under the Pharaoh in Egypt . To escape, God led them through the Red Sea into a barren wasteland. They ran into a problem. What was that problem? There's no food or water in a desert. So they cried out to God and God provided food for them in the form of bread called manna that coated the ground like dew; enough to feed every man woman and child throughout their trek in the desert. But even though they ate this food, they all died. This food was good. It was from God but it was designed to give life to the body only, not to the spirit. Even though the manna was good, feeding on it did not bring true life. They died in the desert.

You and I are surrounded by good things from our father in heaven. Wife, husband, kids, dads, moms, cars, homes, clothes, food, money, careers, hobbies, but none of these things can bring you life. They are good things, like the manna was good, but if that is all you have, there is no life in you.

But Jesus says, feed on me and you will live forever.

And yet because we think what feels good and what gives immediate gratification is what we need, we forego the real food, the real bread of life, and feed on everything else. You find yourself with a good home and wonderful friends and family, well provided for, you have everything you want but you still want more and you're not sure where to look. So you think, maybe I need to play more golf. Maybe I need to have more time in front of the television. Maybe I need to read more. Others turn to drugs or alcohol. It feels good. It takes the edge off. You feel satisfied.

But it doesn't last. The next day, the next hour, the next moment, you're still hungry. Some people never get it. They think the answer is to keep feeding on the things around them going from one thing to the next trying to find the manna that works. Looking in at this from the outside, you think to yourself "C'mon. Let me tell you how this is going to end. You're going to play golf until you drop. You're going to take your big vacation. You are going to read your new book or try out a new exercise routine and you might feel fine for the moment but you're still going to be hungry so you're going to look for something else and do this over again and in a matter of a few years you are going to feel worse inside than that guy at McDonalds.

Only Jesus can fill you. If you feed on anything else, if you rely, depend, trust, look to, anything or anybody, good or bad you are only eating plain old manna and plain old manna will not give life or satisfaction. It's not real food. But “My flesh is real food” says Jesus, “and my blood is real drink.” People who go to church all of the time read this verse and they think, oh, Jesus is talking about Communion. And he may be, but that's not his primary meaning. The last Supper, when he instituted Communion has not yet happened. While he's probably referring to it in a prophetic sense, his primary reference here in the text is to himself personally. He, Jesus, is real food.

But what does that mean. We've been talking all along this morning about how feeding on Jesus is the only thing that brings life. But what does it mean to feed on Jesus. How do you feed on Jesus?

It means two things. First of all, when you eat something, you take it into your body and it becomes a part of you. It goes deep. Feeding on Jesus is the same thing. It means that you don't just look at Jesus as some external power or force beyond you in the heavens seated on the clouds, but that you open your heart to him, you lay down your life to him, you abandon and surrender the inner-most parts of your being to him and ask him into your heart and when you do that you will have life in you. You will have the God of heaven and earth in you.

Second, feeding on Jesus is not a one time thing. The meal begins with the decision to ask him into your heart but it cannot end there. If it does you'll get hungry again and chances are you'll seek food elsewhere. This is what happens to backsliders. They ask Jesus to live in them, they think, “well that's done” and they fail to turn to him and seek him and relate to him daily. They get hungry and since they've not been feeding on Jesus they turn elsewhere.

Believers must maintain a regular diet or they find that their peace and satisfaction begins to decrease.

Why?

Because if you're not feeding on Christ you're eating at McDonalds and inevitably you'll get hungry and be tempted to look for food in the wrong place. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” Remaining in Jesus means that you open your heart to him daily him in prayer; that you open your mind to him in his word, letting it form and shape and conform the way you think about the world; that you worship him every week with your brothers and sisters at church, letting him nourish you with the sacraments and the fellowship of other believers. That's the regular diet of someone who remains in Christ, but it goes beyond that.

If you're feeding on and remaining in Christ, he's the first person you go to when you're troubled or anxious or in a bind. You don't pour another drink, flip to a different station, play another round of golf, read another chapter in the cheap novel, you cry out to Jesus and you turn to him and you say this is what is going on please be with me, please help me, please give me strength. Feeding on Jesus means relating to him as your closest companion. But he's far more. While your friend might say things to make you feel better, only Jesus can transform your circumstances, change your situation, sustain and nourish and provide and satisfy you now and for eternity. If you wonder how some believers have peace in the midst of turmoil, maintain their faith when all seems lost, have joy when their circumstances would militate against it, it is because they are feeding on Christ, their regular diet is Christ because they know that Christ alone can provide peace and satisfaction and nothing and nobody else.