27 May 2026 • Ember Wednesday of Pentecost • John 6:44–51
In the Holy Name + of Jesus. AMEN.
Peter walks. The sick lie in the streets of Jerusalem. The shadow falls. They are healed.
Peter did not heal them. Peter did not even see most of them. The Spirit healed them through a man’s shadow.
The Spirit is doing in this room what He did in those streets. Not by Peter’s hand. By His own. Not healing your body. He is doing something harder. He is drawing your soul. To Christ. To the bread. To Himself.
Hear what the Lord said. “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” No one. Not the strong-willed. Not the deep feeling. Not the well-disposed. No one. Unless the Father draws him.
The Law has work to do in you here, and the work is to take from you what you have been holding. You have been told a lie about your own coming to Christ. You have been told you took the step. You have been told you got yourself here by sincerity, by interest, by goodwill. Or you believe that the church can grow by effort or strength, making the right arguments and offering the right products. Now the Law uncovers the lie. You did not. No one comes. Without the drawing, nothing.
This is hard to hear. The old Adam in you was told all his life that he is the chooser, the sovereign self, the spirit that elects its god from a shelf. The old Adam loves that picture. He has built his whole life on it. He will not give it up easily.
The Lord cuts straight through. No one. Not your will. Not your wishful heart. Not your earnest seeking. The Law leaves you on an empty shore. You have stood on it your whole life. You were never going to swim.
Dr. Luther says it: “He must surely perish whom the Father does not draw.” (Church Postil) That is what the Law has to say. And the Law is right to say it. But now hear the Word of the Father, Jesus.
He goes forth before His people. He makes a way before them. He dwells among them. He is not a far thing requiring a brave ascent. He is the One who comes down. The Spirit is poured out, the prophet said, in the last days, on all flesh — and these are those last days. He has been poured out. He is being poured out. He is filling the world. The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world.
And He draws.
How does He draw? Not with chains. Not by an inward private whisper in the quiet of your own soul. He draws by means He chose. Through the hands of the apostles. Through their preaching. Through lips opened by His own Spirit. Through the Word the apostles spoke, and the Word their successors speak. Through the water their successors poured on you. Through the bread their successors place into the mouth of the faithful. The Father draws by His Word and Sacrament. He draws by the net.
Hear this. The Father draws by the net. “God works by the hearing of His holy, divine Word, as with a net, by which the elect are plucked from the devil’s jaws.” (FC SD II.76) The net is the Word. The Word preached. The Word read. The Word spoken at the font. The Word given with the bread. That is the cord with which He pulls.
Maybe you came here today thinking you came on your own? You woke up. You dressed. You drove. You walked in. Some little choice somewhere. Look again. The hand that woke you was a hand pulling on a net. The decision to come was the catching of a fish. You did not pull yourself out of the water. You were pulled.
The Father is drawing you.
Where is He drawing you? To Christ. The Father draws to no one else.
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
The drawing has a destination. The net is pulled in to a Person. The fathers ate manna in the wilderness and the destination was still death. The bread the Father draws you to is not that bread. It is the living bread, the bread that came down, the flesh given for the life of the world.
Christ gave His flesh. Outside Jerusalem. Under Pontius Pilate. On a Friday. The Father raised Him. On a Sunday. Located. Real. The Spirit is poured out. And the Spirit pulls — you, sinner, dust, dead in trespasses, asleep in the shore-grass — He pulls you in. Through the net of the Word. Toward the bread.
So you are being drawn.
The fire that came down on the apostles still rests on the office. The wind that filled the upper room still blows through the preached Word. The Spirit who filleth the world fills this room and binds Himself to this Word and to that bread. He fills the cosmos and locates Himself here. The cosmic Spirit is the parish Spirit. Not because He is small. Because He is for you.
The Father is drawing you.
Hear, then, what the Church prays today.
Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty and merciful God, that the Holy Ghost may come upon us, and by His gracious indwelling make us a temple of His glory.
That prayer is being answered.
He is coming upon you, by His Spirit. He is drawing you with the net of His Word. And He is doing more than draw you — He is making His home in you. The Spirit who hovered over the deep and brought forth a world is the Spirit who was poured upon you in your baptism. He dwells in you as in His temple. Not as a reward for the temple you built. He builds the temple by His indwelling. The temple is His project. The walls are His Word. The cornerstone is the flesh of Christ.
You did not build it. You are it.
This is the work He is doing today. He is drawing. He is dwelling. He is making you a temple of His glory. Not by your effort. Not by your striving. Not by your decision. By His coming. By His Spirit. By His Word. By the body and blood He is about to place in your mouth.
The shadow of Peter fell on the sick of Solomon’s Porch and they were healed.
The shadow of the Word has been falling on you for as long as you have lived. Falling at the font, when the Name was put on you. Falling on you in catechesis, even when you did not yet know what was being given. Falling at this altar, where you have come and gone for years. You did not see most of it. You did not feel it pass.
But the Father was drawing you. Through a Word you sometimes barely heard. Through a meal you sometimes did not understand. Through a Name that was put on you when you could not speak.
The Father is drawing you. He has been drawing you since before you knew His name. He has been drawing you with a net stronger than your unbelief. He has been drawing you to this very Wednesday, in the middle of His Pentecost, that He might keep drawing. And He is drawing you to the bread.
The Holy Spirit is coming upon you. By His gracious indwelling He is making you a temple of His glory. The Spirit who filleth the world is here, for you. The body and blood that hung on Calvary is at this altar, for you. The peace that Christ left, the peace He gives — that peace is upon this house and upon you.
The Father is drawing you. He will not let go. He has built the temple, and the temple is you.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School — Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin