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Lent 4 - 2004
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read from John chapter 6, Jesus’ feeding of the 5000.
Faith is under constant siege in this world by either wealth on the one hand or poverty on the other. It doesn’t really matter whether you have money or not; we human beings are obsessed with possessions and “stuff” in one way or another. If you have money and possessions, you worry and fret about how to keep them and get more. You forget God and rather than be generous with what God has given you, you horde it and act as if you are poor. But if you don’t have money and possessions, you believe that all your problems would be solved if you had it. Your desire to get and to have what you cannot have can consume you. Luther says that covetousness causes all of us to grovel and beg and deny the very Word of God itself rather than trust that God will provide. Either way, the “haves” and the “have nots” struggle with the same thing, they just never realize it.
Both of these extremes, however, point to one deeper reality that we sons and daughters of Adam all face: we don’t know how to manage the things of this world, and keep them in perspective. Life is about balance, and understanding how to balance home, work, play, church, and keep all of these spheres of life where God would want them is, well, pretty trying sometimes. If you focus too much on one, you lose perspective in the others. Either work suffers or home suffers or your spiritual life suffers. Toss in a few curveballs like a layoff or an illness or the myriad other things that make up life today, and trying to keep all of these spheres of life balanced is pretty close to impossible. What our Lord wants and expects of us it to trust in Him and His mercy to provide, and so to be kind and generous toward our neighbor, believing that God will take care of us, no matter what may come. But we fail at keeping things in perspective, because sin manages to always get us off track.
Perspective. That’s what the disciples forgot, just as we forget so often. They forgot who is God and who is not. As they gathered together to hear the Word of God, the people were hungry. The disciples, of course, are good managers. Most of them were in business of some sort before becoming Jesus’ followers. They can count. They know that five loaves of bread and two small fish won’t feed the multitude, over five thousand in number. And so rather than trust in the God who feeds the world, in their unbelief they forgot. Just like you forget. Just like I forget.
But where we sin and doubt God’s mercy and providential care, our Lord more than makes up the difference. He takes their leftovers, five loaves and two small fish, and from that paltry offering multiplies God’s abundance, so that they are all filled and have more than they could possibly need.
Now there are two ways or levels in which we can understand this miracle of our Lord. The first is the most obvious. Trust that God will take care of you. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you, as our Lord said in St. Matthew chapter six. Or as we confess in the small catechism, God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.
Our Lord promises that He will take care of you. It’s as simple as that. All of your fretting and worrying and stress and greed don’t add one day to your life, nor are you provided for one bit better. God will provide. If He sent His Son to die for your sins, then believe that he won’t let you starve to death. You will live, and you will have everything you need. And because of that basic reality of how God works in the world, you can afford to be generous with your money, your time, your resources, knowing that God will take care of you.
Now that brings us to the second and most significant point of our text this morning. The point is that you can’t do it. You can’t get your mind off of yourself. You can’t help but be greedy and selfish. You can’t help but want more, strive for more, search for more, and there will always be one part of you that will never be satisfied with what God gives. God knows that. He knows your lustful, selfish nature. Because of that, because He knows that you are powerless against your own sin, He sends you more than simply grain and meat, clothes and family. God sends you His Son.
Later in John chapter six our Lord says the amazing statement, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). What you need, what you really need in your life isn’t a better car or more money in the account or a better retirement or a more stable job or whatever it is that you fret and worry about. What you need is Jesus. Only Jesus can fill you with what is truly needful. Only Jesus can satisfy the hungry heart. For while you may struggle and worry about what tomorrow will bring, it is your eternal life that is truly at stake, and no amount of money can ever help that.
Today our Lord fills you with both food for the body and food for the soul. He gives you His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, for life, and for salvation. The living bread from heaven feeds His guests like no other. As the hymn proclaims, this food can death destroy. That is food to fill your longing for something greater than yourself. That is food that will fill not only your body, but also your heart and soul. This food will satisfy your fears, your needs, and your desires. This food can complete you like no other.
In this season of taxes and impending bills and everything else that weighs you down, don’t be afraid. Jesus Christ, the living bread from heaven, has come down to take all of your sorrows into himself. That doesn’t mean all of your problems will vanish, but it does mean that he will see you through them. Just because it is cold and dreary on the second day of spring doesn’t mean that God isn’t in control. And to prove this to you, He gives you His very body and blood. Our God is not high in the heavens looking down on our problems. He is right here, right now, in our very midst, to bring life and salvation in His name. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
This page was created on 02/18/2007 and last edited on: 02/18/2007