Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (John 6:1-15)
Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
As Christians, we are not called to be practical: we are called to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a very strange thing that this gospel reading today should be in the middle of Lent. The first week of Lent we read about Jesus temptation in the wilderness. The second week we read about a Canaanite woman desperately appealing to Jesus for help. The third week we read about Jesus teaching about Satan and evil spirits.
Now on this fourth Sunday of Lent, we read about Jesus feeding the 5000. This is a reading that doesn’t have to with spiritual attack and temptation, the devil, the suffering and death of Christ – and nevertheless, in the middle of Lent, when we are drawing close to Easter and start to think about Jesus’ suffering and death, we have this reading about the feeding of the 5000.
But this gospel reading is about temptation. It is about one of the greatest temptations that we face: the temptation not to believe in what we call God’s providence. Providence means that God provides for us and gives us everything that we need. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray “Give us today our daily bread.”
Isn’t it strange that after we ask God to give us everything we need to support our body and our life – after we ask him for our daily bread – then we ask him, “forgive us our sins”, “lead us not into temptation”, but “deliver us from evil.”
Forgive us for all those times when we don’t look for our daily bread from you alone. Lead us not into the temptation to look for our daily bread from somewhere else. Deliver us from the evil one who constantly wants to convince us that our daily bread doesn’t come from God at all.
But in our Gospel reading today, we are not simply looking to God “in abstract” as the one who gives us our daily bread. But the one in our reading who gives the 5000 people their daily bread is Jesus Christ himself, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. Do you understand what that means? We are looking to a true human being just like all of us, a real man who lived on earth at a certain time in history – he is the one who gives us our daily bread. He is the one who was always giving us our daily bread together with the Father and the Holy Spirit before he took on human flesh. And now that he has become a true man, with true flesh, true blood, real bones, real skin – he is still supplying daily bread to us throughout the world. Jesus is the one who is giving daily bread to us without us even asking, even to all evil people.
And so our gospel reading today shows us that Jesus Christ himself is true God. He is the one who created the world, and still preserves the world together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
We read:
One of [Jesus’] disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thank, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten.
Now this event completely changes everything. I can’t stress enough how important it is for us to really let the teaching sink in that God provides for us all our needs through Jesus Christ.
Around every corner of church life, there is always an opportunity to betray our Lord Jesus Christ on this point. The funny thing is that we don’t even notice when we betray Jesus on this teaching that God provides, because so often we’re not looking to God provide us anything.
We are not called to be practical, we are called to be faithful.
If we are faithful to Jesus, he will provide all our needs. We bring to him 5 loaves and 2 fishes, and he will feed 5000 people with it.
We are not called to be practical, we are called to be faithful.
And when we are faithful to Jesus, we will have the temptation to think that we are being silly and stupid, and people will think we are being silly and will mock us for our “pious talk”. But that is precisely what it means to be faithful to Jesus, and to bear the name “fool” for Jesus Christ. As St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger that men.”
There will be many times in your Christian life, when you hear the word of God, read the bible, and think, Jesus seems to be calling me to do something which seems completely stupid, and to believe something completely stupid. When you think this, stay there for a little while, and remember that what you think is stupid might be the wisdom of God.
Christians are the only people who look to Jesus Christ as the one who provides us all our needs, and gives to us our daily bread. Christians are the only people who look to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the one who provides us all our needs, and gives to us our daily bread. And this very fact alone would make our lives completely different to anyone else.
Christians completely ignore the teaching that Jesus Christ has the power to provide all our needs most significantly when it comes to our finances. Money is such an idol in our society. Our entire political system is judged completely on the management of money and nothing else. Conservative and progressive parties are judged by the electorate purely on how they manage money, and in election campaigns, all anybody ever talks about is their management. Nobody ever talks about what is right, what is good, what is fundamentally good for a society – because nobody cares. All anybody ever cares about is money.
And Christians don’t set much of an example. Many Christians don’t think that God’s got anything to do with money. Congregations and parishes have money problems, and budget deficits, and never think to pray that God would give to their congregations everything that they need. Sometimes even Christian congregations go about looking for money in dishonest ways and from dishonest sources. Sometimes they raise money is ways which are completely abhorrent to God.
They think that they are being practical – wise – good stewards – but they have been dishonest, and God will judge them for it. God holds our accounts to account.
The fact of the matter is this: We worship Jesus Christ, true man and true God. And he fed 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes. Surely that fact should make a difference.
Jesus himself said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”… “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
The devil works very hard to make sure that faithfulness to Jesus is never put forward as the answer to our problems. Theological academics will look for any excuse under the sun to ignore the fact that “God will provide.” People say: “It’s all very well to be Christian, and to pray, but we have to think about the future, we can’t be irresponsible.” There is always some intellectual, rational, common-sense, devilish reason, why the simple truth that God provides is not an option.
If you ever find yourself at a cross-roads where you are looking down one road which says, “Be practical” and another road which says, “God will provide”, you will know what is the narrow way that is blessed by God, because the right road is the hard road that is blessed with the cross. And God will never let you go without. Jesus Christ himself will feed you, even if you think you only have 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed 5000 people.
The whole church throughout the world, the Lutheran Church of Australia, the LCA Victorian District, the Gippsland Lutheran Parish, every Lutheran parish and every Lutheran congregation, and all Christians throughout the world are constantly standing at this crossroads. One road says “be practical”, the other says, “God will provide.” One road is the road of sin, the other road is the road of salvation. One road is the road to hell, and the other road is the road to heaven. One is the narrow way blessed by God, and the other is the wide way which many follow that leads to destruction. One road wants to be a social organisation that lasts for this life, the other wants to be God’s church that lasts for eternity. Those on the one road lift their eyes to the hills, the ones on the other road looks at nothing but their navels.
Simply put, if you believe that God will provide all your needs, and more specifically, if you believe that Jesus Christ is this true God, then you know what it means to believe that God exists and Jesus is true God. This is what God does: he provides. What’s the use of God existing, and what’s the use of you believing that God exists, if you don’t believe that he actually does anything? He created you. He formed you. He sent his only Son to die for you. He cares for you. He provides.
In our reading, the people completely misunderstand Jesus’ miracle. They say: “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
They think that he is a superman who can be a great king, and so Jesus escapes.
No. Jesus kingdom is not of this world, but he gives everything to the world that it needs. The world cannot be fed without him, and yet the world rejects him. The world receives everything that it is and everything that it has from his hand, and yet the world vomits him up and spits him back to God.
Jesus loves you. He feeds you. He cares for you. He provides for you. He will not let you go without anything that you need.
And when you understand this, you will understand that this simple truth is practical, much more practical than the world could ever imagine. And when you keep this truth at the forefront of your mind and deter everything else that would attack this truth, then you will feel the cross of following Jesus, but you will never be without.
Jesus has baptised you with his own hands. He speaks his words to you with his own hands. He gives you his very own body and blood to eat and to drink.
This stuff will change the world. Everyone needs to know about it – the word and the sacraments. You might it looks like a few loaves and a few fish for 5000. As Andrew said, “But what are they for so many?”
So they gathered up [the fragments] and filled 12 baskets.
Jesus will provide everything that we need. Trust in him.
Our Father in heaven, give us today our daily bread.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for your miracle of feeding the 5000 people. We worry so much about all the things that need to be done with such small resources, but we commend everything we have into your care and ask that you would give us everything we need – for our own lives, our families, our homes and our church. Amen.
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