Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St Matthew. And
we read from his gospel:
[The
disciples] said to [Jesus], “We have only fives loaves here and two fish.” And
he said, “Bring them here to me.”
Prayer: Let
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O
Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today, our Gospel reading is
about the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5000, with only five loaves of bread and
two small fish. But first, let’s read what it says right at the beginning of
the reading. It says:
Now when Jesus heard this, he
withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the
crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he crowds heard
it, they followed him on from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great
crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Just before these words in our
Gospel reading today, we read about the death of John the Baptist. John had
been arrested by King Herod and was in prison. King Herod had taken his
sister-in-law as a wife. (Her name was Herodias.) And it turns out that both of
the husbands of Herodias, Philip and King Herod, were also her uncles.
Sometimes we know from history, that some people in high positions—royalty or
people in public life—have thought that because they have so much power and
influence and status, that they thought they could break the laws of common
decency when it came to matters of marriage and sex. Even in my lifetime, I
could think of a number of situations where people in high positions or high
office have caused a public offense and a public scandal because of their
morals.
And so John the Baptist preached
against this relationship between Herod and Herodias. Herodias particularly
found this annoying and John was locked up in prison to keep him quiet.
Eventually, when King Herod was celebrating his birthday, Herodias’ daughter
performed a dance for the king, and in return asked for John the Baptist’s head
on a platter. And when we read: And his disciples came and took the body and
buried it, and they went and told Jesus.
And at the beginning of our
reading today, it says: Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in
a boat to a desolate place by himself.
We can see that today’s Gospel
reading happens just after this tragic event. And we know that in another
place, when Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, he went with Mary and Martha to the
tomb, and wept. Here we read that Jesus withdrew to a desolate place. In
Mark’s Gospel we also read that the disciples went with him, and that they had
just come back from their mission and were telling Jesus all about it. And so
Jesus says to them: Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest
awhile.
So we can see two things here:
Jesus spends time by himself, but he also spends time with his disciples by
themselves. The disciples have had a time of great busyness, and great productiveness,
and also Jesus and the disciples have received this rather sad news about John
the Baptist’s cruel death.
And so it’s time for some rest.
And here we learn that not all of our life as Christians is always busy, busy,
busy. We’re not always called to flap around and make sure that we’re doing
something. Sometimes, especially when there is a death or some significant
event in our life, Jesus needs to slow us down, to give us a rest, and to
prepare us in body and soul for the next part of our lives, whatever that may
be.
This time of Jesus with his
disciples looks like not much is happening, but it’s very important training.
It’s a time of sadness, but also a time of encouragement. It’s a time of
prayer, and it’s a time to stop working so that God himself can work on them.
It’s a time of silence, but it’s a time for the disciples to listen to their
own conscience and have it healed in a fresh a new way by their living Lord
Jesus.
And this passage is very
important for pastors too—I’m not called to be super-productive as the world
sees it, but a lot of time, Jesus also requires us to slow down, reflect, and
receive his training. Sometimes Jesus even lets us pastors share in some
suffering precisely so that we can learn how to encourage others who experience
the same thing. Later, Jesus is going to let these 12 disciples share in his
work, when he says to them: You give them something to eat. And the
disciples are going to realise that they only have 5 loaves and two fish. What
they have in their pockets, and what they have in their understanding is
completely inadequate. But at the same time, Jesus, after he blesses and breaks
the bread, is going to give them to the disciples and let them distribute it to
the crowd. In the same way, Jesus says to pastors today: Feed my sheep. And
we’re going to look at Jesus and say: How on earth are we going to be able to
do this? How are we going to be able to feed all the sheep in our care? But
this ministry doesn’t belong to pastors, it belongs to Jesus, and he is the one
who does the feeding, and he is the one who provides the food. As St Paul says:
Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us,
but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a
new covenant. And also he says: We have this treasure in jars of clay,
to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
Maybe in your particular calling
of life, you also feel completely helpless. Well, come away by yourselves with
Jesus to a desolate place, in your loneliness, and rest with him for a while.
Let him train you, and give him the time to train you. He will provide
everything that you need at the right time.
In our reading today, we read
that when the crowds heard that Jesus had gone away to a desolate place
by himself, they followed him on foot from the towns. This time for
retreat and solitude come to an end quickly when the crowds arrive. And Jesus
is not begrudging of them interrupting his time for prayer. Instead, it says: When
he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed
their sick.
And now we read about the miracle
of where Jesus feeds these people, 5000 men, plus women and children. And this
is a very interesting miracle: these people have come out to visit Jesus. But
Jesus work for them in healing their sick has been so abundant and so intense
and fruitful, that now it’s getting late, and they almost don’t have time to
walk home and get themselves organised for dinner. And the disciples start to
worry about this and say to Jesus, This is a desolate place, and the day is
now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for
themselves.
Now what’s the point of this
miracle? Jesus could have very well said to the disciples, “You know, you’re
probably right. It’s been a long day, and it’s time to wrap things up, and for
the people to go home.” We get the impression from what the disciples said that
the people probably had enough time to get home, and they probably had enough
money to buy themselves some food.
But Jesus wants to teach them
something else. He wants to teach them that these people that He himself is the
God of heaven and earth, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who
actually sends to each person who has ever lived in the world their daily
bread. Why should Jesus send them off their homes to eat, when Jesus Himself is
the one who is always providing food for them? Why should Jesus send them off
to the shops, when Jesus is the one who is the one who laced the supermarket
shelves with the abundance of bread in the first place?
Often, when we eat a meal, people
say: Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let this food to us be blessed. Jesus
is the one who has given the food, and now we ask him to come and sit with us
and bless our meal together.
This is actually a very difficult
lesson for us to learn, especially in a country such as ours, where we have so
much. We have a tendency to think: I bought my own bread with my own money,
which I got from my own hard work. But just as Jesus has given us so much, he
can also at the same time take these things away. And many people all
throughout the world constantly have to live from day to day, not knowing where
their daily bread will come from. But this is precisely what it is: daily
bread. And Jesus teaches us to pray: Give us today our daily bread.
Jesus provides for each day
everything that we need. We might worry about tomorrow and think about what’s
going to happen. But Jesus says: Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
And so here in our reading, Jesus
shows to us that he is the one who provides for us our daily bread. So we
should also ask him for it. And if there’s anything that we need, not just
food, but health, friendship, employment, or whatever else we need, we should
ask Jesus for it. And Jesus promises to provide these things for us in his own
time and in order to give us whatever particular blessing he wants us to have
at a particular time.
In our reading we read: Jesus
ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the
two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves
and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples have them to the crowds. And
they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the
broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men,
besides women and children.
Sometimes part of the reason why
we don’t trust in Jesus to provide our daily bread is that we look at this
passage and say, “But Jesus is breaking the laws of nature. Things don’t work
like that—surely God helps those who help themselves.”
You’ve got no idea how often
Jesus has organised things in your life for your benefit and provided what you
need generously, and you haven’t even noticed it. But also, we have to realise,
that Jesus isn’t breaking the laws of nature at all. What Jesus does here is
completely natural—it doesn’t seem natural to us, but it’s completely natural
for him.
You see, we think that all the
laws of nature are all completely rigid and fixed, and that everything always
works in a calculated scientific way. And so we look at this reading and we
ask, “What’s the trick? Has Jesus got an ace of spades up his sleeve? How can
we rationalise it?”
But there is a difference between
how believers and unbelievers see the world. And this difference comes right
from the first verse of the bible: In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. God is not subject to the laws of nature—he created the laws
of nature. And he created laws not just for earth, but also for heaven. And he
created the earthly realm in order to serve the heavenly realm. So it’s a
completely natural thing for Jesus to use earthly things to serve a heavenly
purpose. He uses these 5 loaves and these two fish to show that he is the God
who created the heavens and the earth who has taken on human flesh. And this is
such a wonderful, great mystery.
In the church, Jesus also
continues to do the same thing. He uses human, earthly words in order to speak
his heavenly word. He takes the words that are spoken here in our readings
today, in the absolution—the forgiveness of sins spoken by the pastor, the
sermon, the creed, and all the other bible verses that we pray and sing
together, and he multiplies these things into our hearts and minds in such a
way that there is almost far too much for us even as a large group of people to
take in. We read in our reading: They took up twelve baskets full of the
broken pieces left over. How abundantly rich Jesus is in feeding us week
after week in our church service! That’s because Jesus is here each week, and
he is the one who provides the food.
But also, think about baptism,
how Jesus takes water, and adds his word to us, and actually gives salvation
through it, and also the Holy Spirit, and the forgiveness of sins.
Or what about the Lord’s Supper.
Of course, here we see a very strong connection between the Lord’s Supper and
our reading today. Sometimes we might think, how is Jesus going to give his
body and blood to Christians all throughout the world every Sunday? Isn’t he
sitting at the right hand of God the Father? How can he be here in the Lord’s
Supper?
Well, yes—Jesus is sitting at the
right hand of God, but the right hand of God is everywhere. So also, Jesus in
his flesh is able to be wherever he promises to be and to feed each of us with
his body and blood. He is able to take the five loaves and two fish, he is able
to take the simple bread and wine and multiply it in such a way that we are fed
not simply with this simple earthly food, but also with his true body and
blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. And this is not just
food for the soul, but also for the strengthening and healing of the body. We
say: The body of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy precious blood
strengthen and preserve you in body and soul to life eternal. And how is
this all possible? And Jesus’ words say it: This is my body, This is my
blood, and we know that his word never lies. These words are not against
the laws of nature. This is the law of nature—this is precisely how the world
works and how Jesus created things to work.
And so listen to Jesus words: They
need not go away; you give them something to eat. We never need to go away
from Jesus. If he can save us, he can also feed us, both in our bodies and in
our souls. He always provides us something to eat, not just in this life, but
also in the next life.
Amen.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for feeding
us in body and soul. Strengthen and keep us firm in your word and faith both
now and into the future and forever. Amen.
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