John 6:1-15; Galatians
4:21-31; Exodus 16:2-21
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
You’ve heard the saying, “Give a man a
fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he’ll eat
forever.” In case you’re wondering, however, that isn’t in the Bible. In fact,
it’s really a very non-Christian saying. Knowing how to fish won’t keep you
eating, or living, for a single day or longer than the LORD wills to grant you
life, let alone forever. It’s a very humanistic saying, focusing the individual
back to herself and her efforts, knowledge, and wisdom. It’s actually very similar
to another popular saying that’s not in the Bible: “God helps those who help
themselves.” Nothing could be further from the teaching of the Scriptures, the
teaching of Jesus, and the teaching of the Apostles thereafter. You are not
called to become more and more self-reliant, but you are called to become less
and less selfish and more and more selfless. The chief way in which you make
this regression, which is really progress, is by dying to yourself and living
in Christ. That is to say, by realizing your spiritual (and physical!)
helplessness and dependence upon God in Christ, you become ever more receptive
to His gifts, life, and spirit lived in and through you, for man does not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Thus, your Lord teaches you to pray for daily bread – literally, bread for the present day. This was the
lesson of the manna in the wilderness. The children of Israel were commanded to
collect only enough manna for their families for one day. If they collected
less, providentially they had enough for all to eat and be satisfied. And, if
they collected more, the surplus spoiled and bred worms. What about tomorrow,
then? Pray again for daily bread, if the LORD should grant you a tomorrow. The
lesson is this: Trust in the LORD who provides bread for the day, namely all
that you need to sustain your body and your life each and every day He grants
them to you.
“But, Pastor, you’ve still got to do something, right? You’ve got to
collect the manna, right? You’ve got to work and earn money and buy your bread,
right?” Yes, of course you do. Adam and Eve were created to work the Garden.
Yet, still, the LORD provided them fruit from the trees, crops from the field,
water from the stream, and all else they needed for their bodies and their lives.
The point is that the LORD provides what you need through the hands and the
hearts, the labor, and the efforts of the creatures He has created and given
you as a gift. Thus, you are a vital and necessary part of the system the LORD
has created to provide for and to sustain His creatures. You must do what you
have been given to do – this is your vocation, – but do not put your faith and
trust in your efforts, your work, your merit, and in your presumed independence,
for this is a lie of the devil and it leads you away from God to death for
yourself and for others who suffer for your failure to live your vocation in
service of others to the glory of God.
The feeding of the five thousand was a
test of faith, faith in God’s Word of Promise, faith in God’s providence
despite what the natural eyes see and human reason and wisdom think. The great
crowds that followed Jesus were not there because of faith but because of the
wondrous signs He had performed. They were like the children of Israel, who
were mighty impressed by the LORD after the wondrous signs of the Exodus, but when
they found themselves in the wilderness without food and hungry, how quickly their
disposition changed. “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”
Jesus asked Philip. He said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He would
do. Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for
each of them to get a little.” That was merely a statement of fact. Philip had
no delusion that they could provide bread for the crowds in a natural manner.
So far, so good. But, then, 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?” That was also a statement of fact, but there was a just a twinge of
despair in it. Contrast Andrew’s statement to Mary’s, the Mother of our Lord,
when they ran out of wine at the Wedding In Cana – Mary simply stated that they
had run out of wine. However, she fully believed that Jesus was capable of
fixing the problem. Andrew? Not so much.
Similarly, the children of Israel
grumbled in the wilderness. Despite the wondrous signs they had witnessed by
the LORD in their Exodus out of Egypt, when they began to be hungry and their
resources and resourcefulness were depleted, how quickly they began to despair
and disbelieve. The crowds on the mountaintop were no different. And, sadly, we
are often no different either. When we have plenty, and things are going well
in our families, our nation, and our church, we tend to credit ourselves for
our success. But, when things begin to go south, someone or something else is
to blame – maybe even God.
Thus, the feeding of the five thousand
is not just another wondrous sign. That’s what the unbelieving crowds wanted.
It is likely that, if that was all there was to it, our Lord Jesus would not
have granted the sign at all. But, what is key here is that it was just before
the Passover. Though the Passover involved the children of Israel eating and
being sustained throughout their time of pilgrimage, it’s central purpose was
to foreshadow the atoning work and sacrifice the LORD would make in the death
of His Son Jesus for the sins of the world. The visible reality was that there
was not enough bread for every man, woman, and child to get a crumb. But, the
greater reality was that the Bread of Life, whom the manna in the wilderness
represented, was among them to care for and to provide for them. As the LORD
provided the children of Israel daily bread throughout their wilderness
pilgrimage to the Promised Land, so the LORD has provided His Son, Jesus, the
Bread of Life and the Passover Lamb of God to sustain and redeem all the world
in body, soul, and everlasting life.
Jesus blessed the bread and the fish and
had His disciples distribute them to the crowds. There were only five loaves
and two fish. That’s all there was. According to physical reality, what the
eyes could see, what human reason could understand, the situation was hopeless.
Yet, as the food was distributed, there was enough – there was simply enough.
Just as Elijah promised the widow of Zarephath, “The jar of flour shall not be
spent and the jug of oil shall not be empty.” No one saw it happen. Jesus
didn’t make a big scene, waving His hands in the air, speaking in tongues. He
simply blessed the food, giving thanks to His Father, and had the disciples
distribute the goods in their normal, vocational way. The LORD continues to
provide for and sustain you today in the same way. In fact, you are an
important, necessary, and essential part of His means of distribution.
The lesson is that things are not always
what they appear. What we value according to the flesh and world is not always
truly valuable. What appears to be weak and humble, even despised, can be
pressed into service to do wondrous things. Very soon, Jesus would go to the
cross for the sins of the world. He would look weak, helpless, and pathetic.
The religious leaders of the Jews, the Romans, even Satan and his demons would
think they had won. His disciples would despair saying, “We had hoped that He
was the one to redeem Israel.” Thus, the feeding of the five thousand is a
test, training, and preparation for that day and the days that would follow. We
walk by faith and not by sight. We must have eyes that hear and ears that see.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
Like Moses in the Exodus, Jesus has come
to lead you out of slavery and into freedom. That is what St. Paul would teach
you in his Epistle to the Galatians. The two women, Hagar and Sarah, are like
two covenants, the Law and the Gospel, and two mountains, Mount Sinai and Mount
Zion. “Abraham had two sons, one by [Hagar] a slave woman and one by [Sarah] a
free woman.” St. Paul says that these women can be understood allegorically as
two covenants, “One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is
Hagar,” and “she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery
with her children.” The other, Sarah, corresponds to Mount Zion, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and is free. It is Sarah, the new covenant, the heavenly Jerusalem,
the Gospel that St. Paul says is our mother.
Your life comes from the Gospel, not
from the Law. But, your flesh both loves and hates the Law, at once boastfully believing
that it can keep it and do it, but then cursing it when you fail. The
temptation you continually face is to strive to fulfill the Law like the slave
children of Hagar, Mount Sinai, rather than to live in the Gospel freedom of
the children of Sarah, Mount Zion. Your temptation is to put your fear, love,
and trust in signs and wonders and in your own works rather than in the Word
and Promise of the LORD fulfilled and kept for you in Jesus Christ. Signs and
wonders are fine and good, should the LORD choose to grant them. But your faith
and trust must not be in these. As our resurrected Lord spoke to Thomas the
Sunday after Easter, “Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Your Lord Jesus calls you by His Spirit
to a living faith – a faith that lives, not by bread alone, but by every Word
that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is the Gospel and it brings true and
lasting freedom, for you are saved, not by works, and not by signs and wonders,
but by faith in the Gospel Word and Promise of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Yet, because of your flesh and humanity, which God created good and redeemed
from sin and death, He also gives you bread and wine and water that you may eat
and drink and be forgiven. These elements, when the Word of God is attached to
them, deliver what His Word of Promise says: They give the forgiveness of sins,
life, and salvation to those who believe these words, “Given and shed for you.”
Receive and believe what the LORD gives, provides, and delivers, and you will
remain free in His grace and live.
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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