Grace, Mercy, and Peace be unto you from God our
Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Amen
Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, 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.
In the Name of Jesus
I would suspect most of us
here this morning don’t have worry about where our next meal is going to come
from. There is a large number of people
in our country, in our state, probably more than we would like to think in our
town that face this dilemma each day.
The disciples found
themselves in between the preverbal rock and hard place. All Jesus seemed to want was a little alone
time. To climb on the boat and withdraw
from the crowds reflect. Easier said
than done when you are as well-known as Jesus of Nazareth was.
Still, Jesus needed some “alone”
time. With the great crowds he had been
teaching in parables to, and how Jesus was confronted with some terrible
news. With fame can also come from bad fortune. Hear the beginning of chapter 14. At that time Herod
the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus,
and he said to his servants, “This
is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these
miraculous powers are at work in him.” For Herod
had seized John and bound him and put
him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, “It
is not lawful for you to have her.” And
though he wanted to put him to death, he
feared the people, because they held him to be a
prophet. But when Herod's birthday
came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod,
so that he promised with an oath to give
her whatever she might ask. Prompted
by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a
platter.” And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his
guests he commanded it to be given. He
sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl,
and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took the body and buried
it, and they went and told Jesus.
This is the news Jesus receives
at the beginning of our text then today.
Understandably Jesus wants to withdraw from the crowds and reflect, maybe
even teach the disciples, who knew John and had just buried him, a lesson on death
and the cost of following him.
Whatever
his reason was, it didn’t work. Desiring
so much to be with them, to be in their presence and witness amazing things,
the crowd followed them. Curiosity got
the better of some 5,000 men that day, not including women and children. As they took note of the boat, and the crowd
following on shore, they all ran to the place where Jesus and the disciples
were headed and beat them to their destination.
So
much for the disciples’ time of rest.
Jesus, although an attempt had to have been made to persuade him
otherwise, had compassion on this large crowd.
He knew that they needed the true word, the true Gospel, more than he
needed rest. So going ashore he began to
heal and undoubtedly teach this crowd many things. Between teaching the crowd on the other side
of the sea, the boat trip, and the healing and teaching of the 5,000, it
quickly became late.
It was late, it was
desolate, and it was time to eat. The
disciples doing the logical thing, tell Jesus, send these people away so they
can go get some food. After all, that is
why they came over to this side of the sea, to care for the needs of the body
as well as the soul. They say this is a desolate place, and the hour is now
late. Send them away to go into the
surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. However their Master had other
plans. You give them something to eat, Jesus says.
What
was he thinking? How could the disciples
feed 5,000 men plus women and children?
Did Jesus know how much food and planning that would take? They couldn’t call the kitchen ladies to come
fix food for this many people on extremely short notice. They only brought enough for themselves, five
loaves of bread and two fish. Mark notes
in his Gospel that it would take two hundred denarii to feed this group. This was an unbelievable amount of money to
spend. A denarii was one days wage, so
it would have taken over half of a year’s salary to feed this group. The disciples probably reminded Jesus that
back when he called them to be his disciples; he made them give away all their
earthly possessions to the poor and therefore might not have 200 denarii to
spend in this situation.
They
recognized the needs of the people in their midst, and they were trying to care
for them as they saw fit. They were
being good shepherds of God’s flock. But
still the disciples were blind to who was in their midst. They thought that they had given to this
crowd all that they could. They had
heard from Jesus his great teachings, heard about the kingdom of heaven. But now they had to look elsewhere for
physical means, physical nourishment.
As
God’ children, as members of his church we fall into the same trap, rut,
temptation, which the disciples did.
Here is God’s house, God’s oasis in the sinful desert. Come have your hunger and thirst for heavenly
food quenched. Come hear the Word of
God, come be washed in the Holy waters of Baptism. Come feast on the body and blood of our dear
Savior Jesus Christ. Hear the amazing
Gospel that through these things your sin is forgiven and eternal life is
yours. But you have to look elsewhere
for earthly needs. We will look after
your soul, but can’t help with body.
It
would have been real easy for our Lord to say to the crowd just what the
disciples wanted him to do. I have given
you eternal life, I have fed your soul with great things, now you must go fill
your bellies. But our God cares for our
whole being. He cares for us spiritually
and physically. He could not let the
crowd go hungry. He loved them, he cared
for them, he was their shepherd.
Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We have only five loaves here
and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he 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 gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they
took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
The
Lord gave to the crowd the Gospel of eternal life. He fed them with heavenly things and they
were full. Now he has given them the
Gospel of physical life, one which we would do well to take note of. Our God is loving. He alone is the creator of the world. He oversees it all and provides for all its
needs. You are a part of his beautiful
creation, you are his child. If he gives
to the birds of the air, the beasts of the field the provisions for daily life,
how will he not also give you the same and more? We confess each week, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth. Martin Luther says of this, I believe that God has made me and all
creatures; that he has given me my body and soul, eyes, ear, and all my
members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives me clothing and shoe, food and
drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all that I
have. He richly and daily provides me
with all that I need to support this body and life.
Friends
in Christ, the Gospel is not something which we are waiting for, eternal life
is not everything given to us. We are
not waiting for the Gospel to happen.
The Gospel is seen on a daily basis.
Our body is a blessing, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, where we
live, what we own, it is ours be the grace of God. We live in a up and down economical time
right now. We are learning, some the
hard way, that jobs are not a guarantee, even jobs held for a long period of
time. Money is not a guarantee. While we may have an overabundance one day,
the next we might be struggling to make ends meet. We live among people who are hurting,
physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Just as the Lord called on his disciples to lean on him and trust in him
when the means did not match the need, so we are constantly called on to lean
solely on the Lord our God. His grace is
sufficient. We know so well of how he
turns lack into abundance by his grace.
It is easy to forget this,
especially when we go so long having what we need. Yet, it is even in those times, he calls to
us to reach out to those around us.
Reach out to the hurting, and bring them the love of God. There are so many ways to do this. Yes we reach out with the word of God on our
lips, with the comfort of God always with us.
But we do this by showing that God’s people, God’s house, God himself
cares just as much about our physical wellbeing as he does our spiritual
wellbeing.
The Gospel for eternal
life….the Gospel for Tuesday. The Gospel
of spiritual blessings….the Gospel of physical blessings. We must remember and proclaim both to the
world. God provides for all our needs of
both body and soul. To him be glory
forever and ever.
Amen
+SDG+
No comments:
Post a Comment