Lent 4
Jn
6:1-15
3/30/14
Well I won’t ask if any of you are
still alive in Warren Buffet’s billion dollar NCAA bracket challenge, because I
already know the answer. With the loss
of George Washington University last weekend, the last three brackets were
eliminated, so no one here will be winning a billion dollars this year.
For those of you who hadn’t heard,
Warren Buffet who himself is worth around $60 billion dollars, offered that his
company would give $1 billion dollars to any person who could perfectly predict
the men’s NCAA basketball tournament this year.
The NCAA tournament – “March Madness” – has become huge. Once the field for the tournament is
announced, it has become very popular to try to pick the winners of all the
games. People go in together in pools in
which participants contribute some amount of money and the individual who has
the most correct tournament bracket wins.
Buffet took this idea and upped it a
few notches – well really, a billion. Buffet’s
billion dollar bracket challenge has caused an incredible wave of interest on
the internet and in social media. Now
the fact that no one succeeded in winning the billion dollars this year is not
surprising. The tournament of sixty four
teams has six rounds and is famous for shocking upsets. Every year there are Cinderella stories of
smaller schools from lesser conferences who make a run in the tournament. These unexpected success stories are known as
“bracket busters” because the upset of one favored team can ruin a person’s
predictions for a whole part of the tournament.
Now Warren Buffet didn’t get 60
billion dollars by being dumb. His offer
garnered him tremendous publicity, and yet it was almost impossible for anyone
to win the money. The odds of picking a
perfectly correct tournament have been figured in several different ways and
placed somewhere between one in 9.2 quintillion and one in 128 billion. To put that in perspective, the odds of being
struck by lightning in the state of Illinois are just a little under one in one
million.
The mere possibility of receiving a
billion dollars – however remote – fired the public’s imagination. And I think one of the reasons it did is
because of what a billion dollars represents to people. A billion dollars would mean freedom from all
financial concerns of any kind … forever.
It would mean complete freedom to live life in any way that you want.
At the end of our Gospel lesson this
morning, the crowd of more than five thousand think that they have the perfect
billion dollar tournament bracket.
Because of the miracle Jesus has worked, they think they have the one
who will give them an endless supply of food which will free them from all
effort. Yet in fact, the miracle of the
feeding is a sign that points forward to Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is a sign that reveals Jesus as the bread
of life – the One who will give his flesh for the life of the world.
Our Gospel lesson this morning is
the account of the feeding of the five thousand. This miracle holds a special place since it
is the only one included by all four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John.
We learn that a large crowd was following
Jesus, because they saw the signs – take note of that word - that he was doing
on the sick as he healed them. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat
down with his disciples. Our text tells us, “Now the Passover, the feast of the
Jews, was at hand.” This is important. The Passover celebrated God’s mighty
saving action as God used Moses to bring Israel out of slavery in Egypt. It was
a time when people were prompted to look for God to act again and to send
another powerful deliverer – another prophet like Moses.
We know the miracle well. Jesus said
to Philip in order to test him, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these
people may eat?” Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would
not be enough for each of them to get a little.” A denarius was a day’s wage, and Philip said
that two hundred denarii wouldn’t even begin to do the job.
However, Andrew called attention to
a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish.
And after having the people sit down, Jesus worked a miracle as he used
those bread and fish to feed the crowd.
In fact he so abundantly provided food that they were able to gather up
twelve baskets of leftovers.
We learn at the end of our text that
when the people saw the sign – note that word again – that Jesus had done, they
said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” And then
because he perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make
him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
The crowds followed Jesus because of
the signs that he was doing as he healed people. They saw the sign that he did as he fed them
all using basically nothing. And their
response was to want make him king. The
next day they would track down Jesus at Capernaum on the other side of the Sea
of Galilee. As they interacted with
Jesus it became clear that they had not understood the miracles as signs. Instead, Jesus told them, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate
your fill of the loaves.”
And very often, isn’t that the way
you are? At the end of the day what do
you want? You want life to go well. You
want to be comfortable. You want to have
your needs taken care of – and also your wants.
You want God to be the benevolent grandpa who makes sure you have the
good stuff.
And really, you don’t want God to
get a whole lot more involved in your life than that. You want to be free to do your own
thing. You certainly don’t want God to
start putting limitations on your options through his divine law found in the
Ten Commandments as interpreted by Jesus and the apostles. You don’t want to hear about Jesus being your
Lord – the One who owns you because he redeemed you from Satan and
sin. You don’t want to hear about
denying yourself, and taking up the cross and following Jesus in a world where
that is going to be harder and harder, and the cross is going to be easier and
easier to find.
The fact that deep down we often
think this way, is the reason that the Word, the Son of God, became flesh in
our world in the first place. As we have
seen, in John’s Gospel the miracles that Jesus performs are called signs. After Jesus turns water into wine at Cana we
hear, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested
his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
The signs reveal Jesus’ glory and
they point to the reason the Son of God entered into the world. The point to the destination of our Lenten
journey. They point to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. During Holy Week Jesus will say, “And I, when
I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” And John tells
us, “He said this to show” – literally, to sign – “by what kind of death he was
going to die.” And later, when the
Jewish leaders have to bring Jesus to the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate in order
to have Jesus executed – a death that will occur by crucifixion – John says, “This
was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show” – literally, to sign – “by
what kind of death he was going to die.”
Jesus’ miracle this morning points
to the cross. It points to Jesus as the
lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by dying for us. In our text, Jesus uses bread to work a
miracle as he feeds the crowd. Later in
this chapter Jesus talks about himself as the bread that has come from heaven;
as the bread of life. And then he says,
“ I am the living bread that came down
from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread
that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Jesus Christ’s flesh was nailed to
the cross and he died to give you life.
For on the third day he rose from the dead with flesh that can never die
again. He defeated death and brought
life – eternal life. He has given you
that life as you were born again of water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism.
And now Jesus sustains you in that
life of faith as he continues to work a miracle in your midst using bread. He uses bread and wine in the Sacrament of
the Altar to feed you. The day after the
feeding of the five thousand Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in
you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will
raise him up on the last day.”
Jesus feeds you with the saving
benefits of his cross and resurrection as he, the crucified and risen One gives
you his body and blood. He gives his
body and blood into your body and so assures you that your body will be raised
and transformed to be like his when he returns in glory on the Last Day.
By his Sacrament he guarantees you
that death does not get the final word.
Instead, Jesus promises, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood
abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of
the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is
the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and
died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
This morning, Jesus works a sign in
our midst – a miracle that uses bread and wine.
Like the feeding of the five thousand, it is a sign that points to the
saving death and resurrection of the Lord. But it is a sign that is more than
just a sign because it gives us the reality itself – the body and blood of the
risen Lord, given and shed for you. Jesus,
the bread of God who came down from heaven has given life to the world – and to
each one of you.
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