Lent 4
Jn
6:1-15
3/22/20
“All you can eat.” There was a time
in life when that phrase was music to my ears.
When I was Matthew and Timothy’s age – my high school and college years
– there was nothing better than a restaurant that was going to give you as much
food as you could eat. Usually this
happened in a setting where they had something that I wanted to eat a lot of,
like pizza or fried catfish. What could
be better? And actually I felt that way until I turned forty at which point, as
if a switch had been flipped, prodigious eating suddenly showed up on the scale
and didn’t go away. Alas, how I miss the days of “all you can eat”….
In our Gospel lesson this morning,
Jesus serves an “all you can eat meal.” That’s exactly what our texts says: “Jesus then took the loaves,
and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were
seated. So also the fish, as much as they
wanted.” This “all you can eat meal”
is a sign that reveals who Jesus is and what he has come to do.
Our text
begins by saying: “After this Jesus went away to the other side of the
Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was
following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.” The Gospel of John describes Jesus’ miracles
as “signs.” In the second chapter of the Gospel we are told: “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover
Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was
doing.”
It was the signs that brought Nicodemus to see Jesus. He said, “Rabbi, we know that
you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you
do unless God is with him.”
Jesus and his disciples went up on a
mountain and sat down. When the Lord
looked out, he saw a large crowd that was coming towards him. John tells us the Passover was at hand. Jewish pilgrims were making their way to
Jerusalem and so a large crowd had gathered.
Jesus asked Philip, “Where are we to buy
bread, so that these people may eat?”
John tells us that Jesus said this to Philip to test him, because the
Lord already knew what he would do. To Philip, the situation was hopeless. He commented that two hundred denarii – two
hundred days wages – would not even buy enough for each person to get a little.
Surprisingly,
Andrew noted that there was boy who had five barley loves and two fish. One wonders why he bothered to mention it
since he himself commented, “but what are they for so many?” However Jesus had the crowd sit down, which
numbered five thousand men, not counting women and children.
Jesus
took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to
those who were seated. He did the same with the fish and all received as much
as they wanted. Then he had them gather up the leftover fragments of bread, and
they filled twelve baskets.
Our
Lord had worked a great miracle in feeding the crowd of more than five thousand
people using five barley loaves and two fish.
It was another great sign.
However, crowd’s reaction to the sign is not what we expect, and it
reveals a great deal about how they viewed Jesus. John tells us, “When the people saw the sign
that he had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is
to come into the world!’”
The
Passover was a remembrance of how Yahweh had dramatically rescued Israel from
slavery in Egypt. As Israel found herself
under Roman domination, it was a time that caused people to think about what
God might do again to free them. These kinds of thoughts were the very reason why
the Roman governor, who normally resided in Caesarea on the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea, came to Jerusalem with extra troops at the time of the
Passover.
In Deuteronomy Moses had
said, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among
you, from your brothers--it is to him you shall listen.” There were many forms of end time expectation
among the Jews in the first century.
Some of it was focused on this prophet like Moses promised by God.
Jesus recognized that in their
excitement, the people were about to come and take him by force to make him king. This had nothing to do with the reason the
Father had sent Jesus into the world, and so Jesus withdrew again
to the mountain by himself.
All
of the signs performed by Jesus pointed to the great sign of his death and
resurrection. They called forth faith in Jesus Christ who had come as the lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world. But this is not what the crowd saw
in Jesus. The next day the crowd tracked Jesus down in
Capernaum. Our Lord said to 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.”
Jesus said that their interest in him was not about faith. It was about their stomachs. They wanted Jesus to be their meal ticket.
Sometimes we aren’t all that
different from this crowd. Our interest
in Christ becomes wrapped up with what he can give us – what he can help us
with. And the things we want are the
things we want. Jesus seems to be really important when we
are concerned about our health – like when a global pandemic comes calling in
southern Illinois. He seems really
important when circumstances threaten the income from my job or the investments
that I have in the stock market. But
where does he rank when things are going well?
How do Jesus and the gifts of his Means of Grace stack up against our
sports, our hobbies, our interests?
Jesus said to them, “Do not labor
for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father
has set his seal.” Jesus promised
food that endured forever. So they asked him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of
God?” And Jesus responded very directly: “This is the work of God, that you believe
in him whom he has sent.” Jesus
called them to faith in himself, because he is the One who gives life – eternal
life.
Our
Lord told them to believe in him. So they responded, “Then what sign do you do,
that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?” They asked for the
proof of a sign. After all Moses had given Israel manna in the wilderness.
Jesus
had just worked the sign of feeding more than five thousand people with five
loaves of bread and two fish. And yet now they ask him for a sign! So Jesus said, “ Truly,
truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God
is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
The Father sent the Son into the
world to give us life. Jesus came to
overcome sin and death by being lifted up on the cross and then rising
from the dead. Jesus told them, “This is the bread that
comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.”
The
Word – the Son of God – became flesh in order to give his flesh for the life of
the world. The sign of feeding the five
thousand, and all of the miraculous signs that he did, pointed to this single
great event as Jesus cried out “It is finished” and died on the cross for
us. In order to defeat death for us, he
passed through it himself.
But
in John’s Gospel, Jesus death and burial is part of one single arc that swings
back up to resurrection and ascension. Jesus
said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my
life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay
it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have
authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my
Father.”
Jesus
Christ took his life back up again on Easter and then he ascended in glory. He has conquered sin and death, and now he
gives us life. He gives us life with God
– life as the children of God. He gives
us eternal life – eternal life that is already ours now. And he promises that
he will give us resurrection life on the Last Day.
He
gives this life to us now. He does it
through his Word as the life giving Spirit sustains us in the life of
faith. And just as we see the miracle
with bread in our text, he continues to do so in our midst this morning. In the Sacrament of the Altar our Lord uses
bread and wine to give us his life giving body and blood, given and shed for
us.
In
this chapter Jesus goes on to say, “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 eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,
and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.”
Notice
how our Lord promises that all who eat his flesh and drink his blood “have
eternal life.” It is already yours now
and you can live in the confidence that nothing
can change this – not even some virus that comes from China. And so while we
should not act in irresponsible ways that are a threat to our neighbor or
ourselves, we also cannot live and act in fear. We are the people who already
have eternal life with God and not even death can change this fact. We have
life in Christ and so we can live confidently in the present.
And
we also live as the people who know that bodily death is not the end for our body. Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks
my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of our
own resurrection. And in the Sacrament,
it is the risen Lord who gives his body
and blood into our bodies. This is the
pledge and assurance of our own resurrection.
For our Lord will return and raise all those whose bodies have received
his body and blood.
In
our text today, Jesus works a miracle – a sign – as he feeds more than five
thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. This sign points to his
death, resurrection and ascension for us.
Jesus is the living bread – the bread that has come down from heaven and
gives life. He gives eternal life to all
who believe in him because he has given his flesh for the life of the world.
And now in his Sacrament he gives us his body and blood so that we may continue
as people who have eternal life and know that he will raise us up on the Last
Day.
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