Lent 4
Jn
6:1-15
3/15/26
“Now the Passover,
the feast of the Jews, was at hand.”
This statement just shows up in our text this morning. In the previous
chapter, Jesus had been in Jerusalem. But in the first verse of the Gospel
lesson we learn that he is no longer there.
Instead we are told, “After this Jesus went away to the other side
of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.” Our Lord was once again back in the north at
the Sea of Galilee.
We learn that a large crowd was following him, because
they saw the signs that Christ was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there
he sat down with his disciples. That’s when John announces, “Now the
Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.”
Jesus isn’t in Jerusalem for the Passover as he was in
chapter two. So John isn’t saying this to explain where Jesus is at. Instead he
goes out of his way to announce that these events took place as the Passover
was approaching. This information shapes our understanding of the way the
people react to Jesus. More importantly, they inform the way that we understand
Jesus’ miracle and what he says afterwards.
The Passover was the remembrance of how God had delivered
Israel from slavery in Egypt. Yahweh commanded the Israelites to select a lamb
and kill it. They marked their houses with the blood of the lamb, then then ate
it in a meal with unleavened bread.
God told them that he would pass through Egypt that night
and would kill all the firstborn in the land. But he promised, “The blood shall
be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I
will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike
the land of Egypt.” He commanded that in the future Israel would continue to
celebrate the Passover meal – they would kill and eat the Passover lamb – in
remembrance of God’s rescue.
God delivered Israel from Egyptian slavery as he had
promised. The Passover became an annual remembrance and celebration of God’s
saving action. By the time of Jesus, what had been Israel was now under Roman
rule in both direct and indirect forms. The Passover became an occasion that
made people hope that God would once again act to rescue them from foreign
domination. Because of this it was a highly charged and dangerous time, and the
Roman governor brought extra troops to Jerusalem. This is the reason that
Pontius Pilate was in city when Jesus was crucified.
We learn in our text that when Jesus lifted up his eyes
he saw a large crowd that was coming to him. He asked Philip, “Where are we to
buy bread, so that these people may eat?” The wording in our text emphasizes
the source of the bread. John tells us that Jesus said this to test Philip
because he already knew what he was going to do.
Our Lord’s words in John’s Gospel point in the direction
of the source, for it would be Jesus. But Philip’s answer instead focused on
the prohibitive cost. He answered, “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. Philip was saying that a large sum of money would scarcely provide the
crowd with a small amount.” He was thinking in terms of the challenge, and not
the Lord Jesus who was present with them.
Andrew reported on what they did have. He said, “There is
a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they
for so many?” And then Jesus went to
work. He had the people sit down in the grass. It was a crowd of five thousand
men, not counting women and children.
Jesus then
took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to
those who were seated. He did so with the fish as well, as much as they wanted. The bread and fish never ran out. In fact
when everyone had eaten their fill Christ told the disciples, “Gather up the
leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”
When they did so, they filled twelve baskets with the leftovers.
The great
crowd was following Jesus because they had seen the signs that he was doing –
the miracles as he healed the sick. At the end of our text, 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!’” It was the time
of the Passover when the Jews thought about God’s rescue in the past, and how
they hoped he would do it again. This miracle made the people think that Jesus
was a prophet figure of God’s end time salvation. He was the One would deliver
them from Roman rule.
The Lord knew
what they were thinking. He perceived
that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king. But our
Lord had not entered the world to be this kind of Savior. And so
Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
“Now the
Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.” John is telling us to think
about this miracle in light of the Passover. This comes out in the discussion
that follows in the rest of this chapter.
The next day
Jesus had gone to Capernaum. The crows sought him out there and he said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs,
but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
Our Lord said they were seeking him because they wanted a free meal.
Then he added, “Do not work 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.”
The crowd
challenged Jesus as they said, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and
believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the
wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus had just worked the sign of feeding
more than five thousand people. But they asked for something more. They
referred to the events of our Old Testament lesson in which Moses announced
that God would give Israel manna.
But Jesus
replied, “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.” When they asked him to give them this bread
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger,
and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
The Jews grumbled that Jesus said he was the bread that
came down from heaven. After all, this was Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose
father and mother they had known. So Jesus said to them, “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.”
Christ said he was the bread that gives life. He was the
bread that had come down from heaven. And he said that the bread he would give
for the life of the world was his flesh.
This word
flesh is important for us in two ways. First, it is reminder in John’s Gospel
about who Jesus is. In the first chapter we learn that Jesus is the Word. He is
the second person of the Trinity who was with God in beginning, and is God.
Then John tells us, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father,
full of grace and truth.” Sent by the Father, the Son came down from
heaven as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He
became true man living our world, without ceasing to be true God, the Creator
of the cosmos.
And second,
it points us to the connection with the Passover. The Passover lamb was slain,
and its blood was used to mark the houses of the Israelites. This blood caused
God’s wrath to pass over the Israelites so that they were spared. And then the
Israelites ate the lamb – they ate its flesh in the Passover meal.
You too were
threatened by God’s wrath. Paul told the Ephesians and Colossians that because
of sin, the wrath of God comes upon the son of disobedience. He told the
Romans, “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing
up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment
will be revealed.”
In thought,
word, and deed your sins against God and against your neighbor deserved God’s
wrath and judgment. But God sent his Son into the world in order to save you.
God gave him in order to rescue you from his wrath.
When John the
Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world.” John’s Gospel makes quite clear what kind of lamb this was. It is
the Passover lamb. When God instituted the Passover meal he told Moses, “It
shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the
house, and you shall not break any of its bones.” On Good Friday
when the soldiers were breaking the legs of the thieves on the cross so they
would die quickly, they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead. So
instead they plunged a spear into his side to make sure this was so. John says,
“For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not
one of his bones will be broken.”
Jesus was the
Passover lamb who died on the cross so that the wrath of God now passes over
you. But Christ also said that he gave his flesh for the life of the world.
Buried before sundown on Friday, Jesus rose from the dead on Easter. By his resurrection he has defeated death and
begun the resurrection life that will be ours. As Jesus told Martha, “I am the
resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he
die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in
me shall never die.”
Now we
receive this forgiveness and life through faith in Christ. As Jesus says in
this chapter, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks
on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will
raise him up on the last day.” We have
it by faith. And then our Lord gives us the means of his saving work that is to
be the object of our faith as we trust his word and promise.
In this
chapter Jesus says, “And the bread that I will give for the life of the
world is my flesh.” The Jews
then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his
flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “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. For my flesh is true food, and my
blood is true drink.”
Jesus is the
true Passover lamb who offered himself on the cross. The Passover lamb of the
Old Testament pointed forward to him. And at his last Passover meal with the
disciples, on the night when he was betrayed, he transformed the meal into one
that is done in remembrance of him.
Our Lord
instituted the Sacrament of the Altar as he took bread and said, “Take and eat,
this is my body.” He took a cup of wine and said, “Drink of it all of you, this
is my blood.” The Lord who is still true God and true man works the miracle of
giving his true body and blood. He was sacrificed on the cross so that so that
God’s wrath passes over us. Here in the Sacrament he gives into your mouth the
very body given into death and the very blood shed to accomplish this. He says
that this saving work is true for you.
Through the
body and blood of Christ you know that you have forgiveness. And at the same time this is also the body
and blood of the risen Lord. In
our text, John mentions that the Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of
Tiberius. The only other time this name
occurs is in chapter twenty one when the seven disciples meet the risen Lord by
the lake. Here again, Jesus feeds them with bread and fish.
In the
Sacrament you receive the body and blood of the risen Lord into your
body. Through this gift the Christ
provides the guarantee that your body will be raised and transformed to be like
his. As our Lord said, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
“Now the
Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.” Jesus’ miracle of feeding the crowed is a
sign. It is a sign that reveals Jesus as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb.
By his death he has caused the wrath of God against sin to pass over us.
Through faith in Christ the crucified and risen Lord we have forgiveness and
salvation. In the Sacrament Jesus feeds us with his true body and blood in
order to deliver this. He provides the pledge that our bodies will be raised to
be like his.
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