Lent 4
Jn
6:1-15
3/14/21
Recently
Amy and I met with the individual who is helping us do some financial
planning. It is our goal to see that
college is paid for so that our children will not come out with any student
debt. That is, of course, quite a challenge with four children. Thankfully, our oldest son has been a
tremendous help in this because his involvement in the National Guard and
future career plans with the Army have great benefits in paying for education. Of
course, he has certainly been earning it as he spent two of the previous
summers at Ft. Benning, Georgia in basic training and AIT, and then most
recently was deployed in the Persian Gulf region for almost a year. Finding your way at night to a portable
toilet in the middle of a sandstorm does not sound like my idea of a good time.
And of
course, further down the road, Amy and I do want to retire. I hope that does not come as a shock. I love
serving as pastor at Good Shepherd, but I am not going to do it forever. There
will come a day when I will want to stop doing this and retire. The Lord will
place another man to serve in his Office of the Ministry here at Good Shepherd,
and Amy and I will actually be free to go away for a whole weekend whenever we
want.
It has
been interesting to think about how much money we will need a year to live in
retirement. Life down the road is going
to be far less expensive on many fronts. The first thing that came to mind is
that with the house paid off, there will no house payment. The very next thing Amy commented on was,
“Can you imagine what our food budget will be like when it is just the two of
us?” Buying food for four children gets
expensive. The return of one large
appetite after nine months away has definitely increased the food budget at the
Surburg house, and reminded us of this fact.
The cost
of buying food is a central concern in our Gospel lesson for today. Our Lord raises the question of how he and
the disciples are going to feed a crowd of more than five thousand people. The
obvious answer is that it’s not possible – it would be just too expensive. Yet
then Jesus works a miracle by feeding them with five loaves of bread and two
fish. He works a miracle – a sign. But the true understanding of the sign can
only be received by faith in Jesus who came to give us what matters most.
Our Gospel
lesson 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.” We
learn that a great crowd was following Jesus because they saw the miracles of
healing that he was doing.
John describes these miracles as
“signs,” which is very important for the proper understanding of what this
action by Jesus means. After telling about how Jesus turned water in wine at
the wedding in Cana John says, “This,
the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his
glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
Jesus miracles are signs that reveal his glory and call forth faith in
Christ. But as we will see, this faith
can only be faith in the Christ that Jesus has come to be.
John then adds, “Now the Passover, the feast of
the Jews, was at hand.” This is
important background for two reasons. First, it helps to explain the size of
the crowd. There would have been many
pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. And second, it provides information about
their attitude and mindset. The Passover celebrated how Yahweh had freed Israel
from slavery in Egypt. With the
exception of about one hundred years after the Maccabean revolt, since 587 B.C.
Israel had constantly been a conquered and ruled by foreigners: the
Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and Seleucids. Now the Romans were the
conquering power. The Passover always
called to mind the hope that God would again free his people from foreign rule
and oppression.
Jesus saw the large crowd coming toward him and said to Philip, “Where
are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” John tells us that Jesus said this to test
him, for he himself knew what he would do.
Philip looked at the situation and gave the assessment that worked in
the way of the world. He said, “Two
hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a
little.” A denarius was a day’s wage.
This was a very large amount of money, and yet even this would not really be
sufficient.
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother
reported, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish,”
but then he immediately added the obvious point, “but what are they for so
many?” Yet Jesus had the people sit
down. We learn that there were about
five thousand men, so if we add in the women and children with them, the crowd
must have been far larger than that. Jesus then took the loaves, and when
he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. He did the
same with the fish. Everyone ate as much as they wanted, and when it was all
over their were twelve baskets full of left over bread.
Jesus had worked an incredible
miracle. In fact, this is the only miracle that is reported by all four
Gospels. It was certainly a sign, and we learn that when the people had seen it
they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” First century Judaism had a number of
different expectations about an end time prophet. What united all of them was
that this individual was certainly going to be involved in freeing God’s people
and bringing God’s judgment against their enemies. In the setting of the Passover expectation,
what happened next is not surprising. John tells us, “Perceiving then that they
were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew
again to the mountain by himself.”
The next day
people from the crowd tracked down Jesus across the Sea of Galilee in
Capernaum. They asked, “Rabbi, when did you come here?" But Jesus
answered 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 told them that their interest was no
longer in the signs. Their attention was
no longer focused on the miracles that were means of revelation about Jesus –
something that called people to faith.
Instead, they were thinking with their stomach. Jesus had given them an easy meal, and they
wanted more of that.
Now before we
look down on the people who came to Jesus, we need to be very honest about what
we really want from him. And many
times, we aren’t all that different. Our
focus – what we want – is for things to go well. We want to be
healthy and happy. We don’t want any
physical issues that limit or hamper life.
We want school or our job to go well. We want our plans for the future
to work out – we want to advance and have success. We want to be comfortable with all those
material blessings that we consider to be essential.
And we want
Jesus to give these things to us. That’s what we really want. And we
think that is what he should be doing. Now this orientation itself is
wrong – it is sinful and breaks the First Commandment. And then if things don’t go this way, we face
the temptation to be frustrated with God, or to doubt God, or to be angry at
God.
Jesus said the people had coming looking
for him because they wanted more bread. Then he went on to say, “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.” Our Lord told them that what really matters is
the food that endures to eternal life. This is the food that he the Son of Man
would give to them, because he had been sent by the Father.
Our Lord told them that the work of
God is to believe in him, the One God had sent. To this they responded, “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.’” Since Jesus had just
fed more than five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish,
their demand for a sign bears witness to their unbelief.
Jesus told them
that “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 the people asked for this bread Jesus replied, “I am the bread of
life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall
never thirst.”
Our Lord teaches us to recognize what
really matters. What matters is life
with God – eternal life. What matters is
the sin that stands in the way of this. Later, Jesus said, “I am the bread of
life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they
died. 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.”
Jesus came to give us life with God
– real life - life that will last. The
Son of God became flesh in order to give his life amd win life for you. He came to die as the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world – who takes away your sin. All of the signs in the Gospel of John point
towards the cross where God’s love for us is revealed. During Holy Week Jesus said, “Now is the
judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast
out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will
draw all people to myself.” Then John adds, “He said this to show –
literally, “to sign” - by what kind of death he was going to die.”
But Jesus did not come to bring
death. He came to bring life. Our Lord said during his ministry, “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.”
On Easter Jesus rose from the dead,
as he began the resurrection life that will be ours. Because Jesus died and rose from the dead, we
already have eternal life now and we will share in his resurrection on the Last
Day. Jesus said to Martha at the tomb of
Lazarus, “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.”
God does provide us with daily
bread, and many blessings that go far beyond that. But he never promised to
make everything healthy and happy. Instead, he has promised us life, and the
peace that is found in that assurance. On the night he was betrayed Jesus told
his disciples, “I have said
these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you
will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the
world.”
In our Gospel lesson we see Jesus work a great sign – a
miracle as he feeds more than five thousand people with five loaves of bread
and two fish. This sign points us to
Jesus’ cross and resurrection, by which he has won for us forgiveness and
life. Because of our crucified and risen
Lord we have life with God – life that will have no end as we share in Christ’s
resurrection. This is what we really need. This is what Jesus has given
to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment