(Using the print feature in your browser will print the sermon without the navigation menu on the left.)
Many in our congregation have signed up to help with meals and other acts of kindness when events overcome our fellow Christians — perhaps when a family member is hospitalized, a baby is born, etc. These are acts of love for our fellow Chrisitans, and this is God acting through His people to provide daily bread in a time of need. God always acts to provide what people need, when they need it. We have been talking about God's providing daily bread for us in the catechism lessons this Lententide on Wednesday nights, and we teach it thoroughly to our catechumens and school students on a constant basis:
God gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.
The difference between a Christian and an evil person who does not believe in Christ receiving daily bread is that the Christian is led by God to learn to receive their daily bread with thanksgiving, to recognize God as the giver of every good gift in our life.
Remember that daily bread is everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body — not just food but everything from the clothes on our back to our families to good government to our peace, our health, our safety, our daily vocations, the jobs and roles in life that we are given to do each day that God uses to sustain us and our families. Today's message is about two different groups of people who received daily bread from God. There were two different meals that God gave to large groups of people in the Bible, one in Exodus and one in John's Gospel.
The first meal we look at was given to the children of Israel, who were just one and a half months into their journey away from Egypt at the Exodus. We heard the story of manna from heaven in the first reading this morning. The people were unhappy, because they were getting hungry. So, they grumbled about God to Moses and Aaron. “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt…you have brought us into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exodus 16:2–3). They failed to believe God would provide all they need to support this body and life.
This is amazing, because these are the same people who, just one month or so before, had gone through the Passover. The angel of death passed over them and killed the Egyptian firstborn children. They were released by the Pharaoh and, days later, crossed the Red Sea on dry ground as God held the waters up on both sides until they passed safely through.
Then, they saw God collapse the water on the Egyptian army chasing after them, drowning hard–hearted Pharoah and all his hosts in the depths of the sea. The LORD Himself was leading them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and He had stood between them and the Egyptians in their war chariots until every single one of them had passed over on dry ground. They had been a part of one of the most miraculous and awesome acts of mercy that God ever performed in the story of the Passover.
These people had daily seen nothing but God, time after time, extending His love out for them, saving and preserving them, keeping them safe, healthy, and even free from thirst. He even overlooked their sinful imperfections.
Yet, they still grumbled. They were still not satisfied with what God had given them. When they got a little hungry on their journey, they did not pray to God for help. Instead, they grumbled and fussed. They gave in to their sinful flesh.
But God is full of mercy and compassion and steadfast love, even when we are not, even when we grumble and complain about the blessings God gives to us. God heard the grumbling of the children of Israel in their Exodus journey, and He acted by sending manna in the morning for bread and quail in the evening for meat. God took the initiative to provide for the people. That's who God is. He is love incarnate. He knows what we need. He acts to provide.
The children of Israel were only to gather as much as they could eat, nothing more, nothing less. Yet, some gathered not enough, some too much, and some tried to gather it on the Sabbath Day when they were supposed to rest from all labors. Even when they received a great gift, they did not always receive it with thanksgiving to God. They often abused the blessing from God. They did not listen to God's Word of life and blessing to them. How sad to waste and abuse God's gifts.
This brings us to the second meal, the feeding of the 5,000 or more people following Jesus in our Gospel reading this morning. Like our Old Testament lesson and the children of Israel in the wilderness, the people were following Jesus because of the signs and miracles He was performing: healing the sick, helping the weak. But this time, they were willingly going out to the remote places to hear and see Him. They just went, with no grumbling, no complaining. They, too, followed Him near the time of the Passover. They, too, followed Him from one side of a sea to another. The stories are very similar in many ways.
Here's another similarity: there were some grumblers. The disciples asked sharp questions of Jesus, and they did not exactly pass Jesus' test with flying colors. Jesus asked them, “Where are we to buy bread that these people may eat?” They fell for it. Their answer should have been: “You provided manna out of nothing for Israel, you can provide bread here too, Jesus, without buying any.” But instead, their answers were:
“It would take way too much money to buy bread for everyone here.”
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" (:John 6:9).
Andrew was at least willing to put forward the boy's offering. Yet, he qualified his enthusiasm: “…as if it will do much good for all of these people.” Andrew seems to be saying, “There's just nothing much to work with, here, Lord.”
They did not seem to believe that God could provide for so many people way out in the desert country with not a grocery store in sight.
But God is full of mercy and compassion and steadfast love even when we are not. Even when we are not thankful and fail to see God providing for us in all things big and small each day. Even when we fail to believe that God can provide what we need, when we need it, because He is God.
Whether the crowd or the disciples deserved it or not, it is Jesus who looks to see if they are in need. It is Jesus who asks how the crowd is to be fed. It is Jesus who takes the initiative. Jesus takes the five loaves and two fish, what seems to be nothing to the disciples, He gives thanks to His Father for them, breaks them into pieces, and gives them over to His disciples to be given to the people. The people were allowed to eat until they were fulfilled, and there were still 12 baskets of leftover crumbs. Unlike the children of Israel in the wilderness, the people and the disciples carefully followed Jesus' directions. Nothing was wasted. Everything was distributed and gathered up carefully.
God is lavish and generous with His love for you. God is active in every meal and every daily blessing to support and take care of those whom He has created. God takes nothing and makes it something every single day for your sakes! What He provides for you is so much more than just filling your bellies. God has come into your wilderness of sin and death. He came looking for you, seeking you out and seeking to save you from this wilderness. Even before you could ask, God provided the miraculous delivery you needed in His Son, Jesus Christ.
God brought you through the Red Sea waters in Baptism, saving you not from the Egyptians but from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus Christ has sacrificed and given His Holy Body as the Bread of Life to redeem this world, to redeem you from your sins, for all of the times you and I have been grumblers, unthankful, and failing to see God at work in our lives, helping us to live each day, and carrying us through this life to the life of the world to come.
When you fail and falter in your sinful flesh, when you have nothing to offer Him, He does not give up on you. He does not say, “Sorry, nothing to work with here.” No. He took you, who were nothing in your sin and shame, and made you into something special. He has carefully cared for you, gathered you up carefully and preserved you in the Church, founded upon the Gospel preaching of the twelve apostles who saw Jesus feed 5,000, but also die on His cross for your sins, and who witnessed Him risen from the dead, living and reigning to all eternity. Out of great love for you, God has done for you what you needed, when you needed it. Freely, by His grace, purely out of fatherly, divine, goodness and mercy.
By God's grace, pray that you always see your loving and gracious God at work in your daily lives, providing for you all that you need to live each day and for all eternity. Pray that God lead you to realize His mercy and compassion for you in all blessings, great and small, each day and to receive your daily bread and, most importantly, to receive your salvation from sin and death — the grace of God given you in the eternal and merciful forgiveness of your sins, by faith in Christ, with heartfelt and sincere thanksgiving.
Pain or loss, or shame or cross, shall not from my Savior move me: Since He deigns to love me.(Lutheran Service Book 743, stanza 4)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
( TOP )