This even presents a logistical nightmare. They are in the wilderness. Have you noticed how often Satan does his bidding in the wilderness? Jesus was hungry in the wilderness when the devil came to tempt Him. Now a crowd is in the wilderness and hungry but the disciples who are tempted. Jesus asks them to look around at the crowd that had come to listen to His preaching. They no longer were jubilant over the number of followers Jesus had accumulated and instead were fearful of the burden of this hungry mob. John’s account records their consternation. Not even 200 denarii could buy bread for so many! In modern terms about $35-45,000. Even if you showed up at a store with forty grand in your hand, would they have enough bread? What store carries a $40,000 bread inventory? But this isn’t about the disciples; it’s about Jesus.
Then there is the crowd. They had not quite followed Jesus because they loved His Word. They had seen the miracles. They wanted a glimpse of that glory to take home, a taste of that goodness to satisfy them, and an easier path to their hard lives. They were ready to make Jesus a bread king but they were not quite ready to accept a crucified King. Yet Jesus loved them still. Every one of the twelve disciples who said it could not be done and had to swallow their pride and pick up the leftovers in their own bag. And everyone of the 15-40,000 (including women and children) who had their hunger met with a miracle bigger than manna and was ready to settle for only bread. And everyone who reads this in the Gospels and wonders why some folks get miracle bread and the rest of us have to work for it. Jesus loves them and loves us all.
We live by the grace of God. The people on that meadow who ate the lunch bag multiplied for thousands and the technological and modern men and women who must have organic bread and wild caught fish with their vitamin water. We all live by the grace of God. You may not like it and neither do I but we all live by the grace of God. We are not the smart or the smug or the self-sufficient. We are the needy, the hungry, the lost, the lonely, the sinners and God loves us more than we deserve and more than could ever dare to hope for. He has come for the needy, the hungry, the lost, the lonely, and the sinner. He does not come because we might need His help; He has come because without Him we are lost in the wilderness to the devil, hungry and hurting, without hope apart from Him who loves us. It is the hardest thing to admit and the best thing so confess. We live by the grace of God.
There is one more curious detail. Did you notice that it was by eating that sin enter ed the world, by eating that Jesus demonstrates who He is and what He has come to do, and by eating that we abide in Christ and He is us? Do not presume that eating is merely the perfunctory obligation of a people who would die if we did not eat. For it is in eating that we live – eating the bread of life that comes down from above, the flesh of Jesus, and the curse of Eden’s eating is undone.
It might seem to you that miracles all belong in the past and that the only miracles left today are the ones science or medicine or technology can offer. But in this wilderness of the world where Satan is always around trying to bring our hearts to despair and our minds to fear, Jesus is still here. As the Psalmist says, He sets His table in the midst of our enemies. But the bread that we eat at His table is not the few loaves multiplied for the many but the one body divided so that we may eat and live. There are those voices among us who insist that it is unreasonable to believe and impossible to prove that this bread is His body and this cup His blood. Jesus does not care about winning arguments. He cares about feeding the hungry and satisfying the desire of every living thing. He cares about a people lost and alone with no where to turn but Him. He cares about sinners who deserve nothing of His kindness but who can count on His compassion as the only certain thing in life. He cares about you and about me.
We would settle for much less. Like the hungry so long ago, all we want is the meal of the moment. We do not care about the foretaste of the eternal feast – just some grub to satisfy us so we can get on doing what we want to do. We would settle for so much less. Like the people and disciples long ago, we would gladly give up forever to get what we want now, surrendering eternity to have our best lives now. Like the disciples long ago, we have all the right excuses for the way things are and the way we are – it costs too much, we don’t know how to do it, we don’t know where to find it. We would settle for so much less but Jesus insists upon giving us so much more.
The wilderness is meant to drive us into the arms of our Savior. Hunger is meant to awaken in us the desire for bread that you eat and never hunger again. That is how it was then. That is how it is today. God uses our hurts and pains and sorrows and disappointments to bring us to Him. God uses our hunger and our desires to bring us to Him. The Spirit is at work in the great needs of our lives to prepare us for Him who fulfills those needs.
We want the hunger to go away; Jesus wants to fill us so we will be always full. We want the wilderness to go away; Jesus sets His table right there in the middle of that wilderness. We want to be shown how to provide for ourselves; Jesus wants us to learn to depend upon Him and what He provides according to His grace and mercy.
Jesus is not teaching us an example of what we are to do and He is surely not trying to get us to learn a little generosity. This miracle is not about sharing with our neighbor in need. It is about how we are the neighbor in need, the hungry in the wilderness, and the lost and alone with no where to turn. We may find it easy to distinguish between physical needs and spiritual but I am not so sure that God makes that fine distinction. He knows what we need. Bread for the body, to be sure. Bread for the soul, absolutely. The miracle is that both are found in the same place, here on this altar. Here is the miracle bread that is multiplied over and over again as sinners come to eat and yet it is never used up. God’s grace is not in short supply. It will always be where God has said we can find it and eat it – it will always be HERE in this blessed sacrament. Our job is not to crack the mystery of how but to come in faith rejoicing that here is the miracle bread that feeds eternal life and Jesus has so much to give that there are always baskets of leftovers.
In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment