John 6:1-15
Lent 4 Laetare
March 11, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
“I don’t know what to do.” That is never a fun thing to say, much less feel. A sense of helplessness can quickly take a person down to despair and depression. It is a hard thing to experience, and it is a hard thing to watch others experience.
Three weeks ago, during the 1st Sunday in Lent, we heard of Jesus out in the wilderness with devil. No food. No crowds of people. After 40 days, He was hungry, but resisted the temptation to turn stones into bread. The devil offered Him a way around the cross, a way to control over the kingdoms of the world without suffering, but He resisted.
This week, from John 6, we hear of Jesus out in the wilderness again. This time, He is not alone. The crowds had followed Him there, hungry for a miracle, for solutions to their problems, for ways around their own suffering and control over more of their lives. And they don’t know what to do. It’s an impossible situation. 5,000 men, not counting women and children, so maybe somewhere around 10,000 people, had been listening to Jesus and now found themselves in the middle of nowhere, and now their immediate need is food. Jesus has created this crisis and He knew what He was going to do. He draws them out of town in order to teach them, to feed them, to reveal to them that He is the Son of God.
“Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He asks this of Philip, one of the first disciples. Philip doesn’t quite get it yet. He quickly responds that there’s no way there would ever be enough money, not even to mention, no grocery store out in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t know what to do, and for all appearances they are stuck in an impossible situation. And we know how Phillip feels, the anxiety, the fear, the despair, all for the same reason: we don’t consider the One who provides abundantly. We lament over our perceived lack, and too often complain that God isn’t doing anything that we want Him to do. We don’t know what to do.
And then the miracle happens. The crowd needs food. So Jesus multiplies the two fish and the five barley loaves, and they end up with more left overs than when they began. And so Jesus provides, just like He did when He changed water into wine, just like He did when He fed His people manna from heaven during the Exodus. Jesus does what He has been doing from the beginning, a miracle of creation and preservation of that creation, a miracle that scientism and evolution cannot begin to explain: that something came from nothing, abundance out of lack. Jesus who did not make bread for Himself, now makes it for the people. That’s who God is and how He acts out of sheer love for what He has created.
And now the crowds, brought of out of their despair and out of their need, rush to the opposite extreme. They see and experience the abundance, and they lust after more. An endless supply from a Prophet, no less. In Jesus is the miracle cure to their hunger and to their need. It’s a promise of free healthcare without the need to work, food boxes without the need of stamps or accountability, a king after their own making. So the crowds try to grab Him and try to make Him the king who would feed them, that would earthly needs could met in the fashion that they want. For Jesus, this temptation was no greater than that of the devil the last time Jesus was in the wilderness. But His time has not yet come. And His rule does not look like that of this world, nor that of the devil, nor the lustful stomachs or hearts of a crowd.
They don’t get it. Not Philip, not the crowd. And Jesus goes away to pray by Himself. We don’t have the words that He prayed, but no doubt it was for His disciples, for the crowd, for the purpose in which the Creator had joined Himself to His creation. And maybe even for us, those who come afterward with the same basic problems, the same lust, the same greed, the same questions, the same despair, the same doubt. We don’t know what to do.
And then the miracle happens. He takes a child, like Amelia, splashes her with water, speaks to her the creative and sustaining Word of God, and He provides an abundance and life that is eternal. He takes her, He takes all the baptized through the wilderness of this life, haunted by demons, tormented by lusts, filled with despair and doubt, looking for a king hoping to get free stuff, and He establishes His kingdom of grace and mercy and abundance. His kingdom is not to set up a political order or an earthly nation. But He has come to give His life as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, to give forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
This is not merely a miracle, then or now, demonstrating Jesus’ power and compassion, but it points us to the ongoing meal that He continues to provide for His people. He who supplied the bodily need of thousands in the wilderness offers us an abundance of food to sustain the new life that Christ has given. He gives us Himself through the Gospel, the good news that He gave His body and shed His blood for our redemption. He gives us Himself in His body and blood together with the bread and the wine. In the Lord’s Supper, we are fed with the bread of lift that forgives all our sins, grants us life and salvation, and strengthens us during our earthly pilgrimage. It’s no accident that from very early in Christian history 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish has served as a symbol for the Lord’s Supper, for Jesus continues to feeds the crowds in a miraculous and life sustaining way.
When you don’t know what to do, cling to Jesus, and see that everything is done for you. Repent of your pride, of your selfish quest for control and power, of your despair and doubt. Feast on the true body and blood of our Lord in the Holy Sacrament that is the spiritual food for eternity to all who believe. Cling to Jesus, to His death and resurrection, and to life everlasting.