✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Luke 9,10-17 (Matthew 14,13-21; Mark 8,1-10; John 6,1-15) 3713
7. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 052
John Bonaventure, Bishop of Albano, Italy, † 1274
14. Juli 2013
1. Lord of all power and might, who art the Author and Giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of Thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same. Amen.
2. On their return the apostles told Jesus all that they had done. And He took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. When the crowds learned it, they followed Him, and He welcomed them and spoke to them of the reign of God and cured those who had need of healing. Now the day began to wear away, and the Twelve came and said to Him: „Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.“ But Jesus said to them: „You give them something to eat.“ They said: „We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.“ For there were about five thousand men. And Jesus said to His disciples: „Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.“ And they did so, and had them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
3. In the midst of the 5000, Philip crunches the numbers: Jesus, it would take almost seven months of wages to buy food for all these people! A quick consultation with Judas Iscariot, who held the money, would reveal they are woefully short of that amount of financial capital. Andrew notes that a young lad has five loaves of bread and two fish, but that would barely feed Jesus and His apostles, let alone 5000 hungry men. The apostles are at a loss for what to do. They can’t buy the food necessary to feed the crowd; they can’t feed the crowd with the food on hand; they can’t send the crowd home hungry, for that would violate the traditions of hospitality.
4. Jesus takes the little they have to feed the multitudes. He says a table prayer and gives some bread and fish to each of the twelve apostles to distribute among the crowds. There is no way five loaves of bread and two large fish should feed thousands of people, but the loaves and the fish do feed the people. Furthermore, the crowds don’t limit themselves to a few crumbs of bread and a morsel of fish. No, each one takes what they need to eat and be full. The bread and the fish feed the 5000, and when the leftovers are gathered up, lo and behold, each apostle returns with a basketful of bread and fish! A single basket of bread and fish has multiplied into twelve baskets full of broken pieces of bread and fish.
5. Like any miracle, we cannot explain how it occurred. All we can say is that a miracle is God active in His natural creation in a supernatural way. Nature cannot multiply five loaves of bread and two fish into sixty loaves and 24 fish, but God can and does, for He is not bound and limited to the natural order of things. The natural order can only multiply bread and fish by baking more bread and catching more fish, but the supernatural creates more from nothing. This miracle of feeding the 5000 is similar to how the Triune God created the world. God created ex nihilo (from nothing). He created man, beasts and plants in maturity, fully grown and formed. At the moment it was created, the world was ready to do that which God created it to do: plants bore fruit for food, animals breed and man subdued the earth.
6. In the feeding of the 5000 we see God’s providence in all its glory. Prior to the feeding, Jesus had preached on the reign of God and healed those who were sick. Now late in the afternoon, Jesus feeds the crowds with food. John records that Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus taught further about this after He had fed the 5000, saying: »The Bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. 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. 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« (John 6:33.35.40.48-51).
7. The reign of God is about the Living Bread coming down from heaven to give life to the world. In the old testament Jesus sent Israel manna from heaven to feed them as they traveled from Egypt to the land promised to Abraham. Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years before they entered the Promised Land, and Jesus feed them every one of those 14,600 days with bread. In the new testament Jesus feeds His people. This is simply His Divine providence upon His creation as its Creator. Like Israel of old, we complain about our sustenance or doubt Jesus will provide for us. Jesus knows that our flesh is weak and that we are prone to doubt His providential care. Jesus says to us: »Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. Instead, seek His reign, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the reign of God« (Luke 12,22.24.27-29.31-32). Jesus provides all you need to live in this earthly life.
8. The Gospel according to Luke defines the reign of God as follows: »And Jesus came to Nazareth, and He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read from the Prophet Isaiah: „The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.“ And Jesus said to say to them: „Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.“« (Luke 4,16-19.21). Jesus taught the Nazarenes that the reign of God is in their midst, and that He is that reign of God manifested before them. The feeding of the 5000 is a further manifestation of Jesus as the reign of God.
9. Jesus provides for all our spiritual needs, too. He preached that today is the year of Yahweh’s favor. God the Father is a loving, merciful and gracious God. He shows these Divine attributes by sending His Son to be our Bread of Life. Jesus gives us His very body as our food. He offered up His flesh and blood as the vicarious sacrifice on the cross to be the redemptive price for sin. He has paid the ransom price in full with His very body.
10. The apostles gathered up more bread than they had started with. Such is the way of God’s grace: there is more than enough for what is needed. So it is with the Living Bread: there is more of Jesus than we need. We have many needs in this life and we have sins that weigh us down as an unbearable burden. Just a few crumbs of Jesus are sufficient to provide for our necessities and cover our sins. There is more of Jesus for us. There is a sumptuous banquet spread by our Host that we have access to and that we have not partaken of yet. We will never run short of Jesus. He always has more of Himself to give us, for His love and grace are eternally abundant.
11. Is it any wonder the crowd wanted to crown Jesus as king right there on the outskirts of Bethsaida? They were not going to give Him a choice in this matter, for they intended to force this kingship upon Him (John 6,10). Such is the way of sinful men and women: we try to force Jesus to be what we want Him to be. If we want Him to save us from our politicians, then we make Him our Liberation Jesus. If we want Him to instill traditional and conservative values again in our culture, then we make Him our Morality Jesus. When Jesus refuses to be conformed to our petty images of Him, then sinful mankind rejects Jesus, chases Him from their midst and calls for His crucifixion.
12. The Jewish multitude and the Gentile nations merely want Jesus to be their Bread King. But Jesus’ disciples rightly perceive Him to be the Christ of God (Luke 9,20). We confess Jesus to be the Christ every Divine Service. This means, says Jesus, that: »The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised« (Luke 9,22). The Living Bread gave Himself so that we would eat Him and live forever. Jesus provides for you each day in your earthly life, and He provides for you now and for all eternity the everlasting, heavenly life that He gives you abundantly as a gift. Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Yahweh, our True Light, from the rising of the sun to its setting, we praise Your Name, for You comfort us by Your eternal presence. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.
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