Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson.
You and I know it as the Feeding
of the Five Thousand. The fact that all four evangelists include it tells us
that it is important for God’s people. But the question is why – why is it such
a significant narrative and teaching for us to read and hear and what is it
that we, God’s people in the 21st century, need to take to heart as
we hear and read it again?
You’ve heard the expression,
“Can’t see the forest for the trees.” I came to understand that when serving my
first church in deep East Texas. For those who don’t know, East Texas is a
major pine tree forest. Different species of pine trees tower into the sky as
high as 138 feet – roughly 13 stories tall – about 15 feet shorter than our own
Broadway Tower. That’s a tall tree. Driving through Davy Crockett National
Forest was like the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, but with trees
instead of water on each side. Except for the noon hour, you drove in the shade
on those roads – even in the summer. But if it was a moonless night, those
roads were as dark as the tunnel under the Houston Ship Channel. It was strange
feeling. While you were surrounded by the forest, you had no idea just how deep
and big it was because all you could see on either side of you was a few feet –
the trees, big and small, blocked you from seeing anything deeper. Literally,
you could not see the forest because of the trees. We use the expression to
mean getting so caught up in the details that you lose sight of the bigger
picture.
I tell you this as a way of
getting into this morning’s Gospel reading. It’s easy to get stuck in the trees
of the miracle so we miss the forest of the rest of the story.
I wonder if the disciples were
embarrassed or irritated when Jesus told them, “Go, feed the crowd.” After all,
who on earth could do such a thing? There was no Sam’s Club or Costco nearby.
Even if there was, who could afford to feed 5000 people? Their quick survey of
the crowd found just five loaves of bread and two fish. Don’t think big loaves
of crusty French bread from a bakery. Think something more like small pita
bread or tortillas used for street tacos – hand-sized, something a mom would
make for her family. And don’t think two 16-inch speckled trout. These were
probably more like sardines or small herring, dried or smoked. These loaves and
fish, what a mom would pack a boy’s lunch, easy to carry while watching the
sheep. Not much to work with; not enough for a dozen grown men let alone 5000.
Our Lord takes and prays over a boy’s lunch and begins to break and divide, divide and break, giving it to the disciples to distribute. Then, not only is everyone fed but they are satiated, each – each ate more than that little boy’s lunch.
Consider the miracles. The
so-called laws of nature – and certainly those of mathematics - are broken:
when one divides something, the whole becomes smaller parts. One already-small
loaf should become two even smaller loaves; one already small fish becomes two
smaller fish. When Jesus breaks and divides, it somehow multiples. Dividing one
small fish suddenly becomes two small fish; one small loaf of bread becomes two
small loaves. But it’s not just one becomes two. It continues to grow and
divide and multiply. A boy’s lunch becomes enough to feed the crowds, possibly
8000, 9000, 10,000 people. That’s just not possible.
And, the way He does it is just
as impossible. There was no vast network of ovens and bakers with sacks of
flour and fishmongers with baskets of dried fish. With words of prayer and
blessing, speaking to His Father in heaven, Jesus feeds the crowd – work that
the disciples felt was impossible.
Even today, this miracle catches
us off guard with surprise. If I asked any of you – for the sake of the
illustration, let’s say the Board of Elders, if I asked them to take this bag
of buns and a can of tuna and feed y’all, everyone would think I was bonkers.
No one would take me seriously. I would even be surprised if an individual came
up to take the bag and even try. We completely understand the disciple’s
reticence – “Who??? Us???” The impossibility of the scene is just to, well,
impossible to overcome.
It’s interesting how people try
to take this parable and turn it to a modern application. Some will use it to
teach that if you have enough faith, God will multiply what you have. That’s
called the theology of glory, or prosperity Gospel. That’s not what this is
about, at all. Folks get a little closer if they speak to the gift of prayer,
but that’s still not right. No where is Jesus teaching the disciples about
prayer. There is no description of what a prayer should say or a prescription
of how to pray. This is a unique example of Jesus’ prayer – and the words
aren’t even recorded for us, not by any of the four evangelists. So, while better,
this is still not about prayer. Is it a teaching about the power of miracles,
or outlining a doctrine of miracles, what to expect or how to anticipate them?
Again, closer, but still not the central thrust. So, what is it about, then?
What are we to take from this narrative of the miraculous feeding?
Earlier, I said we can’t always
see the forest for the trees. We can easily get caught up in all of these interesting
and incredible details that we miss sight of the bigger picture.
Go back to how the reading began.
Jesus had heard about the death of John the Baptist. Needing time to reflect,
rest and pray, He took the Twelve with him to the other side of the lake, but
when He arrived, He saw the crowds. Matthew reports this: “When
he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them
and healed their sick.”
With that sentence, we discover
the greater picture: “He had compassion on them.” In short, Jesus sees their
physical need and meets it head-on. He does it first by healing the sick. Then,
after an afternoon’s work of preaching and teaching to feed them spiritually,
He again has compassion and feeds their hungry bellies.
Jesus is not a far-off, distant
and aloof God. He does not wait for man to come to Him. He comes to us. He enters
into humanity, taking the very form of a servant to live among us, dwell among
us, and even be tempted as us. And part of that dwelling among us is that He
experiences for Himself all of the emotions and feelings that we have –
including compassion at the common human needs that we all experience and
struggle with since the Fall. Out of His great love for us, He does this to
rescue and redeem us, both in time and into eternity.
We often focus on that eternal
aspect, and it is good, right and salutary that we should. After all, Jesus
comes to redeem and save. If you remember, a few weeks ago, we read that Jesus
had compassion on the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd,
in other words, He was worried about their salvation. But He does not do that
while overlooking our physical needs as well. When He saw the sick, He healed.
When He saw hunger, He fed. And, you notice, He didn’t only do this for those
who believed. He did this for everyone who met His boat, for everyone sitting
on the hillside, whether they were fully trusting Jesus as Messiah or they were
just curious about what He had to say. He loves regardless of how that love is
reciprocated. Yes, Jesus desires His love to be returned, but His love is not
conditional. He loves; He has compassion; He acts.
This is one of the beautiful
truths of Scripture. God lets the sun rise on the good and the wicked and He sends
rain on the just and the unjust. He gives daily bread to those who love Him and
those who openly despise and mock His name. He provides food, drink, house and
home to all people everywhere – even those who refuse to acknowledge His gifts.
He does it out of His fatherly goodness and mercy.
For the faithful, for those who
love and trust God’s promises in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God
not only gives us food to satiate our growling bellies. He also gives us bread
that leads to salvation and wine that quenches our thirst for righteousness. In
this bread and wine, Christ Himself is truly present, His Body and Blood given,
broken, and shed for you. One of the early Reformers debated with Martin
Luther, how is it possible that Jesus’ body and blood could be in multiple
places at once; ergo, it must be only symbolic, a remembrance of what Jesus
said, not for any particular purpose. If Jesus could divide bread and fish in a
miraculous way, enough to feed thousands with just a boy’s lunch all at the
sound of His prayer and blessing, then how much more certain can we be trusting
of His own promise, “This is my body; this is my blood. Take and eat; take and
drink for the forgiveness of sins.” A bite of bread and a sip of wine may not
satiate the hungry stomach. But Christ’s body and blood satisfies the heart
hungry for the promise of sins forgiven and the strengthening of faith.
There is one interesting aspect
of this narrative. Matthew tells us that when everyone had eaten their fill,
the disciples gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers. It wasn’t just enough; there
weren’t crumbs swept onto the grass. There was plenty. No one went away hungry.
On that hillside, that was a perfect moment of restoration. Hunger was
defeated. The sick were well. For a moment, the fallen world was right. His compassion
defeated satan’s chaos. It was a glimpse, just a glimpse, of what Jesus still had
to do. There was something greater on the horizon. While His compassion was
always present, it did not prevent Him from going to the cross. There, in His
perfect death and sacrifice, He would restore creation. Isaiah’s words, spoken
7 centuries earlier, will one day be fulfilled in the consummation of all
things, when Jesus, the Bread of Life, returns in glory. In that day, hunger
will be eternally destroyed and all illness will be made whole.
This morning’s Old Testament
lesson comes near the end of Isaiah. In chapter 25, Isaiah paints a beautiful
picture of what the forest will look like on the last day.
On this mountain
the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a
feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well
refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over
all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away
tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all
the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold,
this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is
the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his
salvation.”
