Laetare, the 4th Sunday in Lent + John 6:1-15 + March 11, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Jesus crosses over the Sea of Tiberius and a great multitude follows Him. They don’t pursue Jesus to hear about the kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins, and grace of God. They follow Him “because they saw the signs which He performed on those who were diseased.” These folks were after miracles. They marveled at driving out demons, healing paralytics, and curing fevers. This multitude saw in Jesus someone who could make their lives easier and more comfortable. Jesus’ signs, that is, the miracles He performed, were always about more than just the miracle itself. Jesus’ signs demonstrated His divinity so that when people saw the signs they should give thanks for them and then listen to Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God. His signs demonstrates the nature of human need and God’s grace and were meant to lead people to hear Jesus’ Word in faith so that they could receive the greater gifts that Jesus offered. All that is lost in this multitude though. They want to see more signs. They want to witness something cool.

They’ve missed the point of the signs. But in spite of this Jesus doesn’t drive them away. He cares for all men, even when they follow Him for the wrong reasons, and He wants to lead them to a true understanding of who He is and what He gives. He lifts up His eyes, that is, He surveys the crowd below. Then He turns to Philip. Before He speaks to Philip He knows precisely what He’s going to do and how he’s going to do it. But He wants to test Philip. He wants to see if Philip understands who He is and what He can do. “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Philip looks out on the multitude, five thousand men, perhaps with women and children as well and is flabbergasted. “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.” It would take a lot of money. Think back to the gospel lesson for Septuagesima Sunday, the parable of the workers in the vineyard. A denarius was the day’s wage. Here Philip says that two hundred day’s wages wouldn’t be enough to give everyone even a bite. Andrew had been looking for a worldly answer to this unsolvable problem. He points to a small boy who has five loaves of bread and two small fish. He admits this is no real solution when he asks, “but what are they among so many?” Not enough, that’s what.

But “not enough” is plenty for Jesus. Even if there hadn’t been a young lad there with five loaves and two small fish, even if there was no food whatsoever, that would have been plenty for Jesus. “Make them sit down,” He says. Five thousand men in one spot, all seated on the grass at the base of this mountain where Jesus sits with His disciples. He takes the five loaves and two small fish, what the world deems insignificant and “not enough,” and gives thanks to God the Father for them. He is not praying for a miracle like the prophets in ancient times. He is thanking God His Father for what He has provided. He gives thanks. He divvies up the bread and fish among the twelve disciples who in turn distribute it to the multitude. That’s when the miracle happens. Jesus takes “not enough” and makes it into more than enough. Everyone ate “as much as they wanted.” Their bellies were filled. Their hunger satisfied. What had originally fit into one basket now filled twelve baskets, each disciple carrying a basket picking up the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.

The men in the crowd start to get the point. St. John writes, “Then those men, when they had seen the sight that Jesus did, said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world!’” They understand that Jesus is The Prophet foretold by Moses. The Lord said in Deuteronomy 18:15, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear.” Jesus showed them He was The Prophet like Moses. He just fed a multitude in the wilderness with bread as Moses had during the exodus. Every day, except Sabbaths, for forty years God provided manna from heaven through Moses. This was how the Lord God fed Israel those forty years. He provided manna for Israel out of love. He led them out of Egypt so He was not about to let them starve in the wilderness. So the manna in the wilderness taught Israel that God lovingly provides all things for the body but it also taught them something else. Divine signs always point us to a spiritual reality. Moses taught them in Deuteronomy 8:3 that “He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” The bread from heaven in the wilderness was to teach them that as God provides physical food, so you should look to Him for the spiritual food that gives true life.

The crowd in the gospel lesson misses this point. They rightly identify Jesus as The Prophet foretold by Moses. But they fail to heed what God said about The Prophet in Deuteronomy 18. “Him you shall hear,” and “I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:18-19). The Prophet like Moses would be sent chiefly to teach the people God’s Word. The crowd makes the connection between Jesus and Moses but fail to connect the dots that they should have wanted more from Jesus than simple bread. Jesus had fed them with bread in the wilderness to teach them that “man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” Yet they did not heed the words that proceeded from the mouth of the Lord standing before them in human flesh. Instead, these men decide to take Jesus by force and make Him their king. They followed Jesus into the wilderness looking for a sign. Once they got it and had their bellies filled, they decide this is the kind of Messiah they want: a bread king who will feed them freely from nothing. Perceiving this, Jesus “departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.”

The first thing this gospel lesson teaches us is that Jesus provides for our bodily needs no matter our situation. The miracle shows us that God will most certainly answer us when we pray the prayer His Son has taught us, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). He takes that which we would call “not enough” and turns it into more than enough for us. Though He uses bread and fish that were presented to Him, He could very well have turned stones into bread. More than that, He could have simply created bread from nothing, just as He did in the beginning when He created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. Now He may not give us precisely what we think we need. But He will always give us what is truly good for us. This is true even when money gets tight and our cupboards resemble old Mother Hubbard’s. In such times Christ is doing to you what He did to Philip. When times are lean and you suffer lack, Jesus is asking you, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” And like He did with Philip, so too with you He knows precisely what He’s going to do for you and how He’s going to do it. He sends seasons of want to test you, so than when you ask, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” your faith can confidently confess, “Oh Lord, you know. You have promised to graciously provide all I need to support this body and life. You will give me what I need when I need it when I need it. Thy will be done.”

The second thing He teaches us by this sign is that we should seek spiritual food from Christ as well, for that is why He came in the flesh. Later in John 6:33 Christ says, “The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then in verse 51 He speaks plainly and says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” God, through Moses, gave manna to Israel to teach them that man does not live by bread alone but by the Word of God. Christ teaches us the same thing. Our life wasn’t meant to be a daily pursuit of bread and bodily satisfaction. Our life chiefly comes from the Bread from heaven, the Word of God in human flesh: Christ Jesus our Lord. The Son of God suffered for us according to the flesh as payment for our sins to fulfill God’s just wrath against us. He gives His flesh for the life of the world, so that “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). He provides atonement for our sins. He provides the promise of Gospel. He provides the faith to believe the gospel so that through faith you are justified, declared righteous with Christ’s righteousness. The gospel is the spiritual food that Christ provides for you because as bread feeds your body, so the promise of the forgiveness of sins feeds and nourishes your soul unto life everlasting. All of this is received by faith alone, which is how we eat of the Bread from heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The great multitude in the gospel lesson missed this even though it was right under their nose. And so do too many in our day. Most simply want God to be their bread king, giving them the good things of this life while they say “no thanks” to the bread from heaven, the forgiveness of sins, and the merits and righteousness of Christ offered in the gospel. Do not let that be you. Rejoice in God’s provision of daily bread. Give thanks for the good things He gives you each day. And let your daily bread remind you of the spiritual food He gives you: His flesh for the life of the world, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + of the Holy Ghost. Amen.