Laetare (Lent 4), 2024
Rev. Thomas Van Hemert
St. John 6:1-15
Laetare
March 10, 2024
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Before Jesus fed people miraculously, He began to teach them many things. St. Luke clarifies that He was speaking concerning the Kingdom of God. When we hear what Christ said about His kingdom in other passages from the Gospels, He usually presents it as something quite glorious: a treasure buried in a field, a costly pearl, a wedding feast, a great banquet, and the like.
The sermons He preaches concerning His wonderful kingdom appear to have made a deep impression on the people, filling them with a great desire to be a part of His Kingdom. Such a desire gripped the people, that they decided to take Jesus by force and make Him their king. It was a desire of great foolishness, however. Christ would not allow Himself to be seized by them, but rather, He fled to the mountains in order to avoid them. Their idea was worldly, focused on worldly goods and the passions of the flesh.
Most Christians acknowledge that the Jews were seeking an earthly kingdom from the Son of God. And yet, countless souls are guilty today of doing what the Jews tried to do by force. The Jews wanted to make Jesus their king as things were, without changing a single thing in themselves. And so do you. You want Jesus to be king but you do not want to change your heart—that heart of stone, which you love so dearly. And yet, even though you are baptized and you believe that Jesus is the Savior of the Nations as you confess in the Creed, you sometimes sit in the pews and hear only what you want to hear, but you won’t hear that you are not a part of Jesus’ kingdom because you are so averse towards change that you pride yourself on your stubbornness. The Jews were deceived into thinking that they could take Christ as king, so are you.
In this election year, we are all about this earthly kingdom. And to be a part of this earthly kingdom, you must be citizens of this nation (at least, we would think this would be the case). You register to vote, and then go and vote when it is time. But the Kingdom of God and of His Christ is invisible, spiritual, heavenly, not of this world. It is not bound by geographical borders or by nationality. The Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is not of this world, although you may really wish it were. Nothing you can do can grant you entrance into this heavenly kingdom, try as you might, pray as hard as you want, believe as fervently as you can, but your heart of stone excludes you from it.
Only those who have been given a new heart of flesh, those hearts not ruled by sin, pure, are in the Kingdom of God. You can give your entire savings to the church, you can give your every waking hour to the service of others, and you can sit through every Bible study that you have no intention of listening to, and yet if you do not have a new heart and a new spirit within you, if your heart of stone has not been replaced with a heart of flesh, if you will not have your sinful lips cleansed, and believe that you are saved by God’s good grace and favor, and that this actually changes people, you will never be part of the kingdom, for your heart of stone excludes you. What then does it mean that God’s Kingdom comes? The Kingdom of God comes even without our prayer.
In fact, the Kingdom of God comes to us, just as Jesus drew near to Jerusalem in order to die and make atonement for our iniquity. God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity. The Holy Spirit who lives and works within you, teaches you the way of Christ. He breaks your heart of stone, returning it to the dust from whence you came and towards which you are returning. Our Lord even tells us how we are to enter the kingdom of Heaven, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Repentance is not a passive action. The Holy Spirit shows you what wickedness and evil lies in your heart. And He does so through the Scriptures, which He applies to you through the office of the Holy Ministry. Anybody can read the Bible and think, “yeah, adultery, murder, theft and greed are bad things,” but the heart of flesh recognizes that it is guilty of every sin mentioned in the Bible. May you be one who hears the Word of God and learns of his sins and his great need for the forgiveness that is yours in Christ. May your heart of stone be crushed, and replaced with a heart of flesh. You are guilty of countless transgressions even if you think that you’re not, especially if you think you’re not.
The Kingdom of God takes you captive, out of this world, all the while leaving you in this world so that you might be conformed into the image of the Son of God. We pray as our Lord has taught us, that His Kingdom would come, and that His will would be done. And it is, even without our prayer.
God’s Kingdom comes also in miracles, such as, when He broke bread and fed the 5000. And yet, it is only after He fed the multitude that He is sought after for kingship. The dead were raised, and nothing. The lame were made to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and they were not interested. He feeds the five thousand and they immediately try to make Him their bread-king.
The Jews left the place hungry for a king, but their bellies were full. They had not worked even an hour for the feast, and yet, they ate until they were satisfied. They went along their way only to hunger again, to be controlled by their stomach to serve another false and deadly god. Let us not be like them—only wanting the pleasures and joys of heaven without suffering here on earth; only desiring sermons to make us feel unaffected or unoffended by words that come from the pulpit; only wanting the liturgy to be the way that you like it; only wanting the benefits of the Kingdom of God without repenting and changing our ways by writing off the things of God because they’re too trivial or too involved or seem too offensive or outdated in our modern world.
If you claim to be a Christian, and yet your heart is as rock-solid as it was when you were first born and you do not have faith, then you liar and a hypocrite. All of us have treated God as though He were the enemy and despise those whom He sends to take care of us. Perhaps some of you don’t want to change. You want your heart to be as hard as it always was. You want no part in the Kingdom of God. You just want to look the part—look good in front of others. But being a part of the Kingdom of God means that you die, that you die to yourself, that you cast aside the desires of the flesh, the comfort of the way things have always been, order to replace it with the greater thing.
You must die. You must mortify the flesh with all its passions and ease. You must learn to hate your sin and turn from it, cut it out of your chest, and cast it into the sea, lest it take you down with it. So defend yourself with God’s Word. It makes one wise to salvation.
And for this purpose, God gives us His Word that is encapsulated with bread, that is, His Holy Supper. This changes people. He is the source of bread from heaven and he who eats of Him and drinks of His blood will never hunger or thirst for righteousness again. For in this meal, our Lord’s victory over sin and death is given to you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of your sins. Are you spiritually sick? Yes. So take the medicine given to you by the great Physician. Are you spiritually lame? Unable to move toward God? Without a doubt. So receive that which tells you and causes you to get up and walk.
You cannot walk into the Kingdom of God by your own powers, but you can walk away and avoid it. The Kingdom of God has come, for He sits on the throne that is the altar, and bids you to eat and drink. The Kingdom of God has come, and has set you free from the bonds of sin and death. The Kingdom of God has come, so don’t choose the starvation of the world, but feast on that which He has come to give. The Kingdom of God has come so that you can pick up your cross and follow Jesus through death and unto life eternal.
No one goes to the hospital with the hopes of retaining their illness. No one goes to the restaurant with the intention of leaving hungry. No one goes to the tax man hoping to be indebted to the government forever and ever. No one is in the Kingdom of God if they are holding on to that which Jesus died to take away.
So rejoice this day and forevermore. For Jesus brings you in, tells you that He is your God and that you are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. There upon those pastures, much as He did with the 5000, He feeds you, and sustains you, with living bread from heaven so that you would not faint on the way home.
In +Jesus name.
