Trinity 7, 2022
Rev. Thomas Van Hemert
St. Mark 8:1-9
Trinity 7
July 31, 2022
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
When it comes to the feeding miracles of Jesus, whether it be either the Feeding of the Five Thousand or the Feeding of the Four Thousand—like we heard read today, which by the way are different miracles; they’re not the same miracle accidentally recorded twice in the Gospels; they are different miracles—but when we read and hear about these two feeding miracles, I think we often times fall prey to separating them from the context that surrounds them. In other words, when we read about or hear about these wondrous miracles, we often times think the only point to be learned is that Jesus is all powerful and that He’s gracious and loving, so much so, that He can feed thousands of people with only a few loaves of bread and a few fish. I fear that this has become the view of many that these miracles, even more so than other miracles, that they are simply recorded in order to show Jesus’ divine power and authority. We think that’s the only thing to be learned from these two historic events. And while this is true—Jesus does have divine power and authority to multiply bread loaves and fish to feed those who would faint along the way home and He does this on account of the compassion He feels toward the crowd—there is more to be learned from this miraculous feeding miracles.
The context that surrounds the Feeding of the Four Thousand, if we read between the lines and use context clues for what is happening during this time in the New Testament, the student of Holy Scripture would come to realize that there was a lack in worship within the Jewish religious system. Although undoubtedly, there were faithful rabbis and teachers of the Law, most of them had fallen into corruption and had divided into different sects. For example, we have the Pharisees. We all know the Pharisees. They loved the Law. In fact, they added to the Law and loved their own Law. They put works ahead of grace and forgiveness. Next, we have the Sadducees. This group was mostly made up of priests. But they were priests who denied the Resurrection of the Body, and yet they were the priests! There was another group during this time called the Essenes but we don’t really hear too much about them.
In any case, these teachers of the Law and of Holy Scripture had become wolves in sheep’s clothing, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They were supposed to gather the sheep but instead they scattered them. They were supposed to feed the sheep but instead they tore them apart. The Divine Service of the Old Testament was in a miserable state. It was all either snuffed out or changed into a very lucrative money-making system. All Godly behavior was gone. All of God’s Commandments lay in ruins while the commandments of men were placed upon a pedestal. And worst of all, those who were supposed to be faithful priests cast out of the assembly those who clung to Christ, regarding them as Gentiles and sinners of the worst sort. And so believers were abandoned, left to be like sheep without a shepherd.
But then came Jesus, preaching the Gospel, the good news that He alone saves—He alone is the way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Him and only those with faith in Him will be saved. He came as the Messiah. He came to fulfill the Father’s will: He is the Good Shepherd and He lays down His life for the sheep. Jesus came preaching salvation. He came preaching that He Himself is the Messiah, Immanuel, God with us. How beautiful were the words He preached in the ears of those who heard. The crowds who heard Him became so enamored with His preaching that they kept on following Him, even throughout a three-day journey into the wilderness where there was no food to eat.
There in the wilderness, there was nothing, just Jesus and His preaching. But the crowd, it seems, did not care. In fact they didn’t even notice their own hunger. They loved His preaching. They clung to every single word. They were hearing things they hadn’t heard in a long time—that their sins were forgiven, that men are not made righteous by keeping and observing man-made laws which the Pharisees and Sadducees had invented. The crowds heard the voice of their Good Shepherd and the Shepherd knew them, and thus, they as sheep followed Him.
Now because the crowds had followed Him three days being fed spiritually through the Word, they had become hungry. What was the Lord to do? If He sends them away hungry to their homes, they would faint along the way. To faint along the way in the wilderness is to die. If the crowds are not fed, they will starve. But Jesus does not want them to starve. He cares even for their bodies. And so He feeds them miraculously with seven bread loaves and a few small fish. Everyone ate their fill. Seven baskets were filled with the leftovers. Jesus cares even for their bodies. He leads them like a shepherd leads the sheep to food and water because sheep are no good to the shepherd if they starve and die. So just like a worldly shepherd, Jesus not only cares for their spiritual well-being, but also for their temporal well-being. That’s the kind of God He is. This text clearly teaches us that the body is important. We are not Gnostics—those who only care for spiritual things, while having disdain for physical, bodily things. Our God, Jesus Christ loves our bodies because He created them and He Himself took on a body. He fashioned us together in our mothers’ wombs and He will be the one to raise our bodies on the Last Day. And in this miraculous feeding miracle, we begin to see what worship truly is: how it encompasses our bodies. It is receiving whatever our God would give to us.
Worship, that is, the Divine Service, is “easy,” in a sense. All we really have to do is receive what God would give us. He would have us listen to His Word, hear preaching and learn it, and receive in our mouths the Christ’s Body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Our entire Christian religion is based upon and around the Divine Service and what we do in the Divine Service: we receive from God what He desires to give. He does not need us. He does not need or require our praise. Nothing must be done on our part to appease Him. In fact, the Christian religion is the only religion that is “Take and eat.” But there is a problem. The Christian religion, just like the Old Testament is constantly under attack by sects and groups who would see it washed out.
Today, our holy religion is constantly under attack. The Church at large has never seen such a downward spiral of membership. We’ve never seen such apostasy, even from within our own families. We’ve never seen such a large number of confirmands who don’t return after confirmation, children who are not being taught in the home as they used to be, and there is a general disdain for the Church in general in the public square. And sometimes we must admit that we are part of the problem. Our sinful flesh often does not want to hear God’s Word preached or learn it. Even many Christians in our day find the Divine Service to be boring. But the reason they don’t find joy in the Divine Service, is because they don’t think they are sinners. Bring a broken sinner into this place, let him hear what God has done for him in Christ Jesus, relieve him of his burdens, forgive his sins, and he will weep tears of joy.
All this goes to show that we are like that band of Four Thousand, who followed Jesus out into the wilderness while listening to His preaching and ignoring even our own hunger. You all could have done many other things today but you are here. God be praised you are here. My question in all this is why weren’t there more than Four Thousand? Of course, four thousand is a large number. But surely there were more people in that area who simply sat around and watched the crowd go by with Jesus. Why didn’t they follow? Why didn’t they join in?
The Four Thousand are the faithful. Small in comparison to the greater population of the area and the same is true today. Why aren’t there more people here? I don’t know. But I do know that the faithful are always smaller in number than the unfaithful and that’s ok. Let us be like the Four Thousand and continue to hear Jesus’ preaching and receive Him in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Now of course, as you’ve being hearing, and as we know in faith, we actually do receive Jesus in the Word and in the Sacrament. But this Gospel text from St. Mark also is a demonstration of how God takes care of all our bodily needs. We pray in the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” What does this mean? “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” The question becomes then, what is meant by daily bread? “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shows, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
We see how this is fulfilled in Jesus miraculously feeding the Four Thousand. When we pray these words, we aren’t heaping up empty phrases and just going through the motions. What did that great crowd need the most? First, their Divine Service and worship life was hijacked by wolves in sheep clothing, so they needed to hear the Word of God. Jesus gave that to them. They were with Him three days hearing the very words of God Himself in the flesh. Second, because they had been with Jesus for three days, they needed food. So God Himself in the flesh, Jesus Christ, gave them bread and fish in abundance. He literally gave them their daily bread.
We also see how this petition is answered for us as well. No one here is without what he really needs. I don’t think anyone here is truly lacking. If you are, we as the Church are here to help you with your bodily needs. All you need to do is ask. We are your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and we love you and we’re glad you’re here. But in my conversation with most of you, we all have what we really do need. All of us have a house over our heads, clothes on our backs, cans of creamed corn in our pantries, and the right amount of money that each and every one of us needs. So I don’t think there’s a lack of anything among us. We may want more stuff, but we don’t really need more stuff. Want is not the same thing as need. So let us be content, knowing that Jesus gives us our daily bread just as He provided it for that band of Four Thousand that followed Him for three days without food. But now let us come to the Lord’s Table and receive something even greater than simple bread.
In +Jesus’ name.
