“THE REAL FEEDING”
Saint John 6. 1-15
Laetare - The Fourth Sunday In Lent: 6 March Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
Five thousand fed? Five is the number of the Law, of Torah; the number of the first Five Books of Moses. The Law cannot save only condemn. Likewise, the Law cannot feed only make aware a ravening hunger, an empty hole. Only the Good News of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified can feed.
Back then, at the time of our text's events, many followed the Nazarene because they saw the signs which He performed. Fair enough. That's a good start but only a start. One needs to be where the Lord is: period. But to stay where Jesus stays requires faith. Not faith in faith, not faith in self and self-works, but faith in Jesus. This faith comes only by being fed by Jesus Himself; being fed the food which He gives and in the way in which He gives it. It is pure gift, it is pure Grace.
In today's world, many, most, are unbelievers. Most do not believe that Jesus is Who the Scriptures say He is. Who He said He was. Who the Church Catholic has proclaimed Him to be for the last two centuries. If the Lord should choose, even today, to again work dynamic miracles in order to get the attention, to get the audience, that His Galilean Works obtained, then He can. But that is not how He chooses to work. That is certainly not how He chooses to work with His called, enlightened and fed Saints. The Lord chooses to work on you through "means," rather than by visual contact with the scientifically demonstrable miraculous. You fall victim to the same sin when you daily crave Christ the victorious and glorious "Reigning One" rather than Jesus the Crucified, the "Suffering Servant." Yes of course He IS King; but that is not how He came and how He conquered. The perfect God came into the flesh as a perfect man to be your worker and to be your atoning blood sacrifice. It is enough. It is enough even when you're hungry for food; even when you crave release from temptations and healings from diseases (physical and spiritual); it is enough when you seek peace from the worlds' ravages, from the daily betrayals of your own body and from demonic harassment.
Yes, even Christians can be hungry, even you are hungry. Your body daily hungers for food and the Lord daily gives you your daily bread. Thank Him daily. But, you also naturally hunger for spiritual, emotional, and psychological things. You can hunger and thirst all you want, but the only food that He gives you, is what He came to give, what He gave to His followers 2,000 years ago. Jesus is the Bread from Heaven. When one eats Jesus one has all that there is.
Today's text is about what actually happened, yes. The Lord did multiply the loaves and fishes to feed the huge crowd. It is a great supra-natural feat; it is something only God could do. Jesus is God. This you believe and confess.
The Lord first exercises the faith, and hunger, of His own "12." Philip does what you would do, what you in fact do every time you're presented with an earthly, physical problem; turn to yourselves and you own talents, resources and works: "Where shall WE buy bread..." But you know better. You know that all of your wealth, creativity, families' love, energy, and hard working, cannot add one day to your life, nor gain you admittance to heaven. Without God you cannot even feed yourself with bread and water. The five barley loaves cannot feed by themselves. The Law, the "five" cannot sustain life. But, added to the two fish, the complete revelation of the Lord in Scripture's two testaments does provide all. For in the Old and New Covenants, the Lord steps forward in His Two Natures, God and Man to be with His people and to feed His people Himself.
Jesus became your meal when He was offered up in Holy Sacrifice on Calvary's cross.
Jesus became your Passover Lamb, a Lamb to be eaten, when He paid for your sins, and died in your place.
Jesus now gives you to eat through His appointed "Means." You receive Him in Faith when you hear His Forgiveness proclaimed in Scripture and when you hear His Absolution spoken into your ears by His Disciples. "When He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down." Yes, Jesus is God, and He can feed you any way He desires, He can feed you without Andrew and Simon Peter and Pastor "so-and-so." But, it delights Him to use "Means," real hands, real voices, and real flesh and blood to give you His own flesh and blood.
The crowd was made to sit down on the green grass. You are invited to kneel with Him at His own dinner table, the greenest and most living grass of all.
Yes, the feeding of the five thousand points to Christ's eternal feeding of the entire family of faith through His enduring Word, and through His Supper. It is my hand to your mouth yes, but in my hand the Body of Jesus, the Blood of Jesus, and at my elbow, at my side and back, and front, the real, present Jesus.
This is how you are filled. This is how you are fed and nourished. This feeding of not five thousand, but of myriads and myriads, is how you have Peace.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost