“JESUS STILL FEEDS”
Saint John 6. 1-15
Laetare: The Fourth Sunday in Lent-22 March Anno Domini 2009
Fr Watson SSP
Near the lake that Jesus walked on He was in the midst of a great crowd of sinful people. In the land of His upbringing a flock of dirty, hungry and lonely lambs gathered around Him. The Evangelist tells you that they came to Him because they witnessed His miracles of healing. That is a good reason to come to the Lord. Christ once said "believe in the works I do." They did. It's a start. While not everyone can be an Athanasius or a Franz Pieper, sheep should know their shepherd. Hungry people should know where the food is.
The events surrounding this great multiplication of loaves and fishes in not so much about Christ's power over matter, nature, or creation as it is about His tender desire to feed and nurture His own. Not only God can walk on water; so can certain insects and men with inflatable shoes. Not only God can feed five thousand men; so can soup kitchens, professional caterers and U.N. disaster relief teams. This mountain top reality is not about the Nazarene's power but rather about His love. He gives Himself. While not explicitly dealing with the Sacrament of the Altar (the Holy Communion) this story is entirely Sacramental-mysterious. Jesus comes to find His lost sheep. A Shepherds job after finding his lost lambs and carrying them back to the sheepfold is then to protect them and to feed them and to give them pure water to drink.
The reason the Sea of Galilee (located in Galilee) is renamed the Sea of Tiberias is sin. It doesn't take a Caesar to want to put one's own stamp of ownership and control onto something. You all are every bit as possessive and domineering as any emperor. And every pastor, in his sinful heart, is as imperious as the most meddling pope. Every sinner wants to take the Prophet, who gives them what they think they want, by force, and make Him their meal ticket. You all want to have full bellies and not growling empty "bread-baskets." You all want homes like Dives and not gutters like Lazarus. You all want to eat and be like Eve rather than be children fed by your Father. The problem in every parish that calls itself Christian is not Christ but those who are supposed to be Christians-little Christ's. You don't want to be little. Pastors don't want to be servants either. We all want to come and take Him, His power and His miracles, by force. Repent. The Lord has done all the "do's and don'ts" that you should have done-that you should continue to obey-He's done it for you and therefore you have done it. You're okay now. The Savior has already saved you from hell fire by being roasted in it Himself on the Tree-He's suffered it for you and therefore you've already been judged, paid, and are now free from it. Be what He's made you. You are now part of the company of the 12. You are now up on the mountain of the Holy Catholic Church sitting with Him as His disciples. The one and only Passover, not the destroyer Who killed every Egyptian first-born, but the destroyer Who killed The Father's beloved and only-begotten first-born, is over. That destroyer was your sin, and the sin of the world, and that destroyer was bound up in Jesus' own body and crucified to death and was buried in the tomb of Joseph and also buried in the depths of the sea.
Jesus looks up from the mountain of this font this morning; He looks up from the hillside of this pulpit and the summit of this Holy altar, and He sees you His dear little lambs. He knows you are still prey to the constant harassment of wolves (human and demonic). He knows you still get wet and hungry and cold. He knows you have pains and sorrows deep inside that you don't share even with your closest loved ones. But His stewards, His called-ones, are here with you too. And they should always continue to do for you what Philip and Andrew and Simon Peter did for Him in Galilee. The twelve took what their Master gave them and gave to those whom He had gathered around Him. Jesus make you too to sit down in green grass. The withered and brown chickweed and crab grass of false doctrine and self-delusion is not your resting place. Only the green and growing life of His Church is your sheepfold. He gives you bread to eat and He gives you fish to eat. The bread is His Word for only Jesus is the Word of the Father. The fish you eat is His very Body which you participate in, which you commune with, when He feeds you from His very own table in the Sacrament. Jesus is not only the Bread from heaven, but He is the fish, the great ICTHUS, Who as the perfect bait caught the devil, the ancient serpent.
Here, you have as much to eat as you want. The Lord always wants you to feed, to feast, on Him, and Him alone. The Word stuffed into your ears and mouths and souls until it comes out of your very pores-for it and it alone is forgiveness and eternity.
The Prophet Who has come into the world, the Prophet, prophet being one who speaks for God, is the Word in the Flesh, and is here today and IN YOU.
Rejoice on this Laetare for He Who is IN YOU is greater than he who is in the world; is greater than the world; is greater than your old nature; and is making you all even more conformed to His image. Until the day of your glorious resurrection He will sit with you His disciples.
In the Name of + Jesus