“CHRIST SET BEFORE YOU”
Saint Mark 8: 1-9
7th Sunday after Trinity: 26 July Anno Domini 2020
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The multitude is not very great in “these days.”
As far as not having anything to eat, it depends on what one is hungry for.
Being “with” Jesus for three days? Most are never with Jesus. And Lutherans sometimes will only give Him 60 minutes, or so, once a week. We are not just a stupid people (ignorant) but we are a faithless people far too often.
Sin. The sin of disbelief keeps people away from God. False religion keeps one away from true religion. Jesus is true religion. Jesus visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction; Jesus kept Himself unspotted from the world—i.e. from sin [Ja. 1.27]. The fact that the multitude had “been with [Him] three days, and have nothing to eat” is a testament to the Truth of God which He had been preaching; to His own identity as living Truth enfleshed. Wisdom is known by its children and Faith is shown by works. The “works” of the crowd was staying where God was.
Because The Lord is good He did not want the crowd, when dispersed, to have physical difficulty in traveling back to their home villages, sources of food and drink, in dangerously weakened conditions. He wanted their physical needs to be met as sure as He had fed them spiritually with His teachings about The Kingdom of God; about repenting and believing, about Mercy and Forgiveness.
Right now, you certainly don’t need anybody, not pastors, not busy-body illiterate newsreaders, not even Christ, telling you where and how to buy food to fill your face and keep you constantly sated. But you should know by now that the daily bread, and its ancillaries, as listed in the Reformer’s Explanation to the 4th Petition of the Our Father is about bread which does not save; is the “bread” that can be, and is, given to the unjust (pagan) as well as the just (believer). But the real bread is the Bread from Heaven. The true and satisfying bread of eternity is Christ Jesus. His Words? Yes. But most precisely His flesh; His actual and real Body and Blood as given to you in The Sacrament.
You are New Testament disciples of The Lord—followers, Christians. Do not be as clueless as the “12.” “From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?” The answer is that no man can save you from starvation and eternal perdition in the lake of fire! But The God/Man can.
In the feeding of the 5,000, did the 5 loaves represent the Torah? Perhaps. In the feeding of the 4,000 which St. Mark recounts, do the 7 loaves represent the perfection of God, of Christ—the 6 days of creation capped off by the Sabbath—the perfect rest which comes only in Christ? Perhaps.
The people sitting down a Psalm 23 “type” of the flock of God feeding on/at green pastures? A few small fish making one think of the calling of the Peter or the early mark of followers of The Way; of ICTHUS? Perhaps.
Jesus took. Jesus gave thanks. Jesus broke. Jesus gave the nourishment to His Disciples to give to the hungry. The Word of God fed the people.
In our own circles, Dr. Arthur Just in his doctoral thesis, commentary on St. Luke, and is his teaching, points out the Patristic truth that The Lord was always coupling together teaching and table fellowship; the feeding of the ears with God’s Word and then a physical feeding that is rightly called communing. This is The Church—Word and Sacrament.
Jesus always speaks the Law of Condemnation through Moses and the Commandments. Repent. But of supreme worth, Jesus always then speaks to the dead the life-giving Word of Absolution, Forgiveness, and Restoration. Believe. The Word gives what it asks for. Grace gives Faith. Faith eats Jesus, both with the ears and with the mouth.
The multiplication, the miraculous creation of bread and fish from meager rations to a mountain of food, with plentiful leftovers, is of course a sign that Jesus is God. It’s a supra-natural creative act. It was prefigured when The Lord allowed Elias to perform a similar type of miracle on smaller scale…Elisha too. And it puts into perspective the ability of your pastor, of all called and ordained Lutheran priests, to re-speak Jesus’ Words of Consecration, the Verba, over simple bread and wine. The Word, The Jesus, DOES what HE says He does, from “Let there be light,” to “Lazarus come forth,” to “This is MY BODY.”
Well, there’s no crescendo in homiletical brilliance to this sermon. I’ve not been building up to any didactic or catechetical payoff. The conclusion of every sermon, of every hearing of the menu, is to receive the content therein. Yes, repent and believe in the full favor of the Holy + Absolution, the sweet Gospel of loosing and peace. But also, on This remembrance of “The” Third Day, your own eternal 8th Day, sit on the holy ground of the altar kneelers, eat and be filled with forgiveness, with Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
Email the webmaster.Contact Augsburg Lutheran Church: (913) 403-6194