Mark 6:30-44
“Jesus Feeds 5,000”
7/19/09
Today’s Gospel text shows us
how, out of His compassion for us His sheep, Jesus provides not only
the physical, earthly food we need for our bodies, but also the
spiritual, heavenly food we need for both our bodies and souls. The
Good Shepherd that He is, Jesus leads us to the green pastures of His
Word and Sacraments as He also gives us each day our daily bread,
providing more than enough for us to eat and be satisfied, so that we
might not only live now, but for all eternity.
What we see Jesus
doing for these 5,000+ people is not something new on God’s part. It’s
what He had always been doing for His flock, His people Israel, in the
past. The fact that St. Mark mentions that they were in a “desolate”
place reminds us of the wilderness in which God’s people wandered for
40 years on their way to the promised land. Not only was there no water
for them in that desert, but also no food. And yet God miraculously
caused water to gush forth from a rock and quail to fall from the sky.
In addition to these, God fed His people on bread from heaven, manna,
the bread of angels. But it wasn’t because the Israelites were such a
thankful, God-fearing people. They were a stiff-necked, rebellious
people according to God. It was not because they deserved His care, but
out of His compassion towards them He provided for them.
When Mark
talks about the compassion of Jesus, he notes that it was because Jesus
saw the people as sheep without a shepherd that He felt compassion for
them. If sheep have no shepherd they wander off. They each go their own
way, running after whatever food looks and tastes good to them
(regardless of whether it truly is good for them), and they get lost.
Spiritually, the people were leaderless. Yes, there were the Pharisees
and Sadducees, but none of them gave God’s people the food of His Word
as they should have. The people weren’t hearing of God’s grace and the
forgiveness of their sins. Instead, they were being fed traditions and
laws. The people were literally starving for the Word of God, each of
them going his own way, as their shepherds only cared about themselves.
Jesus saw them in such a condition, and His heart went out to them.
The compassion that Jesus had for them is difficult to explain. The
word means “to have pity” or “to feel sympathy.” But we can’t get into
Jesus’ heart in order to see this compassion. Instead, Jesus shows it
to us by what He does. In one of His parables, He speaks of Himself as
the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep who are not lost and goes
after the one who is, until He finds it and brings it back to the fold
on His shoulders. In another place Jesus refers to Himself as the Good
Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, only to take it up
again. And here in today’s text we see His compassion in action as He
provides not only the food that His poor flock need for their stomachs,
but also the food they need for eternal life.
Jesus cares about
providing you with both kinds of food. The text teaches us this, in
that it informs us that Jesus both taught the people and fed them. What
He taught them was the Word of God. The Word of God is the spiritual
food that we need to feed on for eternal life. Just as God had provided
the earthly manna for His people to eat in the wilderness, so He also
provided them with the spiritual manna of the Word of God, as Moses,
the priests, and later the prophets all taught God’s people that Word.
Now in Jesus God is providing for the people of His pasture and the
sheep of His hand, just as He had always done for His wayward flock. He
Himself is the Rock from which living water flows, giving those who
drink from Him eternal life. He is the true Bread from heaven, which if
a person eats he has eternal life and the promise of the resurrection
from the dead. He is the meat from heaven, feeding us on His flesh and
blood which He gave and shed on the cross, that we might not die but
live. Jesus is not only the source of our spiritual food, but He is the
food itself. And all this He freely gives to sinners out of His
compassion for them.
But in His compassion Jesus not only cares
about providing you with the spiritual food of His Word and Sacrament,
but also the daily bread you need to sustain your body in this present
life. Because He teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily
bread,” we know that He is concerned that we receive all that we need
for our bodies and lives in this world. Because of that, we know that
He hears us when we make such a request of Him and that He will grant
us our daily bread, even if He has to provide it miraculously. The fact
is, all of our daily bread comes from Him. The normal way He provides
us with it is through the vocations of others. From farmers to parents
and all the people in between who make it so that we can have food on
the table, God uses them all to give us each day our daily bread. On
this particular occasion, however, the only thing the disciples had on
hand was a few small loaves and a couple of fish. But that certainly
wasn’t enough to feed so many people. To the disciples it seemed to be
too big of a challenge for Jesus. The only possible solution was to go
to the nearby town and buy the food they needed. But a denarius’ worth
of bread was equal to a day’s wage, and not even 200 day’s worth of
bread was going to feed 5,000 people, let alone the fact that nobody
even had that kind of money on hand to make such a purchase.
Jesus, however, didn’t throw up His hands and say, “Well, this is too
big of a problem for me!” No. He commanded the crowds to sit down on
the green grass. (Mark’s mention of green grass reminds us that the
Good Shepherd is about to provide for His sheep, who will feed richly
from His pastures.) That they sat down in 100’s and 50’s shows us that
it was orderly, not chaotic. And then Jesus took the bread and fish and
blessed them. When we ask Jesus to bless our food, we are asking Him to
cause it to do the good that it’s meant to do to our bodies. We also
give Him thanks and praise for the food, which is a way of confessing
that it comes from Him. But here with His blessing, Jesus’ Word spoken
over the food not only causes it to do good to those who will eat of
it. He not only gives thanks and praise to His Father for providing it,
but blessed by Him the food is now able to do something it could not
normally do: multiply to the point where it was able to feed all 5,000+
people with even more left over afterwards.
How was this possible?
How could only five loaves of bread and two fish feed so many people?
It’s not within the nature of these earthly elements to do such great
things! And normally, yes, that is the case. Bread and fish can’t do
such things on their own. But when they’re in the hands of their
Creator and blessed by His Word, they can do anything He wants them to
do. When we apply this to the Lord’s Supper, many people believe that
Jesus’ true body and blood cannot be present in this holy Supper,
because it’s not in the nature of these physical elements to be able to
be present wherever this Sacrament is being celebrated all over the
world. But just as Jesus was able to multiply a few loaves of bread and
a couple of fish so that they could feed 5,000, so He is more than
capable of multiplying His body and blood, so that they can be wherever
He wants them to be, especially where He promises to locate them - here
in His holy Supper for His whole flock throughout the world to eat and
to drink for the forgiveness of their sins.
And it’s in this meal
today that Jesus is doing for you just what He did for these 5,000+
people. Not only is He providing you with the heavenly food that you
need, but also the earthly food that you need as well. In fact, the
food from this meal benefits both your body and your soul, as the body
and blood of Christ not only grant you the forgiveness of sins, but
also your bodily resurrection from the dead on the Last Day. On this
food Jesus, our Good Shepherd, feeds you, in order that you might not
only live now, but again in the promised land of heaven when He comes
to raise you who have fed on Him from the dead and takes you with Him
to the eternally green pastures of paradise.
You who have been
baptized and believe in Jesus are now the people of His pasture and the
sheep of His hand. Jesus is your Good Shepherd, who saw you once
wandering, shepherdless and lost in your sins. But He had compassion on
you. He came looking for you. He laid His life down for you, atoning
for your sins with His blood on the cross, and then called you through
His Gospel to the green pastures of His Word and Sacraments. He led you
to the still waters of your Baptism and restored your soul. And even
though you, like the Israelites of old, are sojourners in the barren
wilderness of this present evil age as the Lord leads you to the
promised land of heaven, He miraculously provides for all your needs of
both body and soul, as He not only gives you each day your daily bread,
but also feeds you on Himself - the true Bread from heaven. In feeding
the 5,000 He used His disciples to distribute that food. Now He uses
me, your pastor, to distribute this food to you at this table He’s
prepared before you in the presence of your enemies. And just as there
was food left over at the feeding of the 5,000, so the Lord gives you
more than enough to sustain you. There is more than enough Jesus to go
around for everyone. His body and blood, given and shed for you, is
more than enough to satisfy you and grant you the forgiveness of sins,
life, and salvation that Jesus promises to give you in this meal. Come
and feed again today on the Good Shepherd who in His compassion gave
Himself into death for you. With the food of His Word and His body and
blood He will sustain you, whom He has brought into the sheepfold of
His Church, until faithful to His promise He brings you into His
heavenly fold to dwell with Him in His house forever. Amen.