It's getting tough to make a living isn't it? It's hard to make ends meet. Coal mines closed. Other big businesses shutting down and ditching us. Electric bills that are so high you can read them from the International Space Station. The Lord's little flock at Bethel wondering how it will pay the pastor and keep the lights on. You and I struggle to pay our utilities and mortgages while still trying to buy some groceries and eat once in a while. If we look at our check book registers and our bank account balances and read and hear the news around us it is very tempting to believe that somehow, somewhere, the meager support we have, the little bit of “getting by” that we do is all going to come crashing down. Against such despair of our material blessings and against the unbelief that says our heavenly Father isn't really going to come through for us—against these assaults of the devil we have the Holy Gospel according to St. John which records the feeding of the 5,000. Lift up your hearts, dear Christians! This story from the Gospels is written so that you will hear and be saved. So that you will be rescued from any sort of despair that the world will teach you because you don't seem to have enough! The sign of the feeding of the 5,000 teaches us this: God the Father provides ALL things we need for our soul and salvation and for our body and the support of this earthly life and He does so ONLY in and through and by His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why is it, brothers and sisters, that we walk into church expecting to receive great things from Christ: forgiveness of sins, life and salvation but then walk out the doors into our lives expecting that everything we get we have to get for ourselves, as if the Lord Christ just sits back and watches us struggle to eat and pay our bills? The answer to that question is: we do that because we are His disciples. And if you recall the feeding of the 5,000, that's what they did. Jesus had spent the day healing and caring for the people in the crowds and preaching the Word of God to them and delivering to them the Good News of the forgiveness of sins. But when it came time to eat, the disciples say to Jesus, “Seven months' pay won't buy enough bread to feed all these people!” In the other Gospel accounts the disciples are even so bold as to tell Jesus, “It's late. Send these people away so they can hit the Super Walmart on the way home and pick up their supper.” It's one thing for Jesus preach to these people. But they're on their own for getting their tummies filled. See? Just like you and me. Here in church we sing and rejoice and hear God's Word and pray. But out there we stare at our bills and lie awake tossing and turning, trying to figure out how to stretch every last dollar. Repent! Turn away from such believing that only thinks that Jesus has anything for us when we are HERE in this building. Learn what John chapter 6 teaches us! That what Jesus gives us here in this place—the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation—are the most important gifts, the most necessary treasures but that BECAUSE He gives us these things here, that is the sure SIGN that He will give us all that we need out there, in the world, in our daily lives. Just as He preached to the people to teach them what they needed most: God's Word; yet He then fed them too.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it was for this reason that Christ Jesus came into the world: to save sinners. To bring back to the Father those who had gone away from Him. To come in the flesh, pure and sinless, to be the sacrifice for our sins. To go to the cross, carrying out iniquities, to triumph over sin and death by His own death and rising from the dead. To us who had cast away God's image in our sin, the Lord Jesus comes, the very image of God, God in the flesh, to make us once again—in Him—the sons of God. Christ has done what you and I could never do: fulfill the Law of God by His obedience and take away our sins by His atoning death on the cross. Now, just as he delivered that salvation over sin by His preaching to the crowds, so he delivers it to us in the preaching of the Gospel and the delivery of His holy gifts. At the font, Christ gives you what you need most: forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil and eternal salvation. Through the preaching of the Gospel and absolution, Jesus forgives your sins and defends you against the lies of the devil. In His Supper, the Bread of Life gives you Himself, His flesh which He gave for the life of the world, given you to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins. In all these ways the Lord is busy giving you the true food of the soul, the gifts of salvation. But it doesn't stop there!
Just as Jesus did not preach the Gospel and then send the people away to find their own supper somehow, so our Lord doesn't just forgive us our sins on Sunday and then abandon us to the world for the rest of the week. Just as He fed the crowds with what was to their eyes nowhere near enough, so our Lord Jesus who saves us from our sins provides us our daily bread from what in our lives seems like it will never be enough. Hear and believe, dear Christians, that the Lord's goodness does not stop with His forgiving our sins, saving our souls. That goodness and mercy pour over into our daily lives where our our heavenly Father, through His Son gives us all things we need for this body and life. It is the Lord Jesus who each day causes the sun to rise upon the earth and warm it, who brings rain upon the earth to cause food to grow, who, as the Psalmist proclaims, brings forth oil and grain and wine to gladden the hearts of men. We are somehow tricked into believing that if we eat it's because “nature” and our own hard work have gotten it. But don't you realize? Not one seed would sprout on this earth if it were not for the pleading of Christ our Mediator to the Father that He not destroy us but feed us in our bodies so that we might also receive the salvation of our souls. It is because the Son of God became a man and gave Himself into death for us that He also causes the earth to bring forth our food. In fact, EVERY gift that comes upon this earth to feed us and clothe us and take care of us comes because Jesus is caring for His people and not letting them starve or be in want. Don't fear, dear Christian! The Bread of Life who gives you Himself to eat will also give you all the daily bread you need. Did He not feed the people for 40 years in the desert with the heavenly manna? Did they go hungry? Did they have too much? Not enough? Never. Just exactly what they needed when they trusted in God's Word to receive their DAILY amount. (Those who did not believe God's Word took more and has nothing but rotting manna and worms for their trying to help themselves!)
“But, pastor,” you will say, “it's all well to talk about Jesus giving us our food to eat and clothes to wear. But it's not like it's just going to fall out of the sky. You have to work and get those things for yourself!” Brothers and sisters, that's just exactly what a faithless disciple would say! Did the Lord start with enough food to feed everyone? Did the disciples expect Jesus to actually feed everyone when there was simply not enough food? Of course they didn't. And what does Jesus do? He feeds them, as much as they wanted with twelve baskets left over. So when someone says that what we need for this life doesn't just appear out of nowhere, I don't know how to answer that. Because when the Lord is providing for us, that's exactly where it seems to come from! Now, of course we work. We receive our incomes and we manage our money responsibly. That's all true and it's how the Commandments teach us to live. But think about it: Even Philip knew that if people worked for 7 months they couldn't make enough to afford food for all those people that needed to eat. “Well, OK, Pastor so maybe the Lord will give me something, but what if it's not as much as I need?” Then repent! Repent and learn contentment. The Lord has rescued you from your sins and death, do you think He'll let you starve? No way! But He may not give you an all you can eat fillet mignon and lobster dinner every night either. He will make sure you have what you need. Our unbelief shows itself, when we, like the people in the desert with Moses, decide that what the Lord gives us isn't enough and that we have to go hoarding it up until it rots and stinks. We do that when we go out of control, spending money we don't have and then worrying constantly about how everything is going to be taken care of. It's all just the devil's traps, brothers and sisters. Don't fall for it! Hear that Jesus preaches salvation to the crowds and then feeds them! Hear today in this place, that your sins are forgiven, and that you will be fed out there in your life.
Brothers and sisters, don't live out as if all that the Lord has for you is only here. Learn from the feeding of the 5,000 that Jesus is your Lord who saves you from your sins and causes the sun to shine upon you, rain to fall upon you and food to be in your belly and clothing on your body. Here, in His church, learn that you are a child of God. That's what your Baptism says. It's what Absolution declares. It's what the Supper guarantees. These ultimate gifts of Christ, forgiveness, life and salvation are the Lord's proof that you are His. Therefore because you are His, He WILL provide all that you need for your body and life. Some way, somehow, the Lord will do it. Therefore do not fear want and need: these are the devil's tricks. Entrust yourself to the Lord and know that He who is the Bread of Life will give you bread for your soul and your body and life. You know, when the new hymnal came out, I was annoyed that they rewrote the Communion blessing. But now, having meditated upon John chapter 6 and the feeding of the 5,000, it seems to me to be a wonderful blessing that confesses exactly what John 6 is all about: Jesus gives us divine gifts of salvation and bodily gifts of daily bread. So even though I'm going to say it after each table at the Supper today, I'll say it again right now: The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve you in BODY and SOUL to life everlasting. Amen.