Pastor Mark Nieting
Matthew 14: 13-21 (Feeding the Five Thousand)
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…..on this, the 7th Sunday after Pentecost and the Sunday on which our senior high youth group is headed off for a week of “servant ministry.”
The big news this week, besides whether or not our government has decided to balance its budget or not, is that….drum roll…. McDonalds has decided to make its Happy Meals healthier by removing half the fries and putting apple slices in every meal! Sounds great, but honestly friends, do we go to McDonalds to GET HEALTHY? We call it…..JUNK FOOD! It tastes good, we can eat it on the go, and it’s NOT a modern invention. The ancient Romans used to stop by little shops called popinae (kinda sounds like “Pop-In-Eh”, a great name for a fast food place no matter what century) and get their breakfasts to go: breadsticks soaked in wine: Now that’s a HAPPY MEAL!
This morning’s text is the story of the ONLY miracle that is recorded by all four Gospel writers: the feeding of the 5000, or, to be more accurate, 5000 men and most likely an equivalent number of women and children, who, according to good Jewish custom, ate their miraculously provided meal sitting separately. Jesus had been moving from place to place across Galilee, teaching people about the Kingdom of Heaven and healing the sick. Huge crowds began to follow Him, for obvious reasons: there had never been anyone LIKE Him…..and there will never again BE anyone like Him.
It must have been difficult for Jesus to get even a moment’s peace and time for prayer. So when He got the news that John the Baptist, His cousin, had been beheaded, it was time. He and the disciples……who had all returned from their own “mission trips” and were eager to report to Jesus what had happened…….got into a boat and headed across to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. We hope they got some in the boat, because by the time they got to the other side, thousands of people had followed them along the shore!
Picture the scene in your mind: before the boat even hits the shore, there are thousands of people begging Jesus to heal them, to bless them, to cure them; which He does. All the Gospels are clear about two things: Jesus welcomed the people AND Jesus felt a deep compassion for them.
The word the Greek uses here is ‘esplowgithsay,’ Jesus felt for them all the way down into His “guts.” It’s empathy to the deepest level. It’s the kind of compassion that we feel for a child who is sick or dying. It wasn’t just an earthly compassion for their healing and their hunger, it was a spiritual compassion, for those who were…..John records…..”like sheep without a shepherd.” They were in danger of eternal death from the evil one. They were in danger of spending their eternity in hell. It’s true passion!
So once again, when the healing was done, Jesus set about teaching them about the Kingdom of Heaven, in so much detail that before they knew it, the sun was going down, 10,000 stomachs were growling….and there was no popinae to run off to for a quick snack.
The disciples got it, at least on the surface……maybe they were hungry too, so they did what most of us still do: asked someone else to “fix it.” “They’re hungry, Jesus,” they said. “Send them home before it’s too late! What did Jesus do? He looked them right in the eyes and said, “YOU FEED THEM!”
You know the story as well as I do. There’s one boy in the crowd with 5 little loaves of bread and 2 pieces of dried fish. That’s it. 7 pieces of food: 10,000 hungry mouths. I’m sure the disciples thought it was impossible, but not Jesus. Not when He knew this miracle foreshadowed the time His ONE BODY that would be broken and divided to satisfy the spiritual needs of the WORLD! So Jesus blessed it, and gave each disciple some, and each disciple gave each person some, and everyone on that mountaintop was satisfied. There were even 12 baskets of leftovers for the trip back across the lake!
It was certainly a miracle, and it is still a lesson for us this morning. The question is: what lesson? There’s always a temptation to use this miracle to paint a very attractive but dangerously inaccurate picture of Jesus, to see Jesus — who can walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead and apparently calm not only the seas but my stomach — the same way that crowd did: to see a Savior who’s here to SIMPLY to fill our daily shopping lists, take care of our needs and make our temporal troubles melt away. One can easily begin to see Jesus as a short-order, fast-food Savior, here only to quench all our earthly cravings with earthly JUNK FOOD, without any investment in the “long run” of life.
John’s gospel tells us the people were so moved by the miracle that they wanted to throw a crown on Jesus and anoint him as their “bread King” right on the spot! Perhaps they were thinking, “Hey, with this guy on the throne, life will be one nonstop buffet of blessing! We may not even have to WORK if we can make Him King!”
We can see this is going south, but let’s take a time out for a moment and examine what should be obvious: IS “earthly food” important? Is feeding people REAL bread and fish something we as Christians should do? Certainly it is! Jesus’ compassion for the thousands of hungry people motivated Him to action. He FED them! And His people have been feeding the hungry ever since. That’s a lesson that shouldn’t be lost on us, and here at Hope we respond quite well to this challenge. Jesus TEACHES us to pray for our daily bread in His own prayer…….and to know that we might BE that answer to the prayers of someone else.
That’s DAILY BREAD, and it’s good and it’s necessary, but we, and those around us, need SOUL FOOD as well!
Jesus came to be the food we need….real, satisfying SOUL FOOD.
What Jesus knew was that while the people marveled at His miracles, it was way too easy to misunderstood His message. Jesus didn’t come to help people get what they want. No, he came to BE what we NEED. He didn’t come to be a sort of “short-order savior,” there to simply crank out whatever it is that will satisfy our earthly cravings. He came to be the spiritual food that we feast on, forever. This summarizes the message of this lengthy chapter.
All of which begs the question once again: What are we hungry for?
If you’re looking for a Jesus who will fatten your 401(k), guarantee a cure for your cancer, offer you “10 easy steps to a perfect family,” land you a great job, restore each and every one of your relationships, and keep your life running smoothly, then you’ve got the wrong Jesus. There are plenty of Jesus’ people who can help with such things, and indeed the Scriptures offer plenty of guidance on such things. But Jesus Himself has different things to tend to, higher things. Things that touch an even deeper level of compassion within Him.
Jesus didn’t come to make our lives perfect, no life in this world IS, He came to lay down his life and take it back up again, so that we, by His grace, would be PERFECTLY forgiven. The death and resurrection of HIS Body and HIS Blood are a “meal” that sustains our souls, bringing wholeness, healing and growth. When we come to Jesus’ house on a Sunday morning expecting Jesus to show up, to forgive our sins, to hear our prayers and to feed us His Body and His Blood, He does! Yes, we may still go through seasons of illness, unemployment or even a lack of food. But one thing we will never, ever be is — empty.
Furthermore, when we allow ourselves to be FILLED with Jesus, we begin to find that many of our other cravings in life, such as a need for purpose and meaning, become satisfied! It’s then that we begin to view the issues that affect our day-to-day lives with contented eyes and an eternal perspective. It’s then that we can look on others with the compassion our Lord had for the thousands on the hillside….and reach out to meet their needs both on a physical and on a spiritual level.
So, one last time: What are you hungry for? It’s a great question. It’s a question that goes beyond what you do to quench a midday craving for the “junk food of the day.” It’s a question that — if you allow it — tugs at much deeper drives and desires. May we feast on the Food that offers true sustenance for our souls. May we follow Jesus not so that he can simply meet our earthly needs but rather knowing that He is all we need, forever!
