John
6:1-15 - Laetare Sunday - March 6, 2016
Receiving Our Bread with Thanksgiving
Receiving Our Bread with Thanksgiving
+
They
saw signs and miracles. God was with
them. He did good things. They followed Him. He did fearful things. They witnessed ten plagues on Egypt by which
they were set free. They themselves
crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and saw Pharaoh’s army drown. They had seen marvel after marvel, and so
they followed Moses the prophet of God deep into the desert. There God assured them that they would be
safe from their enemies. The Almighty
God was clearly on their side. Yet despite
every possible encouragement to just take things as they came, they still they
complained. All they saw was that God had
brought them into the wilderness where there was no food. Despite their ingratitude, God kept them alive
by means of manna. He did this certainly
out of kindness, but also in order to test them. He bypassed all the usual means by which
mankind is fed in order that they might recognize more clearly that God has always been the source of their daily
bread. God removed all the middlemen
so-to-speak – no field, no farmer, no market, no bakery – and He fed them
straight from heaven – literally. How
much clearer could God have made it that their daily bread always came from Him? God
tested them to see if they would thereby learn to receive it with thanksgiving.
And
how did they do? Did they pass the
test? No. They grumbled. “What
is it?” they whined. Despite all
they had seen … they utterly failed.
The
reason we fall into the sin of idolatry and devote ourselves more to our stuff
than to God who gives it is not because it is somehow less than obvious where
our stuff comes from. No, it is
perfectly obvious for anyone who can follow a dotted line that everything we
have is from God. It is God who waters
the earth, giving seed to the sower and bread to the one who eats. He gives strength to the worker, cleverness
to the inventor, endurance to the mother, health to the child. The reason our hearts are nonetheless so drawn
to our mammon is not because God has failed to make these things more obvious,
but because we are sinners. We do not
trust God. There is a deep corruption in
our hearts – a corruption not simply of our intellect as though it’s too hard
to figure this all out, but of our will.
We would rather hold onto the stuff that makes life comfortable than
hold onto the almighty and gracious God who gives it to us — no matter how
obvious he makes it that it all comes from Him.
We therefore do well to consider those words which we sang a couple
Sundays ago from Psalm 100:
Know
that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
40 years in the wilderness did not drive home this point well enough. For this we need the Holy Spirit to constantly teach us to rely and be content with what God says. His people’s pasture is His word. That is where we find life. God gives us life. He speaks; we listen. We have a lot to learn. God teaches us as His own dear children. He teaches us to be grateful for what we have. He teaches us this by teaching us that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
My
kids know where to find food. They know
how to push a chair up to the cupboard or fridge. As long as we stock up, I’m pretty confident
our kids could survive for quite some time.
But that’s not how we feed them.
Instead, and the reason why, we (usually) prepare their meals for them is
1st) because otherwise they will make a huge mess of things. We give them their food at the proper time so
that the kitchen and whole house doesn’t descend into filthy chaos. 2nd) because otherwise they will
eat themselves sick by consuming all the sugar first. We give them their food at the proper time so
that they learn how to eat well. 3rd)
and most importantly, because we want them to know and remember where their
food comes from. We feed them as loving
parents so that they know who cares for them.
We care for them better than they can care for themselves. This is also why we teach them to say thank
you.
It
often seems that we must feed ourselves and clothe ourselves (and I won’t even
explain how our kids would look if we really left that to them!). But in
reality, it is God who provides the means through which we are clothed and
fed. We might go to work and pay bills
and go shopping. But in the greater
scheme of things, our efforts are about as significant as a child lifting his
own fork. There would be no opportunity
or raw material at all if God did not guide earthly affairs so conveniently for
us. God provides what we need for the
same three reasons as we provide for our children. Without his help and providence, we would 1st)
make a mess of everything we put our hands to, 2nd) we would not
take as good care of ourselves – indeed there would be nothing left of the
fruits of the earth if God did not distribute them in his own wisdom, and 3rd)
we would not know to thank God even for what little we had if we really had to
entirely depend on our own resources.
God works through means. He does
so for at least the same reasons that we work through means in caring for our
own children. That’s why, like a loving
father, God often withholds.
When
we teach our kids to say thank you when they receive something good, it isn’t
simply so that they may be polite and so that others will like them and admire
us as parents who raise such nice kids.
We teach our kids to say thank you in order that they might understand
that everything they have comes from outside of them – apart from their own merits. We don’t deserve what we receive from God’s
bountiful goodness – certainly less than we feed and clothe our own children
based on what they deserve. It is by
grace alone. And so we teach our
children to think of this, to consider this – as God teaches us — to receive their
daily bread with thanksgiving. We learn
this 1st) by seeing the hand of God behind everything we have, and 2nd)
by learning to trust this hand and not bite it – by learning to know that even
when this hand scolds or even spanks us, it is the hand of a loving Father who
deeply cares for us.
Like
the Prophet Moses before Him, Jesus led His people into the wilderness. And like before, they were following the
miracles. Jesus was having mercy on
people. People were sick, and Jesus was
making them better. Saint John in his
Gospel calls Jesus’ miracles signs. They
were following the signs, he says, into the wilderness, not unlike their
forefathers who followed Moses. The
reason John calls them signs is because they did more than marvel. They taught.
They certainly taught the first lesson above – that God’s hand is
generous. Jesus proved he was God with
his miraculous signs. But they also taught
the second lesson. Jesus showed divine
compassion. They met God face to face in
the flesh. Jesus wanted them to know
that it was for his sake – for the sake of his own incarnation, obedient life,
patience in affliction and temptation, his own miserable suffering and innocent
death that God took care of them – and so much more would God give more than
bread. His is the face of the hand that
fed them.
To
teach these lessons, Jesus led the people into the wilderness. Just as God once mercifully saved the people
of Israel from bondage in Egypt and then tested them in the wilderness with
manna, so here also Jesus, even in His many acts of mercy, was testing
them. He tested them by feeding them
where their efforts would have been futile – where they would learn to depend
on God.
Now
it was clear enough that He was testing His disciples when He asked a question
that He already knew the answer to. “Where
are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” Naturally He knew. And the disciples soon found out the
answer. So, how did they do? Did they pass the test? Well, we don’t really hear much more about how
the disciples marveled, or doubted or anything of the sort. So I guess they passed. But no, we only hear that they did what Jesus
told them to do. Jesus told the
disciples to have the folks sit down. He
took the little boy’s bread and fish; after He gave thanks for it, He told the
disciples to distribute it. And then
when everyone was filled and satisfied, He had them gather up the leftovers. And they had more than what they began with. The disciples, like good servants of Christ
and stewards of what He was giving out, simply did what Jesus told them to
do. I suppose they passed the test. We see this especially later in the chapter
when most of the people quit following him and Jesus asked his disciples if
they would leave too. Peter, speaking
for them all, and also for us, said, “Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life!”
But
the crowd was also tested by Jesus.
Jesus fed them. He saw their need
and filled it. He loved them. He met a need that they all had in common –
the most basic need that God meets every day of our lives. Jesus led them far away from where God
normally provides daily bread in order to teach them that God does not need our
labors to feed us. He does not need you
to have a job or to have plenty of money saved away someplace. He doesn’t need you to be responsible or
resourceful. He doesn’t need you to be a
good steward. He doesn’t need you to
work hard. He demands it. Yes. He
requires it. Certainly. The man who does not work, neither shall he
eat. True! But God does not depend on these things. We do, because these are the means by which
God chooses to feed us. But while our
labors might earn stuff from our neighbor, they don’t buy a thing from our
Maker. Jesus proved it.
Jesus
had compassion. And in his compassion he
not only taught us to give thanks, but showed how God’s mercy is multiplied in
him.
God
is gracious. We are not the only people
who make this claim, though. The Muslims
call their Allah gracious. Every book of
their Koran minus one begins with the claim: By the name of Allah, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful. They say it.
They assert it. But Allah doesn’t
reveal himself to his obedient followers.
He does not join them. He is not
tender and patient with them. He does
not call his followers “sons” or even
“sheep.” He calls his followers “slaves.” He simply gives
rules and laws, and then claims that all they have comes from his hand. But this grace that he demands his subjects
to attribute to him is not revealed or demonstrated. It is simply asserted. But it’s nonsense. Allah loves no one. He is at best a demon masquerading as an
angel of light, who in turn spreads darkness wherever he goes, as the world
again is being reminded of. Allah
incites violence and brutal cruelty.
This is the god of Islam.
God’s
grace is revealed not simply where God claims to be gracious, but where God
reveals Himself as gracious. God is
love. We see this in Christ. We come to learn love, grace, mercy, and pity
where the almighty Creator condescends down to us (something the ridiculous and
cruel idol Allah would never do). He
condescends to us in order to reveal the Father. He condescends to us by spending 40 days and 40
nights being tempted by the devil in the wilderness long before He leads the
crowd in our Gospel lesson there. And Jesus
reveals that God is gracious to us by joining us where we are in the wilderness
of doubt and sin and despair and idolatry.
He
comes to bear our sin. He comes to teach
us how God removes our sin from us – not by some sovereign decree à la Allah – but by an historical
proclamation as only the Father could make – a divine assessment and
application of what Christ his Son has done.
The God who loves you became one of you.
He hungered and fasted and overcame every doubt that you face, every
temptation by which the devil would steal you away from hearing the
gospel. He died for you, taking all your
guilt and bearing all God’s disapproval of you.
And in his resurrection, God declared you righteous. Now there’s a decree! It is not a mere claim. It is a divine assertion contingent upon the
divine suffering, death, and resurrection of our Brother Jesus Christ. And by preaching to you, he teaches you that
even in your hunger and loss God regards you as a loving Father.
God
didn’t become Man in the Person of Jesus Christ in order to do what God has
always done even without our prayer. He
didn’t become a man to make getting bread or any other material things
easier. God became Man in order to
reveal – and indeed give to us – the merit and worthiness that we need to
receive what God gives as dear children.
We need to know Christ. We need
to know what He teaches is. Only then
can we receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. God cares for us better than we can care for ourselves. Our experience proves this. But you don’t need to rely merely on
experience. You can see it where Jesus
continues to feed you with more than mere bread. He gives you pure mercy at no cost to you and
all cost to him. He gives you in mere
bread and wine what earth cannot contain – the very body and blood that has won
your salvation. He proves that he cares
for your body by caring for your soul.
With this food we have the assurance that in the resurrection he will
care for both for all eternity. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment