Lent 4

John 6:1-15 - Laetare Sunday - March 6, 2016
Receiving Our Bread with Thanksgiving

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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. 

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 1^st) 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.  2^nd) 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.  3^rd) 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 1^st) make a mess of everything we put our hands to, 2^nd) 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 3^rd) 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 1^st) by seeing the hand of God behind everything we have, and 2^nd) 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.