Seventh Sunday after Trinity,
2010
Text: St. Mark 8:1-9
The Rev. Jerry Kistler
St. Stephen’s Reformed
Episcopal Church
“Jesus Never Fails to Feed Those Who Seek Him in the Wilderness”
The crowd had been with Jesus in the desert now for three
days and three nights. Three days and three nights away from
the comforts and conveniences of home. No shade from the sun during the
hot days. No showers. Not privy chambers. No bed or big, fat comforter to keep
them through the cold desert night. They’d come out on foot from all the towns
and villages of the Gentile region of
And now when Jesus looks out over this mass of hungry humanity, he has compassion on them. That means he feels their need with them. He knows they’re tired. He’s tired too. He knows some of them would faint along the way if he sent them back empty. He’d been faint with hunger in wilderness before Himself. But Jesus doesn’t chase them away or even demand that they labor to find their own food. Even before they ask, Jesus desires to feed them.
Jesus is still that compassionate savior who sees our need and fills it before we ask. He never sends us away fainting with hunger if we seek him by faith out here in our desert—out and away from the lusts and pleasures of the world.
So turning to his disciples Jesus tells them that He desires to feed the crowd. Their response is pretty typical: “How? How can we feed them? How can anyone satisfy these people with bread here in this wilderness?” Imagine it. These were the same disciples who had seen Jesus feed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. So I like the way John Calvin puts it: their question demonstrates “the excessive stupidity of the disciples in not remembering the earlier proof of the power of Christ.” And yet how often do we forget the ways God has marvelously and unexpectedly provided for us when we were in need, and questioned in our hearts how, or if, He would be able to provide for us in our present situation? We’re not that far advanced of the disciples. And yet the gentle Savior doesn’t rebuke His disciples for their meager faith (nor does He rebuke our meager faith) He simply asks how many loaves they have. “What kind of resources do you have? What do you have that I might press into My service to feed these people?”
And how do they answer? “All we have are these seven loaves.” They don’t even mention the few small fish, for what value could they possibly have for so many? You see, their vision is still small, restricted, and limited. All they can see is their lack of resources. They still don’t understand that it is not their resources that have the power to feed, but it is the Man in the middle of them that has the power to bless and multiply that none should go away hungry. “Man does not live by bread alone, but by ever word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” So while seven loaves and a few small fish are barely a meal for the disciples themselves, they become a feast for thousands in the wilderness when Jesus is in the middle, blessing and multiplying.
We live in a desert. We live in a wilderness of a culture bent on the pursuit of one thing: immediate personal gratification. Slick adverting and catch slogans have the crowds chasing after mirage after mirage with the vacuous promise “satisfaction guaranteed.” “It’s the real thing.” “Have it your way.” Have it quick. Have it easy. Have more. No guilt. “No fear.” “Just do it!” Satisfaction guaranteed—at least till the new and improved model comes out. Then you have to stop drinking the old sand, and start drinking the new sand.
Talk about mirages. Virtual reality is not only a product of our time, it’s one of its defining characteristics. No reality, just choices. No truth or falsehood, only preferences. No real spiritually sustaining food, just an endless proliferation of options to meet our ever-increasing demand for immediate gratification.
And in the midst of that desert Christ has called us, and we
have only two options: either we focus our attention on Him and seek our food
from Him, or we allow ourselves to be distracted by the myriad of commercial
mirages and begin to lust after the leeks and melons and cucumbers of our
virtual
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without cost.
Why spend [your] money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
And your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Is. 55:1-3).
The bread of Christ is the only food that can satisfy, for there is no other food that lasts forever.
And yet Jesus doesn’t rain His bread down from heaven like
the manna. He feeds and gives life to us, and to the world, through ordinary,
earthly means—through our ordinary,
earthly means.
“But we have so little for Him to use!” we might reply. “All we have is a little bit of water. All we have is an old book. All we have is a fallible man to say a few unimpressive words to us. All we have is a tiny bit of bread and few sips of wine, just these lowly resources. How can we ourselves be satisfied with such meager means here in this wilderness, not to mention the mass sinful humanity out there starving for spiritual nourishment? We have so little to offer.”
But you see it’s not our resources; it’s the Man in the middle of them, blessing and multiplying them, Who Himself chose these means, these weak, meager means—water, and words on a page, ordinary fallible men, bread and wine—to be His means of grace, His means of feeding us with Himself—the Bread of Life that lasts forever, the only bread that satisfies here in this desert. You see, with the blessing and multiplying Christ in the house there is always bread enough and to spare. None are sent empty away who attend on Him in true faith.
As one commentator has said, “The blessing and multiplying Christ is with us still, ready to make our scanty resources equal to any task to which He summons us. There are no impossibilities to men or church, however weak, who have with them the blessing and multiplying Christ. We have giant tasks confronting us – unbelief and sin at home, the vast millions of paganism abroad [and now in the church, I might add]; and we sometimes compare our resources with the tasks, and we grow faint-hearted and despairing sometimes. But why should we? We have the blessing and multiplying Christ…Let us [therefore] bring our own poor resources for Him to bless and multiply—small gifts, scarcely the one talent. But in His hands what may they not accomplish! He may do much with you and me. For all through the ages He has been using weak instruments to do impossible things.”
How can one satisfy these people with bread here in this
wilderness? I’ve got to confess to you that many-a-time this week, as I was
preparing to preach this sermon, I asked myself that question. How can I, with
just these few small thoughts and these meager words, feed these people here in
this wilderness? I don’t have the resources to give them what they need. I
don’t have the words to inspire them. I don’t have the passion to stir them up.
But what I do have is the blessing and multiplying Christ, and in faith I have
brought to Him what little I do have to offer, that He might press them into
His service. So I trust that for you who have attended in faith on these weak,
insignificant words of mine, they have become for you life and salvation. For “it pleased God,” says
Paul again, “through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe” (1
Cor.
Jesus never fails to feed those who seek Him in the desert. He blesses and multiplies our meager, earthly means to give us His Baptism, He Word of Absolution, His Holy Supper. The compassionate savior still sees our needs before we ask, and gives us our daily bread. He is our daily bread. He is our manna in the wilderness. The food we have here in our desert is Jesus Christ Himself.
Come then all you who are famished and would faint on the way. Come to Christ’s feast in the desert. Attend faithfully upon His means of grace—the Word and the Sacraments—and you will be fed. “For he satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness” (Ps. 107:9). +