SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

July 26.2020 

“The Lord’s Sign of Compassion: The Miracle of the Feeding of the Multitude”
Mark 8:1-8 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, 2 “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.” 4 Then His disciples answered Him, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?" 5 He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.” 6 So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude. 7 They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them. 8 So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. NKJV

My friends in Christ: After teaching in the public schools for a little while, I came to the decision to enter seminary in the LCA. This Gospel was the first sermon that my hometown pastor wanted me to preach on; and, after he had reviewed it, he told me that it was very good and decided to launch my career as a preacher prior to my departure for the seminary. It was well received, since it gave people a good feeling about sharing what little they had with others who were less fortunate. In other words, my sermon was pure crappolla and was disgraceful as it denied the words of Christ and the very miracle that was given for a sign to those who believe.

Faith has to be the fundamental, underlining principle in the Gospel and especially in this Gospel. The evangelist Mark records that the multitudes followed Jesus into the wilderness, being taught by Him, having seen miraculous healings. They followed Jesus into the wilderness and only then did they find that they were in great need of temporal sustenance. The truth is that people would rather be satiated with earthly comforts than to be satiated with the Word of the Lord that assures us of everlasting joy and life in heaven. Our minds need not be focused on any particular tribulation that might be at hand; the hardships caused by losing the opportunity to make a living during the present epidemic, and the Marxist revolts in our main cities, and so forth.

Where do you look for help; what is your focal point in the time of need. The multitude in the Gospel looked to Jesus and wished to hear the words that came from His mouth. Do you ever find yourself looking at your watch to see if it’s still sunning during a “Eutychian” sermon of your pastor? Hear my explanation: In Acts 20, Luke records in verses 7-12: “Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together. In a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down, fell on him, and embracing him said, ‘Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.’ Now when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and talked a long while, even till daybreak, he departed. And they brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted.”

See what dedication the tired Eutychus had in hearing the apostle preach. But even the most devout Christian can eventually be overcome by sleep. Today, hearing a half hour sermon seems to put the hearers to sleep. But see, again, those in today’s Gospel: They followed Jesus even when they physically hungered and didn’t much realize it since they were in the midst of the Master who was feeding their souls.

Jesus had a way to attract people and make them realize that their souls are indeed more important than their bellies. The feeding of the four thousand differs from the feeding of the five thousand in that Jesus was here concerned about the physical well-being of those that had no more provisions and are now, three days into the wilderness, far from home. The miracle itself was not in His blessing, or giving thanks for the bread (just like we would be accustomed to saying grace before eating), but that the fishes continued to multiply and the loaves of bread that He was distributing kept multiplying according to His divine will so that all had their fill and yet had much more remaining to be taken up.

This miracle was a sign that demonstrated Jesus’ compassion for all that were in need of physical nourishment; and, yet there remained also a sign of Jesus’s compassion in the spiritual eating that fed the soul. This was the where understanding wears thin as was evident in the “Bread of Life” discourse Jesus had in John 6. Here, after Jesus taught the crowds about His being the very, true bread of life, many left Him because it was too hard a teaching.

Jesus had said in John 6:53 58 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven — not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

Then when many had left Jesus and no longer followed Him, Jesus asked His disciples if they wanted to leave also. Peter, however, gave his great confession of faith saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Yes, we know that the gift of eternal life far surpasses all the temporal gifts our heavenly Father bestows upon us; and, yes, we know that the blessing of eternal life in heaven, through Jesus Christ, is an immensely more valuable treasure than any treasure of this earth; and, yes, it is exactly because we know these things that we are often negligent of our spiritual lives. And this can have disastrous results. For instance, turn to Deuteronomy 8:11-20, and see how Moses gave a very stern warning to God’s people for whom God had provided not only deliverance out of Egypt but also provided towns, land, and possessions for them. Moses said:
“Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest — when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end — then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
“And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the LORD your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the LORD your God.”

It should not be surprising then that when God allows poverty or illness to come our way that the Greek proverb is proven that says, “Poverty is the mother of temperance.” By the way, with today’s pandemic our own government should take note of this adage. Yet we often refuse to learn and much too often attribute the riches and good things provided by the mercies of God to other things – even to our own making. So, we often think that God refuses to bless us when He permits conditions to humble us and to trust in Him alone.

Individual congregations, as well as the ecclesiastical forms of human synods and other named denominations, need to learn this lesson. Jesus and His doctrines are sufficient and separations must come in order to follow Him and make the breaks necessary to avoid dying of cancerous false doctrine. How in the world can a pastor complain that his flock does not follow him if he himself doesn’t follow the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of their souls? And how can a pastor lead Christ’s flock if he himself does not have Jesus as his guide?

Shouldn’t the Christian have many opportunities to thank God always in every situation as it is written in Philippians 4:41-13? Shouldn’t the Christian know that Christ permits him to be tested from time to time in order to teach the Christian to acknowledge the urgency to depend upon Him alone for all our needs?

Hold fast, therefore, to the Christian truths as Luther had written for our edification in his explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed:
“I believe that God has created me and all that exists; that He has given me and still sustains my body and soul, all my limbs and senses, my reason and all the faculties of my mind, together with food and clothing, house and home, family and property; that He provides me daily and abundantly with all the necessities of life, protects me from all danger, and preserves me from all evil. All this He does out of his pure fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness on my part. For all of this I am bound to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true.”

This is what today’s Gospel is showing – God, through Christ Jesus, shows that He not only takes care of the soul but also care of your temporal, bodily needs. Luther calls the matter of feeding the four thousand, “a purely living sermon, provoking and witnessing that Christ is so earnestly and heartily concerned about us.” To those who had the faith to follow Jesus three days onto the wilderness without food, Jesus had compassion. Jesus said to His disciples, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.”

The disciples were shocked by His response knowing that they had so little, that it could not possibly feed so many. But faith was about to see the, what appeared to be, imperceptible.

Luther, the great faith preacher, again says:
“Therefore, beloved friends, let us at once make a beginning to believe; for unbelief is the cause of all sin and vice...How does it come to pass that everywhere there are so many foolish women and rogues, so many rank imposters, thieves, robbers, usurers, murderers and sellers of indulgences? It comes from unbelief. For such men judge alone according to human reason,, and the reason judges only according to what it sees; but what it does not see, it does not wish to lay hold of” – “Therefore”’ Luther concludes, “if it (reason) does not place its confidence in God through faith, then it must despair in itself and develop rogues and rascals.”

This is applicable not just to God’s providential care for you in this life but also for the feeding of your souls in the hearing of God’s Word and by the eating and drinking of His body and blood. As we therefore bless our Lord, who supplies our daily bread and gives us eternal life out of His compassion, may we also bless and show compassion to our fellowman. Amen.