Divine Feeding
St. Mark 8:1-9
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Mark 8:6 And [Jesus] 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.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… The genius and theological brilliance of Dr. Martin Luther is shown to us throughout the Small Catechism, not to mention his many other writings. A little later in the service we will pray the Our Father as the Table Prayer before the meal of the Lord’s Supper. One of those petitions says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And the Lutheran responds by asking “What does this mean?”
From the Catechism we say: “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people; but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” The question then is asked: What is meant by daily bread? And the response: “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good, government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
That’s a lot of daily bread! But it is a list of the many ways that our good and gracious God feeds and takes care of you, even when you don’t realize it, even when you see that all those things are given also to evil and ungodly people. And as Luther so beautifully puts it, “we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” And so, when you pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” you need to understand that God will give it to you whether or not you are evil. Your task is to receive it with thanksgiving and realize from Whom these gifts of daily bread come.
And thanksgiving is exactly what should have been on the minds of those in today’s text as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ performed another miracle – that of multiplying seven loaves of bread and a few small fish so that there was more than enough to feed well over 4,000 people. Those who had come to hear Jesus speak had been with Him three days and they had run out of food. The Greek word for “compassion” is “splanchna” which has to do with a person’s inmost self or “gut” feelings. Our Lord Jesus had compassion on the multitudes; He ached inside for them; He was genuinely concerned for their welfare; their plight struck Him in the heart.
Jesus had fed the multitudes for three days with His healing touch, for Matthew’s Gospel informs us that “the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others [were] laid down at Jesus’ feet, and He healed them” (Mt. 15:30). During this time it is possible that some of the people ate what they themselves had brought; some of them may have brought a little food, others likely brought no food at all.
Jesus now sets about the task of feeding the people with food He would provide and in a way that only He could deliver, for He realized, as He said in verse 3, “if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way.” Our Lord understood in no uncertain terms that if the people were left to their own devices, they would surely not be satisfied, they would not survive. He had to take care of them and give them what they so desperately needed.
I think here we can make the clear connection that Dr. Luther makes in the meaning of the Third Article of the Creed, namely this: “I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.” No one, by his or her own doing, efforts, or works, can “feed” himself spiritually; no one can come to faith and salvation in Jesus Christ or make a decision to follow Jesus or commit their heart to Him in and of their own strength or power. The reason is that we, by nature, are “blind, dead, enemies of God;” we are walking spiritual corpses because of our sinful human nature.
We are drawn to faith and salvation only by the work of the Holy Spirit who works solely through the preached Gospel of Jesus Christ and through God’s chosen means or delivery systems of His grace – namely water, word, bread, and wine – Holy Gospel, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Supper. When and where those things are going on, there the Holy Spirit is working to create faith in the heart when and where He pleases. When and where those things are going on, people will come to faith and be strengthened in their faith. When and where those things are going on, people will “receive their daily bread with thanksgiving.”
We can no more bring ourselves to faith in Christ than we can provide for ourselves physically without God’s help and grace. The people in our text would surely have fainted on the way home had not the Lord of heaven and earth provided for them. The disciples wondered aloud how in the world one person – namely Jesus – could “satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness.” They were wondering the same thing that you wonder time and time again: how is it that people everywhere can receive what they need?
The answer is not to look to yourself – no, never to yourself – for you also, like those in the text “will faint on the way” if left to your own devices. No, dear friends, look in faith to Jesus, for He alone provides everything you need “to support this body and life.” Receive with thanksgiving everything you have, whether or not you believe that you have gotten it yourself, for it has all come from the hand of your God who alone can provide for you. Even amidst unsettling news articles that predict food shortages in our current messed-up economy, you can trust God to take care of you.
See in our text how Jesus, whose mercies are new every morning, has compassion on the multitude. Three days they fasted with Him, and now the fast is broken when He feeds them bread and fish – ordinary food from the divine hand of God. See in your own life how God provides for you through ordinary things: the farmer who grows the crops, the trucker who delivers them, the grocer who sells them to you, the hands God has given you to prepare the food, and the body He gives you in which you receive what God provides.
But even much more important than this earthly sustenance is the heavenly food God gives you – His very body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar, a gift from God here on the wood of this altar, this table, this morning. Here on the Lord’s Day and in the Lord’s house God’s people feast on Jesus, the very Bread of Life in the perpetual celebration of our Lord’s resurrection, for here the spoils of Christ’s victory are yours.
Christ Jesus willingly took to Himself all your sins as well as the punishment those sins deserved. Christ Jesus suffered cruelly on the cross, thereby receiving to Himself the full wrath and anger of God against your sins. Christ Jesus died on that cross taking with Him into death all your sins and iniquities, the punishment that you deserved. Christ Jesus rose from the dead on that glorious Third Day thereby defeating even death itself – and it was all done for you, in your place. You could never do those things for yourself. Christ did them FOR YOU.
In the Scriptures we read of Christ’s command to baptize all nations for the forgiveness of sins. In the Gospels we read of Christ’s institution of His Supper wherein He gives Himself, His very real and physical body and blood in the bread and the wine. In I Corinthians 10 and 11 we read how St. Paul passed on to his readers what Christ Himself gave to him – the words of institution and the directions of how to give and receive the Lord’s Supper. In John 20 Jesus breathed on His disciples giving them His Holy Spirit and the authority to forgive sins in His name.
And for the Church of God today Christ gives all these things through the Office of the Holy Ministry, the Office of Christ Himself, by the mouth and hands of the one called and ordained to deliver them to you from Christ Himself. The “daily bread” for which we give thanks is first and foremost the forgiveness of sins bought and paid for with the “holy precious blood and the innocent suffering and death” of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without regular, frequent, and faithful reception of these things NO ONE can have a strong faith. Without divine feeding, faith can and will shrivel and die.
But with them faith thrives and is vibrant. With these heavenly gifts of God you will live and be strong in the Lord, for He Himself comes to you; He Himself abides in you until He calls you home. Receive these gifts from God “with thanksgiving.” Sing out with boldness the words of the Nunc Dimittis after the Sacrament knowing that you, like Simeon, have seen “the Lord’s salvation,” that you, like Simeon can now die in peace having received the Lord’s precious body and blood for forgiveness, life and salvation.
Dear fellow redeemed, Christ provides all that you need from His loving hand. His divine feeding will sustain you. God’s Church receives more than seven mere loaves when the Lord speaks and His ministers distribute the blessed Sacrament. She likewise receives enough, for she receives the Loaf which is Christ Himself.
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
