Bible Text: John 6:1-15 | Preacher: Pastor Andrew Richard
The season of Lent is about war against Satan, particularly Jesus’ war against Satan. The season started with Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Then we heard about the Canaanite woman, whose daughter was severely oppressed by a demon, and Jesus healed her. Last week we again heard about Jesus casting out a demon. Next week we hear Jesus in conflict with some of those who oppose Him, whom He calls children of the devil. And then we get to Holy Week and the ultimate combat between Jesus and Satan in which Jesus overcame the devil by the cross. Therefore we rejoice that in one sense the war is over. The devil lost, and Jesus is victorious. And yet we remain at war with Satan. The devil tempts, and Christians resist him. The devil accuses, and Christians flee for refuge to the blood of Jesus. We will always be under attack in this life, and this is a call for watchfulness and perseverance, lest the devil tempt us away from Jesus.
And yet life can’t just be one big fight and struggle constantly, or else man becomes bitter. Think of the very first reading from the Pre-Lent season, the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The vineyard is the Christian life, life in the Church, life with Jesus. Yet the workers hired at the beginning of the day came to see it all as drudgery and hard labor, “the burden of the day and the scorching heat” (Mt. 20:12). In our Old Testament reading the same Israelites whom the Lord had delivered from slavery lamented, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex. 16:3). They saw their life of freedom in the Lord as an empty wasteland and death, as nothing but forced marches and deprivation, and thought they were missing out on something with their former captors. The older brother of the prodigal son whined to his father, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends” (Lk. 15:29).
What we have to understand about all these examples is that the Lord was not the cause of their bitterness, and that life wasn’t actually all struggle and work. The father says to his disgruntled son, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours” (Lk. 15:31). If he was miserable, it wasn’t because he had reason to be, but because of his sinful nature. Man gets lost in his labors and blinded by them so that he doesn’t see life rightly, and he becomes bitter toward God. His vision distorts, so that he sees his works and not the works of God, his own sufferings and not the needs of his neighbor, and, like the Israelites in the wilderness, he starts to look at the devil’s kingdom with rosy eyes. He becomes oblivious to all the good he has with the Lord and desirous of what he thinks he’s missing with his former captor. He thinks of meat pots and a belly full of bread, instead of remembering more accurately the impossible task of making bricks without straw and being flogged for not doing it. But a bitter heart is a distorted heart, and it doesn’t see rightly.
You’ve been there. You’ve learned by experience the words of the hymn, “Our cross and trials do but press / The heavier for our bitterness.” You know that bitterness ends up hurting yourself. You know your tendency to hold onto bitterness, even though it doesn’t make sense. Which of us likes the taste of bile or vomit? That’s bitter in the mouth, and we’re averse to a bitter taste and want to be rid of it. Yet our sinful, stupid flesh cherishes bile in the heart, and we need to understand just how dangerous bitterness is for our souls. Harboring bitterness leads to accusing the Lord of wrongdoing. It leads to thanklessness and self-obsession. It leads to pride in our own works and forgetfulness of the works of God. It kills love for the neighbor and is an enemy of faith. “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19-20).
And times of refreshing do come from the Lord. This Sunday falls right in the middle of Lent, and while the Sundays on either side of it are full of warfare with the devil, this Sunday is called Laetare, “Rejoice!” This Sunday we get a peaceful scene of rest and refreshment, of reclining in the grass and feasting. Jesus knows we need such times, and He is not sparing with them. This Sunday teaches us a good deal about the good life we have with the Lord.
First, we learn that Jesus anticipates our needs. Indeed, the Lord takes more thought for us than we take for ourselves. The circumstances of the feeding of the five thousand prove that. Just before this, the apostles had returned to Jesus after He had sent them out. They had been journeying to city after city on foot, casting out demons and curing diseases by the power of the Lord, preaching the Gospel and teaching the people. They had worked hard. Also just before today’s reading, John the Baptist had been beheaded. So Jesus took the disciples away by themselves that they might rest and be away from danger. “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while,” He said (Mk. 6:31). The apostles didn’t ask for this. Jesus simply understood that it’s what they needed. He anticipated their need.
We see this likewise with the five thousand. If we only had Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we would think that the apostles were the first ones to think of food for the people. “When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food’” (Mt. 14:15). But in John’s Gospel we learn that Jesus is the first one to bring it up, and He brings it up before the crowd even gets to Him: “Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?’” (Jn. 6:5). Jesus anticipated their need.
We see in this the truth of the words in Isaiah 65: “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear” (Is. 65:24). When you’re tempted to feel bitter, remember this. The Lord doesn’t come to your life late, but early. He knows what you need even before you ask. You can testify to this, to the unexpected relief that the Lord has given before you even prayed for it. In fact, how many times has He provided before you even had a chance to worry? How many times has He brought rest before you were even inclined to be bitter about the labor of life? How many sins has He forgiven without you stewing in guilt about them, and how many temptations has He averted before you even had time to feel tempted? The Lord is gracious, and He teaches you that life isn’t all work and warfare.
So that’s the first point: the Lord anticipates your need. Second, Jesus does not despise us when we’re at a loss, but graciously receives us. We again see this with both the disciples and the crowd. The crowds followed Jesus on foot and were waiting for Him when He arrived by boat. Why did they pursue Him? Some were sick, or had people in need of healing. They couldn’t do anything about it, but they knew Jesus could. Others were at a loss spiritually. The Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes had a habit of preaching as doctrines the commandments of men and burying sound teaching. The people didn’t know what to think about themselves, about life, about God’s commandments, about the forgiveness of sins, about the Messiah. But they did what Christians do and came to Jesus with problems and not a clue about the solution, sometimes with a foggy notion of what the problem even was. And Jesus did not despise them. “Jesus, when He got out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things” (Mk. 6:34). “He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing” (Lk. 9:11). The Lord did not despise them when they were at a loss, but received them graciously.
As for the disciples, Jesus had asked, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” (Jn. 6:5). Philip was at a loss. He said, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little” (Jn. 6:7). Andrew was likewise at a loss. He looked into what they had on hand, and all he could say was, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” (Jn. 6:9). To them the situation seemed hopeless. Their own resources weren’t any help at all. We all need a reminder of this sometimes, and the Lord, for our own good, will as regularly as we need it put us in the situation of completely despairing of ourselves. Given our tendency to become obsessed with our own works and proud of accomplishments, puffed up with bitterness as we think about everything we do, it’s very good for us at times to be at a loss, to have to stand there idle because there’s nothing we can do.
But “He Himself knew what He would do” (Jn. 6:6). Jesus might set us to scratching our heads, but He’s never at a loss, as the Scripture says, “we are perplexed, but not in despair” (2 Cor. 4:8). Jesus will see to it. Simply consider our salvation. No work of yours could earn you eternal life. Even your good ones are spotted with sin. It was like you had five thousand people to feed and not the money or bread to satisfy anybody. Left to yourself, all would have been empty and unfulfilled. But Jesus Himself knew what He would do. He bore all sin and fulfilled all righteousness. He did not grow bitter in His work, did not grumble at having to pick up other people’s slack, did not begrudge a single lashing or insult or nail, but for the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross (Heb. 12:2). Where we saw no way, He made a way, and so it remains even now. The Lord who made the way of the cross so that you might pass from death to life can make a way through anything: through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, through the Jordan River, through afflictions, hardships, calamities, tumults, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, and all things. The hand of the Lord is never shortened. Jesus does not despise us when we are at a loss, but graciously receives us. That’s the second point.
And third, the Lord refreshes us in this weary world by giving us a feast. Indeed, the first two points were really preliminary, since today’s Gospel is all about the actual feeding of the five thousand. Now we don’t have this exact feast today. Jesus doesn’t take barley loaves and fish and multiply them so that our bellies are full. But Jesus gives us a better feast, which He foreshowed at the feeding of the five thousand. There He offered bread which He miraculously multiplied, but which was still simply bread. Now He gives us bread which is His body. There He satisfied physical hunger for food by giving them earthly provisions. Now He satisfies our spiritual hunger for righteousness by giving us Himself. And as Jesus taught the people before the meal, so today the Scriptures are read and preached before we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The feeding of the five thousand was a preview of Christian divine worship, where Christ’s death and resurrection are proclaimed as complete and His body and blood are distributed for us to eat and to drink. In this is our refreshment.
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” Jesus says (Mt. 11:28). Certainly the Lord does this by lightening the loads of life when they weigh heavy. He made us. He knows what we can bear, and He didn’t come to crush us to the ground, but to exalt us up to heaven. The Lord knows well how to take away a burden, to remove a task, to alleviate a duty. But the Lord does far more and better than that. The Divine Service is our feast and our rest. Here by His Gospel and Sacrament the Lord takes away the burden of sin and a guilty conscience, which press far heavier than any earthly weight. Here the Lord removes bitterness by directing us away from our work and toward His. Here Jesus removes grumbling from our lips and replaces it with thanksgiving for all He has done. Here He refocuses us and cures our distorted sight, so that instead of fixating on the burdens we bear, we fixate on the burden He bore to save us. His Gospel and Sacrament are peace and rest. And this is better refreshment than having the labors of the Christian life removed. This is refreshment that makes us sing to the Lord in Psalm 18, “By You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall” (Ps. 18:28-29).
Nor does the Lord ignore the toil of our earthly labors. He can lighten them according to His good pleasure and according as He sees fit for us. And He often does this through fellow Christians. We see Jesus’ care at the end of the feeding that we not be left alone. He says, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost” (Jn. 6:12). Is it bread that Jesus cares about? Or does He not say it altogether for our sake? For our sake no doubt (cf. 1 Cor. 9:9-10). The danger of bitterness is very grave, and it can bring with it eternal consequences. So we look out for each other, as it says in Hebrews 12, “Look carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled” (Heb. 12:15). We ask for help. We give help. When you see your fellow Christian weighed down and swerving toward bitterness, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). The Lord has given us each other, and we realize this nowhere better than right here in the Divine Service, where Jesus places us shoulder to shoulder in the pew and knee to knee at the altar, where in looking toward Him to feed us we find ourselves looking also at our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Lent is a time of warfare against the devil, and so is the Christian life. But this Sunday reminds us that even in the midst of the war, Jesus gives us rest, because He’s already won. The devil can tempt, but he cannot snatch. The devil can accuse, but his accusations are not stronger than the blood of Jesus. The devil can tell you that your life is all toil and misery, but he’s a liar. Jesus prepares a table before you in the presence of this enemy, and has anointed your head with the water of Holy Baptism, and your cup overflows. Not hardship and misery, but goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life, and you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Ps. 23). Amen.