Sermon Archives

March 10, 2010
Pastor Jim Bangsund

"Vital Signs Leading to Life:
Jesus Feeds 5,000"
John 6:1-15

I don't know about you, but I have to admit that one of the big draws for me on these Wednesday evenings is the soup supper. They are so good here - not only their tastiness but also the incredible variety. You walk in the door to the fellowship hall and your nose tells you, "This is the place to be!" ... am I right, or what? If they had a soup supper competition in the Olympics, I think we'd be the team to beat. I've thought about putting a sign out along Camden - what's the latest phrasing fad? - everything is "extreme" these days, right? Maybe "Wednesday evening / Extreme Soup Supper / Be here." ... Well, maybe not.

But, as good and as wonderful as the soup suppers are, I think most of us would agree that we'd be missing it if we just had the soup supper and then went home. Because the real focus of the evening - the foundation of all that we are about - comes to us in the Lenten service. Here we get a different kind of nourishment - from the encouragement of gathering with brothers and sisters in Christ to hearing, again and again, the message of who Jesus is and what he is about.

Jesus didn't provide soup suppers but he did, on a couple of occasions, provide bread in copious quantities. Tonight we heard about 5,000 people being fed with five small barley loaves and two small fish. On another occasion he fed 4,000 in a similar way. And John tells us that this was a sign. Oh, hungry people got fed, indeed. But there was more to it than that. What Jesus did was a sign of something greater, something beyond the feeding itself. Another "vital sign leading to life."

Let's take a look at our text. The Gospel lesson is short tonight, and so I want to do more of a verse-by-verse study as we go. So I invite you to join me by opening your Bibles to John 6. And as I look out across this gathered family, I sense this is a group for which I don't need to give the page number. John chapter 6, the first verse.

Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias)

"Some time after this." That refers back to Jesus' confrontations with the religious leaders about healing on the Sabbath and the question of who he was. We heard that last week. Another sign. Jesus not only showed his power as the Son of God by healing, but he also reclaimed the Sabbath for what God meant it to be: a blessing, not a burden. A day of rest, not just one more brick added to the load.

Continuing in verse 2: and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the [miraculous] signs he had performed on the sick.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, the word "miraculous" here was added by the editors and isn't in the original Greek. It's not that Jesus' actions weren't miraculous; they were. But, as we've been noting, both John and Jesus himself are cautious with the word "miracle." Miracles in and of themselves too easily becomes sort of a spiritual "sugar high," getting people excited for the moment but not building them up in a way that lasts. And so John again and again calls Jesus' miraculous acts "signs." More than just dazzling events, they point to something beyond themselves.

So the people follow Jesus because of the signs he performs. That raises a good question: Why do you follow Jesus? There are lots of possible reasons. Tradition. Friends and fellowship. Good soup! Or because his presence in your life has transformed you. Because God in Christ has been with you, and brought you through tough times. Only those who have been gripped by the promise "Surely I am with you always, to the end of the age" can understand this. And indeed, this promise goes beyond "the end of the age" to eternity.

We continue. Verse 3: Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.

Jesus withdraws in the hope of having some time to teach his disciples. In all the hustle and bustle of healing and caring for the needs of the people, there was still the need to sit down with this core group of followers and teach them. Because he wouldn't be with them like this forever. He needed prepared representatives in place to reach into the lives of others. And that's still true today. Today, we are those prepared representatives. Or we should be. How do we prepare? Part of it is gathering as we do at these midweek Lenten services; so is involvement with classes here at St Tim's, or a Bible study at work - all these things help prepare us for those "close encounters" with those around us - "close encounters" through which God does his life-changing work.

In verse 4, we read: The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

"Jewish" Passover. Not that there's any other kind, but John is writing with non-Jews in mind - people like us. Why is this note important here? At the beginning of the next chapter, John 7:1, we read: "After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life." At this point, at this Passover, Jesus is staying away from Jerusalem to avoid being put to death. A year later, at the next Passover, he would go there for the precise purpose of dying. But this would be according to his timetable, not that of the religious leaders. At this point, there was still more to be done.

In verse 5 we read: When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"

So even though Jesus had withdrawn to teach the disciples, the people still surged forward. And Jesus' response is interesting. The people hadn't even gathered to hear him yet. They hadn't been there long enough to be hungry. Jesus is thus not dealing with a crisis situation - a large, hungry crowd of people with nowhere to get food. Rather, he sees in their arrival an opportunity to make a point. And that starts to become clear in verse 6.

6: He asked this only to test [Philip], for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

So Jesus had something in mind. In this Gospel of Vital Signs Leading to Life, why are we not surprised?

7: Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

Eight months wages? Why such an exact number? Why not seven, or nine? Actually, in the Greek Philip says "two hundred denarii," the denarius being a day's wage for a common laborer. So it's just a rough statement on Philip's part - but a lot of money. Jesus wants to see how Philip and the others will react to the idea, and Philip clearly sees the glass as half empty - at best!

In verses 8 and 9, we read: Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

How far, indeed. But Andrew comes with a different perspective. He has not a clue how Jesus might pull this off, but Jesus does have a track record, and Andrew is coming with some higher expectations.

In verse 10, Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.

5000 men - and probably a lot of women and children, too. 10,000 altogether? Whatever the case, a whole lot of people - at least enough that 200 days wages would not be enough to buy them food.

11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

"took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to" them. Familiar language? It's not yet a communion service, but the Greek word behind "he gave thanks" here is eucharisteo - the word behind Eucharist. So there is at least a hint - a sign, if you will - of what is eventually to come.

12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted."

I like that touch. "Let nothing be wasted." For those of us ecologically concerned it's something to note. But, again, there's more to it than that. With Jesus and John there usually is. Let it all be gathered so as to see and realize just how much was left over.

Verse 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

Twelve baskets. One for each disciple? One for each tribe of Israel? Whatever the case, the point is that this is a sign. It's not only a matter of feeding hungry people but rather something that shows at least two things. First, it shows that Jesus is divine - the Son of God. How so?
Many years ago, I went to a large Lutheran Youth event in Southern California. Several thousand young people, and one of the presenters was Dr James Kallas of California Lutheran College, as it was then called. He was teaching about how we know who Jesus is and began by asking people in the large audience to show him any place in the Bible where Jesus says that he is God or the Son of God. Verse after verse was suggested and he batted them all down.

Soon it got quiet - but those of us who knew Jim Kallas knew that he was far from a debunker of Christian faith. When all was silent, he then went on to talk about how, although the New Testament is written in Greek, it was written by folks who generally thought in terms of Hebrew - a language based on the verb, not the noun. A Hebrew wouldn't say "Jesus is God" but rather would show him doing God-like things. And that's what we find again and again in the Gospels. Jesus does God-like things. That's why, for instance, when he forgave sin, he got in such hot water - for the religious leaders knew what he was saying by what he was doing. And so, in verse 14 ...

14 After the people saw the [miraculous] sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world."

This is the second thing the sign brings up. The people are starting to make connections. The Prophet? We readers of a later age and a more distant shore don't realize that what is going on here is connected to Moses. Moses gave the people manna in the wilderness, and now Jesus is doing the same. Yes, a sign. And there was more. They remembered how before Moses died he told the people that one day God would send someone else - "the Prophet" - one to whom they should listen. In Deut 18:15, Moses says, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him."

Between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, the people of God were actually waiting and watching for the arrival of two people. First, Elijah. Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, said God would one day raise up someone like Elijah the ancient prophet who would come and pave the way for the new age - and John the Baptist fit the bill for that. The other person they awaited was "the Prophet" spoken of by Moses. Could this be Jesus? Even more, could Jesus be the long-awaited Messiah?

Continuing in verse 15, Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Why king? Because that's what Messiah was all about - at least at first. The Messiah is the anointed one, the chosen one of God. Throughout the Old Testament, the word Messiah refers to the king of Israel. But by the time of Jesus, that expectation had grown. A king? Yes, but more than a king. The danger of such talk for Jesus was that many of the people thought only in political terms and were ready to force upon him a role that would be limiting. King of Israel? As Son of God, he had come for so much more. Yes, he would become king. But his coronation would come not on a throne but on a cross.

Now this is as far as our Gospel lesson goes tonight. The bread story goes on, and much more could be said, but as I close tonight, I want to note just two things that catch my attention. First: there's the people who sense that Jesus may be "the Prophet" - people who have a lively understanding of God's word and live in expectation that it will play out. I admire them for that. And you and I have to ask, do we have that same lively understanding and expectation from God's Word? Do we study it with the same sense that this Word is the Word of Life? - as we'll be hearing about at the LBI event in another nine days. A word that holds promise for us. A word that offers hope and guidance.

Second, in the middle of the story there are two disciples: Philip who sees the glass as half empty at best - and Andrew who, perhaps attuned to Jesus' track record, comes with higher expectations. Andrew says, in effect, "Jesus, I'm not bringing you much, but ... here it is; what can you do with it?" I'll admit that, too often, I tend to be a Philip. Yet God has a track record in your life as well as mine. Tonight, as we have come to one more sign of who Jesus is - another vital sign leading to life - may we also be filled with the hopeful expectancy of Andrew. "Lord, I'm your child through the cross. I can't bring you much in response, but here's what I have. What can you do with it?" Amen.