"If God Provides for You, Why Are You Still in Need?" Seventh Sunday after Trinity Commemoration of Joanna, Mary, and Salome, Myrrhbearers August 3, 2014 Mark 8:1-9
Jesus said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to Him, “Seven.” And He said to them, “Do you not yet understand?” Dear Friends in Christ, do you not understand? Do you have trouble coming to terms with God providing for you but you still being in need? Do you find yourself wondering why you pray for help in your need and it seems as if no help is coming? Jesus met many people who were in need. Often He came across someone along the road who was leprous, or blind, or demon-possessed, or unable to walk. There were times people would bring to Him those that were sick and injured. Not this time. These people in the Gospel reading gathered to hear Jesus. They were there to receive His spiritual blessings. They were present not because they wanted healing or help but because they needed His teaching. They were being filled with Christ and His heavenly food. Perhaps realizing that this is greater than if they were to be released from any sort of medical condition, they stayed put. One day, the next day, three days they remained to hear Jesus. Now their food has run out. Whatever they had had with them is now gone. They’re getting hungry. They’re in need. They need to be fed even as they have been feasting on the eternal Word of Jesus. The reason they are in need is because they have been doing what they ought to have done. They have been doing what was very best for them to do. Why is it that Christians are in need when God provides for them? God is the only one who can give you what you need. Without Him you have nothing. With Him you have everything. That you are in need isn’t due to Him not giving you what you need. It’s not because He doesn’t care for you completely or that He doesn’t care for you at times. It’s not that He’s trying to teach you a lesson. You are in need because you live in a fallen world and you are going to face struggles. Even when you are doing what you ought to be doing in faithfully hearing the Word of God and partaking of His gifts in His Sacraments, you still hunger and thirst. You still need rest and sleep. Today’s Gospel reading shows you that in your need God provides for you. It shows you that even when you are in need it doesn’t mean He has stopped providing for you but rather is very active in providing for you. Today’s Gospel reading shows how God gives His earthly blessings to you out of His gracious eternal care for you. And it shows you how He gives you His gracious spiritual blessings to you through earthly means. We usually think of God having compassion on us when we are spiritually in need. These people had been being fed spiritually for three days. Now their stomachs were growling. Now their bodies were getting weak from hunger. Christ had compassion on them. He was going to feed them. He brought about creation, all that can be seen, out of nothing. He has that power. He’s God—why didn’t He just miraculously place a sandwich and chips in the lap of each person there? He could have done so. The things of the creation He has brought into existence are the very things He uses to bless you, and that’s both spiritually and physically. They were physically in need. They were very hungry and would have fainted had they tried to make it home, and so Jesus used His power to bring about help for them in their need. There’s a tendency for preachers to skip the physical, the temporal, the earthly blessings Jesus gives and go straight to the eternal, the spiritual, the heavenly blessings. Maybe that’s a good thing. After all, there are too many preachers who don’t even realize the amazing eternal blessings Jesus gives and spend far too much time talking about how God wants to bless us in this life. Mark is showing you in today’s Gospel reading that you are in need. The one to give you what you need is Christ Himself. By His power He helps you in your daily need. Learn from those people in the Gospel reading and seek the teaching of Christ. Seek to be fed by the eternal living Bread, the Word of God. Then entrust yourself to Him because in seeking His eternal things you will be putting them above some of the basic things of this life that you need. Entrust yourself to your Lord that He will provide for you. Pray the Lord’s Prayer with this mind. Give us this day our daily bread means that you are praying this prayer each day, not worrying about what will happen in the future but rather asking your Lord to give you this day the temporal gifts you need. The miracle Jesus brought about in making thousands of loaves of bread out of seven and thousands of seafood dinners out of a few fish is amazing on its own. Do preachers go too far to take this miracle and then exhort you to see how God does the same thing in His spiritual blessings of you? That when the Gospel is proclaimed it is multiplied in your life and you receive abundant forgiveness? That when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated He takes bread and gives you in and with that bread His very body and you receive there also abundant forgiveness and strength? The words I quoted at the beginning were from the same chapter of Mark our Gospel reading is in, it occurs a little later. The Pharisees were seeking to test Jesus. Afterward when He was again with His disciples, Mark tells us that they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them. Jesus, never missing an opportunity for teaching, said to them, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” The disciples, rarely missing an opportunity to not have a clue what Jesus was teaching them, “began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ They said to Him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ And they said to Him, ‘Seven.’ And He said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’” Jesus is showing you that His temporal blessings to you are not enough. Without the Bread of Life you have eternal death. Even those who don’t believe in Christ receive good gifts from Him of food and clothing, house and home. It is of eternal consequence if you have those things and lose salvation itself. Your greatest need is your eternal need. That’s why God makes Himself at home in your home; that is, where you live. He takes the things of His creation He has given to you and uses them to give you His greatest gifts, His eternal and spiritual gifts. He takes ordinary men and uses them to proclaim the abundant promises of God in His Son Jesus Christ. He takes simple water and uses it to drown your sinful flesh so that you may emerge from that water a new man or woman in Christ. He takes plain old bread and wine and uses them to bring you Himself: His body born of Mary, that stood in a desolate place teaching people, that hanged on a cross, His blood that was shed on the cross. Just as with ordinary bread and fish Jesus fed a multitude in need, so with ordinary bread and wine He feeds you in your need, in body and soul to life everlasting. He is at home in His creation using the very things of His creation to feed you and clothe you. He is comfortable using those things to feed you and sustain you spiritually. He doesn’t only use the things of His creation, though. You have been created by Him. You have been redeemed by Him. You are an instrument to help others in their need. You know people who have temporal and physical problems. You know people who are struggling. You know people who are hurting. God helps them through your loving them and serving them. You know people who need to be strengthened and sustained and forgiven. God helps you in your need so that you may help others in their need. Do you still not always understand? Do you still struggle? God blesses you and gives you what you need even in your struggles. He feeds you and sustains in this life and to eternal life. He blesses you abundantly in the things of His creation in body and soul, in your temporal needs and your eternal needs. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
