In today’s Gospel, it was written that Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”
Phillip didn’t understand that Jesus was not asking about the cost of the bread or how much was needed to feed the people. He was asking: “where was the bread to come from?” As it turns out, Jesus had the answer to all these questions.
As I pondered this text this week, I couldn’t help think about current events. Specifically tax season, the passing of Governmental appropriations to avoid shut downs with many more bills to come, will there be: giving away of money to Ukraine, Israel, or any other thing that our government spends money on? Regardless, where you stand on these topic, there are many people who are already thinking about that money in various ways. Maybe you are too. Questions like: “Who is going to pay for it? What about all the pork within the laws? Are they expanding the child tax credit? Will I qualify for any governmental funds? Where does the money come from and how long before they spend more?
The reality is much like Phillip’s concern: money will only go so far. Whatever you or I may get back in any tax refund. Whatever any money that any nation gets from the US government, whatever money is allotted…it always runs out and there is always a need for more. There is always something else that money could be spent on: whether noble or entertaining, or in defense, or in stocking up: by us, by the government, or anything. Whatever that money is spent on, things break, run down, run out, it’s not enough… the point is that money, food, whatever it is: it is finite. It is temporary, it can only go so far until it has an end.
The people in our gospel lesson also knew this. They knew that even after Jesus fed them, their bellies would become empty again. The knowledge that “they would get hungry again, but here’s a guy who can give us free food whenever we are hungry” motivated them to try to seize Jesus and make him king. Then their bellies could always be full. That is why they pursued Jesus in John 6 after our verses today; they wanted Him to feed them and fill their bellies again and again with free bread and fish.
We see this happening today. Many people do not care what else the government is doing, what corruption is occurring, how many tax dollars go to propaganda, indoctrination in our schools, abortions, sex changes, immoral bombings and wars, so long as they get their bellies fed. As long as the government gives them a few dollars now and again to please themselves: they’re satisfied. But these people are only looking at the short-term pleasure of selling their affections. Think they are happy and satisfied until… they get hungry again or hopefully (before too late) they wake up from their haze and realize the cost of that short term hand out: not only their freedom, but their life, their faith, their hearts and minds, but the hearts, minds, and souls of their children and neighbors as well. Lest you misunderstand me, the problem is not even so much the worship of the government. The problem for you, me, Americans, and all people, is how easily we can be misled because of the worship of our own flesh: our own interests in the immediate moment. That momentary selfish impulse to serve our self and to honor and worship those people or things which give us that momentary thrill or sense of fulfillment.
To worship our bodies, our food, our leisure, our money, our government, even our freedom… it’s all a sinful trap. It is the way to never be satisfied and never be joyful and always be unsettled and worried that these things in which we trust will be taken away. This is the path of death. If we worship only the finite, the things that pass away and are temporary, then we live ever and only under the shadow of death and trying to beat and race the clock. We may change our clocks, (like last night) but we cannot change time, and we cannot change the constant gnaw of time and cost of our sin which is the ending: the death of all things, including our own life.
This then was the real purpose and meaning of Jesus feeding the crowd; what Jesus told the people who continued to follow him hoping for another handout…A purpose to show more than the fact that God is generous and all created things can be a blessing from God our Father and received with thanksgiving. This miracle points to something that God wants people to receive: a something higher, greater, and more lasting than the passing away, finite food, clothing, and money of this world.
Jesus told the people later in John 6: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you… I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Jesus was telling the people that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 55 were God said: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
How can there be such a food, such a drink that if people eat or drink they never die? A food and drink that has no price, no cost?
Who is paying for this free bread, this bread of life, that people may eat and not die, even though humanity’s sins deserve it? Where must people go and be to receive this most glorious and redeeming miraculous bread of life from heaven?
“Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”
To the cross. To Jesus Christ. Jesus has paid the price of our sin. He has purchased the redemption of our flesh and our lives, our souls, and bodies. He paid a price that we could not pay, with a substance far more precious and valuable than silver, gold, precious jewels. He purchased it with His own pure and perfect flesh and blood, by His own suffering and death.
An innocent man had to die for you, me, and the world so selfish and idolatrous. But this God-man did this so that we could turn and be filled, no longer be lost, no longer empty, no longer destined for our bodies to die, decompose, and then soul and body receive eternal damnation at the last. Jesus Christ died in His body, shedding His blood so that we could be repented, turned and brought to the place which bought for us life eternal: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
“But what is this among so many?” This one body, this one blood of Jesus Christ is enough and more than enough for individual sinners. Individuals no longer scattered from faith and hope and life, scattered to then be gathered in slavery to flesh, and finite, and failing things of the world, death, and the devil.
No, you have been brought to Jesus the crucified by God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be unified with Him, by His power, wisdom, and life. Baptized and washed in that precious blood invited to drink and eat of His words and of His flesh by faith and be saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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 feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
So as God asked through Isaiah: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”
Do not put your hopes in money, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, any political party, or anything else. As you live and receive earthly things, as you are tempted to worry and be anxious about the things of this life, labor no more for that which does not and cannot satisfy. Labor for that which lasts forever. Labor and invest by resting in Him where He is especially for you. Pray for ongoing perspective: for faith in Jesus Christ. Come to where He promises to be for you. He provides you with that wine and that bread, that meat and milk which makes strong and satisfies our hungry hearts and souls, here. Here in His Word. Here where He gives His eternal crucified and raised flesh as food and His holy precious blood as drink even under these finite forms of bread and wine. Here we express that we are made one church, one in confession of the truth that overcomes all falsehood, in the one body that was enough and more to pay the price of sin: Jesus Christ.
Come and eat. Be made truly alive and be satisfied by our king, who fills us with the abundance of His forgiveness, His Spirit, His life; all so that these bodies may not die, but merely sleep to be raised and live where there is no end. At the last we these bodies will be transformed to Christ’s: bodies that cannot and will not wear out or be destroyed because they have already been and will be filled in Jesus Christ. Jesus who was crucified for your sin and raised for your salvation. Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ, Amen!
Pr. Aaron Kangas