Sermon Archive

"What Does This Mean?", John 6:1-21

Date: July 26, 2009, The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: The Rev. Dr. James D. Kegel

GRACE TO YOU FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. AMEN.

            When I learned the Catechism it was not enough just to memorize the Ten Commandments, Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer; we also had to memorize the meanings. Those of you of a certain age probably had to do that too—and you may well remember that we had to appear before the congregation to recite. It was called public catechization and just about every Lutheran above a certain age can remember what they were asked. Now, it is rare to have a public catechization and probably unusual to insist that young people memorize Luther’s Small Catechism in order to be confirmed. They have even changed the catechism—in the newer versions we are not asked “what does this mean” but a more literal translation of the German, “Was ist das?” becomes “What is it?”
            The question of meaning is an important one, not just in memorizing the catechism, but whenever we read the Bible or listen to a sermon—we ask “what does this mean” and then as important, “what does this mean to me?” Remember that when the Bible was written, the vellum or parchment or papyrus upon which the words were written was very expensive and the words written by hand. There were no spaces between the words and in Hebrew there were no vowel pointings. It is one of the reasons that it is so difficult to decipher these manuscripts--at least to those of us used to spaces between words and punctuation and separate paragraphs. Space could not be wasted. Therefore everything that is put into Scripture is important and a good question to ask is simply “why is this important to the author?” Now, in my days of writing term papers I might put in a lot that was unnecessary—I figured that whenever there was a length suggested that, good little student that I was, I would make it as long as I could. My dissertation ran to over five hundred pages! But the Bible does not do this. As John puts it at the end of his Gospel, “There are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” The Gospel writer only put in those things important to the thesis. John writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” What is written is for us that we might hear the good news, read the Gospel, and believe in Jesus Christ and have everlasting life.
            Today’s reading, the miracle of the loaves and fish is the only miracle found in all four Gospels. There are fewer miracles recorded in John’s Gospel than the others, the Synoptic Gospels, but they are very important. They are called signs—something given that we can ask of the meaning of, and finding the meaning, will bring us to faith. There are a few details in John’s account of the feeding of the five thousand that we do not find elsewhere. The time of the miracle is given—the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. Usually, Jesus, like other pious Jews would celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem, but in this case, Jesus is teaching near the Sea of Galilee, specifically on the other side, on the Gentile side of the lake. Jesus is celebrating a sort of Passover feast with Gentiles, taking five barley loaves and two fish and making this a feast of the kingdom of God. Unique to John’s telling is the young boy who has the food to be divided; also the recognition of the people that this sign was a revelation that Jesus is indeed the prophet who was to come into the world. In fact in John’s Gospel Jesus had to flee the crowds because they were about to come and take him by force to make him king.
            It is interesting to read these accounts side-by-side. Most have five thousand people but Luke mentions five thousand men and Matthew five thousand men plus additional women and children. Matthew locates the miracle near the place where pilgrims remember the miracle—The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes near Tabhga—a beautiful modern church with an ancient mosaic in the floor of a basket of bread and fish. Luke suggests that the miracle occurred near Bethsaida in Gentile territory as we also saw did John.
            What does all this mean? Well, barley was the food of the poor and the early church continued this tradition making all its communion bread from barley. The food is given by a boy—the other Gospels have the food coming from the disciples themselves—they say, “We have” and here it is a lad, a child’s gift of little significance that feeds all the people with enough to fill twelve baskets with the broken pieces left over. We have a test of faith in our text—Jesus asks Philip, “Where are we to buy the break for these people to eat?” The right answer should have been, “We trust God to provide.” God had provided enough bread to feed the hundred in Elisha’s miracle, our first lesson, and Philip should have remembered that. Instead Philip flunks his faith-test by answering, “Six months wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” Andrew does better, in bringing up the boy’s food but then also reveals his doubt, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they among so many people?” The named disciples in our text are people like us, men of little faith, realistic and sensible but leaving no room for God. John wants us to see that Jesus is more than a good man, more than a prophet like Elisha or even the expected prophet at the end of the age, but the Son of God and Savior. Jesus’ signs point to himself—He is the way, the truth and the life. We come to God through Jesus, the Son of God and Savior.
            This miracle of Jesus is not only set in the context of the Passover, but Jesus is himself the Passover lamb who is sacrificed for sin—this is John’s reckoning of the time of the Last Supper, not a Passover meal itself but the time when the lambs were slaughtered on the Day of Preparation. Jesus does not give the Passover bread to his disciples but gives himself and it is enough. He is the Bread of Life from heaven given to all those who believe in him. Thos who believe in Jesus will no longer thirst or hunger or have any unsatisfied need. He is like the manna from heaven which was to come in the days of the Messiah, heavenly food for weary pilgrims. In the same chapter of John as this text Jesus refers to the Israelites in the wilderness, “Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world’. They said to Jesus, ‘Sir, give us this bread always’. Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’… ‘This is the will of my Father that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life’.”
            We gather together each Sunday to hear God’s Word, to reflect upon it, to receive the Lord’s Supper and to be challenged and sustained for the week ahead. What does this mean, this hour or so we spend together? We are reminded that Jesus is enough. His Word of forgiveness really forgives us our sins. The promise of his presence with the two or three or hundreds who gather in his name, assures us that we are not abandoned by God but God is present in our lives. If we are thirsty or hungry or alienated or alone, Jesus is enough. We are fed a little wafer and dip it into a cup of wine and we are told this is a foretaste of a banquet, that this little bit of food is enough to keep us to eternal life. All that we say and do are signs of something greater—God’s reconciling and forgiving and life-giving presence. All that we do or say is to help us believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing in him, we may have life. What does this mean for us? All those who believe in Jesus shall not perish but have everlasting life. Amen.

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