PENTECOST 12, A – August 3, 2008

SCRIPTURES – Psalm 105; Isaiah 55:1-5; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

Sometimes it’s hard to believe what we sing. I don’t mean that it’s hard to believe we’re actually singing a certain hymn. You know: “Boy, that one was a dog. I can’t believe we had to sing that hymn!” What I mean is that sometimes it’s hard to believe the words we are singing, to accept them as true, take them to heart and make them our confession.

Consider this hymn we just sang, “O Living Bread from Heaven.” The first verse proclaims:

“O living Bread from heaven, how well You feed Your guest!

The gifts that You have given have filled my heart with rest.

Oh, wondrous food of blessing, oh, cup that heals our woes!

My heart, this gift possessing, with praises overflows.” (LSB #642, vs. 1)

How can we sing and believe this, when times are so hard? We’re paying over $4.00 a gallon for gas. And, just wait for your heating oil contract this fall. It will be double last year’s price! The stock market is down; the housing market is in the toilet; we all know the problems caused by the mortgage crisis and the declining dollar; jobs are scarce; our soldiers are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. “O living Bread from heaven, how well You feed Your guest! The gifts that You have given have filled my heart with rest.” Really? How can we sing this?

The real wonder is that Johann Rist could write this. Rist lived in northern Germany in the first half of the 1600’s, during the time of the Thirty Years War, which devastated Germany. He studied at the University of Rostock, and during his time there the war nearly emptied the University. Rist himself almost died in the plague which raged there in 1633. Bloodshed and plundering, followed by famine and plague, characterized the era in which he lived. Even so, he wrote many wonderful hymns and lived a happy life as a pastor. How?

            Or, consider the beautiful hymn “Now Thank we All Our God,” which we will sing at the end of our Service. It was written by Martin Rinkart in 1637, in the middle of the Thirty Years War.  He was the only pastor in the city of Eilenberg. As armies overran the country again and again, many refugees fled to Eilenberg for protection, since it was a walled city. The city became overcrowded, and hunger and plague also struck again and again. The year he wrote this hymn Pastor Rinkart conducted 5,000 funerals—including his wife’s. Nevertheless, he wrote:

“Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things has done, in whom His world rejoices;

Who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love and still is ours today.” (LSB #895, vs. 1)

“Give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!” urges Psalm 105. How can we do this: continually thank God, gladly worship Him, and confidently speak of what He has done? Well, how can we not? Do we not have Jesus?

But, is having Jesus enough for you? We sure seem to devote a lot more time and energy to gaining other things: be it wealth, or things that make our lives easier and more enjoyable. Now, in and of themselves these things are not bad; but, nor are they good. They are simply things, and temporary things at that. Does God care about them? Yes, He does! That God cares for our lives and provides for us is clearly proclaimed by Christ’s miraculous feeding of the 5,000. Notice that it is Jesus who sees the people’s need and decides to provide for them. They don’t ask Him for food, and Christ’s own disciples seem rather unconcerned about them: “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus takes their need for food upon Himself and abundantly provides for them. God is truly a good and loving God who knows our needs, cares for us, and abundantly provides for us.

But, we must always remember that His provision is not under our control. Take this feeding of the 5,000 with just five loaves of bread and two fish. What a great miracle! And yet, when the next day the people come to Jesus, ask Him for food, and want to make Him their king, He refuses. Now they will go hungry. Now we see that God allows, and even sends, times of hunger in our lives, times when we lose money; suffer with sickness or injury; deal with uncertainty; are weighed down with grief. At such times, will you “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, and make known his deeds among the peoples”? If you cannot, then you are looking to Him for the wrong things. Your focus is earthly, not heavenly; present, not eternal. If, because of difficult circumstances you are enduring, you cannot thank and praise God, then you are not only shortsighted; you are sinning against God. You are denying Him as your good Creator, Savior, and King.

God wants you to know and believe in your heart that if you have Jesus, you have enough. Having Him, you have God! – a God who is over you, not under you; one who orders and directs your life, not one who is at your beck and call. Thank goodness! For, we do not know what we truly need, and are so often blind to what is best for us. Jesus does this great miracle above all to show that He is truly God, the God who loves us. He is concerned for the people and their physical needs. His heart goes out to them, and so He heals the sick among them and provides food for them all. But, these are temporary things. His greater desire is that they see Him as their God and Savior and put their trust in Him. And so, the next day He refuses to do another miracle, and uses His great miracle of the day before to teach them – and us all – about Himself. When the people come to Jesus the next day, they ask Him if He will provide food for them as Moses did. “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' ” Jesus responds, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." And, so that they would understand clearly, Jesus goes on to say, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” He speaks as God spoke in Isaiah 55: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live.” He is Himself the greater bread, and faith in Him receives the greater blessing! By faith in Him we live forever, and can look forward to never again suffering any lack or struggling with any sin.

Through faith in Jesus as our God and Savior we have the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. We also have the almighty God, the Creator and Ruler of heaven and earth, with us to direct our lives. Keep this in your heart and mind. Keep in your heart and mind that if you have Jesus, you have God. God will then help you to always “give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!” He will help you to sing, and to believe what you sing, to the eternal praise and honor of His holy name.

You gave me all I wanted; this food can death destroy.

And You have freely granted the cup of endless joy.

My Lord, I do not merit the favor You have shown,

And all my soul and spirit bow down before Your throne. (LSB #642, vs. 3)