Fed To The Full
In those days there was again a large crowd, and they had nothing to eat. He called the disciples and said to them, 2 “I have compassion on the crowd, because they’ve already stayed with me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a long distance.”
4 His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread here in this desolate place to feed these people?”
5 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked them.
“Seven,” they said. 6 He commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground. Taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. So they served them to the crowd. 7 They also had a few small fish, and after he had blessed them, he said these were to be served as well. 8 They ate and were satisfied. Then they collected seven large baskets of leftover pieces. 9 About four thousand were there. He dismissed them. 10 And he immediately got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.
Mark 8:1-9
“How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”
Yes, this is a desolate place…if you haven’t noticed.
I know…we look out and see all the green…and if you lived further north…the yellow corn…the lakes … west… the flowing rivers…
And noise… hub-bub… all the people… going to and fro… stores full…
People buying and selling… working and playing…
Desolate?
Look closer…
This place…and others like it… ARE barren and empty.
Man does not live on bread alone…
A bad metaphor? Why…because Jesus had crowds following Him?
Okay, but not for long…
Not for long will there be crowds following Him…
Unless you mean those yelling to have Him crucified!
Yes, even if He feeds them bread from heaven… again…?
But this is a desolate place…because it is a lawless place. A godless place. Yes… our country.
A place that does not tolerate the truth. And as they leave Jesus, they leave us.
Not only that, but they try and lure us to go with them. If they can’t… they accuse… and worse. They attack. They destroy.
But to answer the question in our text:
“How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”
I don’t know, but it is sure, that no…we can’t feed them.
But Jesus tells Peter to feed His sheep.
Yes, and I think Peter… at last… understood how… but only then, at that point…
Not in our text here…but only after the resurrection…when Jesus restores Peter from leaving Him too…
No, it wasn’t after…after Peter…did something right… for a change… or…
… all the rest… even when they too said they would die with Him…
That they would never leave Jesus…
And we hope and pray that we wouldn’t either…
And for those that ought to be here…sitting next us in this church…
And all those who used to sit in the pews across the globe…
It wasn’t because they pledged in their confirmation vows that they would never forsake Him…
As they did… as we have…
It is never because of this… because of us.
It is never from our understanding… from what we can see… or know what to do… know how to do…
As that song stated, “we didn’t start the fire!” Nor can we keep it ablaze.
They … we can only be restored by Jesus…
So, Peter was… and three times… if you ever noticed…
He would be sent out once again to catch fish…and feed sheep…
People. People like you and I.
Because
3 if [sent] away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. [as] some of them have come from far away.”
We have come far. We have been in the world all this past week…or longer. We have been beat up by the devil…and that world…and the sinful flesh.
We are in need. We can’t go on. Not like this. Not for very long. But…
4 “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”
6 And he [Jesus] directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd.
Do you see it?
“he [Jesus] broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people”
St. Paul tells the Corinthians: For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you…
And do you know what comes next in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians?
The instructions for the Lord’s Supper.
Yes, and it is the sheep that are to be fed…
…not the wolves and goats.
Because these others…they don’t want this worthless bread …anyway.
That was what the people of Israel called the mana that God gave them in their sojourn across the desert. They preferred the meet pots of flesh in Egypt…
But this Mana is what God gives us on our sojourn across this desert.
For man does not live on bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
God’s flesh and Blood enclosed Word…
Which is: “take eat, this is my body, given for you” and “take drink, this is my blood shed for you.”
That is what is given to feed us. The Word made flesh and blood. For us to hear… and to eat and to drink.
And so… they who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.
But what causes this thirst and hunger?
2 “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.
It is being without Jesus … and then it is being with Jesus. In the 3-day sojourn of death in the place of the skull… death before resurrection.
It is the days since the last Lord’s Day.
Here… in the valley… of the shadow… until He is back with us again…
And so… the more we spend time with Him…the more hungry we are for Him.
Because not only does He represent things and places we have longed for…that we were made for…that we don’t have… YET…
No… in fact… He shows the truth about what we do have…and where we and it… all of it are going…
Which is nowhere. And worse than that: it will all be sent to be burned.
And if He was not there…if He had not come…
To give us what we need…
To lead us to where we were meant to be.
You and I would be on that same fast track to destruction.
But He has come to save us from that. He has come even today…
For us to be with Him…
And for us to be fed by Him.
For He is the true bread that has come down from heaven to sustain us and give us life…life everlasting.
It is He has the waters of life…
The medicine of immortality…
The life Giving Spirit Himself…
In which He pours on us and in us to overflowing.
He is here to give us what we were made to have …
To make us what we were meant to be… and to do…
And to take us to where we were meant live… and move… and have our being: with and in Him.
Which is life overflowing… abundance beyond measure … existence of eternal and infinite proportions…
And so… 8 … they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
Jesus is always more than enough. God is never stingy. Why would He be? He is infinite and Eternal.
And He has invited us to come along and be in the midst of this… this overflowing abundance forever.
Surely then, goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives.
How long is that? Because we are with Jesus, that is forever. So come…for all has been made ready. Amen.
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