A CONFUSED MULTITUDE: THAT’S THE CHURCH ON EARTH
Prayer: Lord God, heavenly Father, through Your Son in the desert You abundantly fed thousands with little: We humbly ask You, visit us also with Your blessing, and preserve us from covetousness and cares of the body, that we may seek first Your kingdom and righteousness and that we may experience Your fatherly goodness in all things needful for soul and body; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.
Sermon Text: St. John 6:1-15 (v. 11-12). And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.”
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth; Your Word is truth. Amen.
Dear people loved by God in Christ, who is the Bread of Life: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The dirty secret about the Feeding of the 5,000 is that this hungry crowd, upon whom Jesus lavished His great compassion, all they wanted were more miracles. John tells us this at the outset, that this “great multitude [that] followed Him” did so “because they saw His signs which He performed” – that is, His miracles.
So they aren’t the most deserving bunch. I find this strangely comforting. A confused multitude, that’s the church on earth! There’s hope for us. If Jesus lavished His compassion on them – in spite of what He knew about them and their faulty motivations – He won’t hesitate to give His compassion to you. It doesn’t depend on the worthiness of the person; it depends on His kindness!
Let’s look at this miracle. First, we notice from the other gospels that right before this, the disciples told Jesus that John the Baptist – His forerunner, His cousin too – was executed by Herod. Some of these disciples were first John’s disciples. Andrew and Philip, who are featured here, were two of them.
So there is hurt and suffering here. There’s hatred and murder. Evil gets the upper hand over good. There’s deep grief. This is the scene. This is the scene for Jesus’ miracle. But it’s also where the church on earth has to live. It’s the first confusion in the story: why does God let the wicked prosper and plunge us into such sadness?
Jesus takes the disciples aside privately to rest and have quiet. But then here come the crowds, and Jesus knows they’re only clamoring for miracles. They just want to be entertained by Him. There’s no sensitivity to the needs of His human nature, His human feelings, or the feelings of His disciples.
People are only concerned about themselves. There’s no humility here, only ego. There’s no empathy, people taking no notice that people are hurting, or are tired. This is the next confusion in the story: people who don’t see their true need, who don’t see their self-centeredness, who don’t care about spiritual things. Is Jesus to help them?
Yet, when Jesus sees the large crowd coming, what does He do? He asks Philip where they can buy food for them. John tells us, “This He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.” But Philip doesn’t get it. He starts doing math: “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient.”
This is another confusion. The disciples themselves are part of the confused crowd. They’re no better. They’re not spiritual. All they see is money and cold logic.
Now when Andrew brings the boy forward who has five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus has them seat the people. He’s gathering a congregation!
- Then the miracle: He takes the bread and fish, and first He looks to heaven and “gives thanks”– in the original words, it says He eucharist-ed,which is one of the names of the Lord’s Supper.
His word begins the miracle. His word joins heaven and earth together.
- Then He gave the food – which He miraculously causes to multiply – to the disciples. Notice that the word John uses is “distributed.”Jesus “distributed” it to the twelve, and then “the disciples distributed to those sitting down.” Although Christ won our salvation on the cross, He distributes it to us in His Word and His Supper. Jesus is giving a preview of this. He distributes His salvation to you, in His Church.
The disciples didn’t do the miracle, but like pastors they just distributed His gift to all who would receive it.
Now the hard end of the story: Although it says they ate “as much as they wanted,” and “they were filled,” in the most important sense they were not filled. John writes: “They were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king.” They only want more miracles. What confusion there is in this multitude! But what a Savior who provides. What we are to see is that it’s grace that this is the Church that He gathers. Grace is God’s undeserved love. We identify with the “undeserving” part. But in the end He wants you especially to receive the part that’s His love, how He distributes it to all.
We are the confused multitude in the confusion of our sinfulness.
Sin is confusion. Jesus defined it this way on the cross as He said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Whereas they were sure of themselves, and 100 percent wanted to do what they were doing, and would have argued with anyone saying they knew not what they did, Jesus declares their purposeful actions to be confusion of the heart. It’s a broken conscience, to want to do what’s wrong and evil, and to reject what’s right and good.
We have to be sure that what we’re doing is God’s will. Often, we just assume our intuition and inclination are right, but as you know, so often you are motivated by selfish desires, the Old Adam is running you. As it says in 1 Corinthians 2, by nature we don’t understand the things of God. We need His Holy Spirit in order to think right about God’s will. Once you come to faith, the old nature is still trying to follow worldly – confused – ways of thinking.
So what we see in this crowd – they don’t notice that Jesus and the disci-ples are hurting and exhausted, they just want what they want, they’re just focused on themselves – isn’t it true that you don’t take time to care about what others are manifesting, you don’t even notice, but are self-focused.
Also, and this is even more serious – just as they didn’t care about spiritual things and only wanted to be entertained by Jesus as a cure for their boredom – we are susceptible to that as well. We live in a world that highly motivates you to ignore the things of God, or to redefine them your own way, and to be obsessed about all the things of this life. Also you tend to mostly notice the sins against other people – the second table of the Law – and hardly notice the sins against the first table of the Law, love for God, such as not taking time for prayer and the Bible, or murmuring against God in your trials, or losing hope, or too easily missing a Sunday, or not being a cheerful giver. It’s not just being “unspiritual” but judging spiritual things, like the church or how we worship or even what we teach, by our sinful nature tendencies.
Even the disciples notice how they respond to Jesus by calculating money, and this leads them to not trust His power. In the church, we too, seasoned Christians and leaders in the church too, can be guilty of treating it as a human organization, and see only as far as the money, and lack trust.
Finally, we see that even after the miracle, the crowd is just the same, still a confused multitude. So you experience that even after church, after you hear the Gospel, after you receive communion and forgiveness, you go right back to all these worldly – confused – ways of thinking. Doesn’t it do any good?
However: Despite the confusion in our sin, we are continuously the blesséd multitude in the presence of Him who takes away our sin.
First we need to see that Jesus just does the miracle anyway. He doesn’t first make a person have to be worthy of the gift on our own. He knew what the crowd was like. He knew they were confused. This is grace, and this is our greatest hope, and this is why we don’t mind being identified as this same confused multitude. You can be the most confused about God, you can get everything backward, you can wallow in sin and wallow in pride and wallow in despair, and struggle to believe forgiveness and trust God and live like you should, and yet He will still do this for you. That’s what we see.
“Jesus took the loaves … and likewise the fish,” and “when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down.” The loaves and fish became enough for thousands.
This is the miracle. Jesus did a miracle for them. He provided for them. He is picturing His salvation, which is the miracle He does for you. Logic would say that if He dies, He’s done and He can’t save or give life or do anything about your sins. But this is a miracle. He does something only God can do. His death saves. It’s a miracle. He rose from the dead, the greatest miracle.
But another part of this is that it is enough for all, just like in this miracle. Each person has the same amount of forgiveness and salvation as everyone else, and it’s enough. Jesus died for all and rose for all. He did it for all.
Now He lives to distribute this salvation. He gives His special authority to forgive sins – that great miracle, that by the speaking of His words, all of my sins, woosh, go away – He puts it into the hands of His Church, and the Church calls pastors to do what? – “distribute them.” Just like here in John 6. So this is a picture of His Church: just distributing Christ’s miracle.
Notice though what the miracle is. It begins with His words, when Jesus eucharist-ed, “gave thanks,” He spoke His words of blessing. Jesus’ words are everything. His words do the miracle. When His words are spoken to you and over you – in Baptism, in His Supper, in the absolution, the sermon, the blessing – He takes away all your sin. He takes away your sin! This is what we have in the Lutheran church, that we know we’re in His presence, He is present with us as God and Man, to give us these gifts – Baptism, Absolution and the Lord’s Supper – in which His Word that’s spoken has power to take away all sin, and replace it with His forgiveness. He pronounces you holy. He pronounces you blesséd. And that. is. what. you. are.
You do return to the confusion that sin and Satan bring you back into. No surprise, you live in this world, you still have the old nature. This is where the church on earth has to live. Are we a confused multitude in His church? Well, yes. We come together and confess our sins. But we’re continuously a blesséd multitude – you are continuously blesséd – as we hear His forgiveness, and He gives us grace to believe it. Although you’re always a sinner, at the same time, you’re also a saint, holy in His sight, completely forgiven, how? By His word. Will He get tired of you? Never! He just keeps doing the miracle – tirelessly speaking His forgiveness – to you, and over you.
Tell everyone that here in His Church, you are in a blessed multitude. For that matter, remind yourself: in Him you are blessed – and filled. Amen!