He Feeds Us Body and Soul

The Gospel According to John 6 and the Feeding of the Five Thousand

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to.

St. John, the 6th chapter. After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following Him because they saw the signs that He was doing on the sick.

Jesus went up on the mountain there. He sat down with His disciples. Now the Passover, the Feast of the Jews was at hand, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward Him. Jesus said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?

He said this to test Him, for He knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little. And one of His disciples, Andrew Simon Peter's brother, said to him, Well there is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?

Jesus said, Have the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. And Jesus then took the loaves. And when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

And when they had eaten their fill, He told His disciples, Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

When the people saw the sign He had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who has come into the world. Perceiving that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.

This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Alright, y 'all remember that Claymation Christmas special, The Year Without a Santa Claus? The one with Heatmiser and Snowmiser and their conflicting weather patterns and things like this?

How were they brought to heel, by the way? By their mother. Mother nature, right? And when we think about where do the good things that we need in this life come from? It is really, really simple and easy for us to talk as if somehow Mother Nature is the thing that provides for us.

Or, you know, the earth just does its thing. Or if you're a little more mystical, you could talk about Gaia, right? Mother Earth in kind of foreign language terms. But over and again, we have to come to grips with the fact that number one, we are dependent creatures.

The fact that we have to eat proves we ain't God. So let's just get that through your head. You're not God because you need to eat every single day. You are dependent on God. And God is the one who provides for you both body and soul.

And you're going to note that we as Christians recognize that we get our daily bread from God, our Father. And it's important to note here, we live in the times when everyone sang down with the patriarchy, the cult of liberalism.

You can't reason with that thing. Let's just note here that the whole universe is run by patriarchy, God the Father and Jesus Christ, God the Son, circumcised on the eighth day after he was born, by the way.

The good things that we get in this life, we don't earn them. They're given by the hand of God, God our Father. In fact, you'll note that in Luther's small catechism, as it relates to the Lord's Prayer, we pray, give us this day our daily bread.

And our daily bread comes from God the Father, because that's who we're invoking in this prayer. And you'll note that Luther in his explanation points out this very important fact, that unbeliever and believer alike are all fed by God.

This is most certainly true. If you are an unbeliever, God doesn't say, well, I'm going to make it so that you get nothing. That's not how God operates. He even cares for his unbelieving human beings.

And he also cares for all the creatures and all creation. So it's in that regard, then, I would like to consider that as our main frame as we look at Jesus' miracle here at the feeding of the 5 ,000. And I always like the fact that our Old Testament text, when this miracle shows up, takes us all the way back to the Exodus, and God miraculously feeding the children of Israel in the wilderness.

It's a great story, but I found one other cross-reference to our Gospel text today, one that a lot of people are not familiar with. In fact, I've got to say, I've forgotten about it until I recently read it.

But listen to this. Elisha, one of the prophets of the Old Testament, he was a miracle worker himself, and he's a wonderful type and shadow of Christ. In 2 Kings 4, starting at verse 42, we have a one-paragraph-long description of a miracle that really kind of sounds a lot like our text today.

Listen to this. So a man from Baal, Shalisha, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said to him, Give to the men that they may eat.

But a servant said, How can I set this before a hundred men? So he replied, Give it to the men that they may eat. For thus says Yahweh, They shall eat and have some left. So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left, according to the word of Yahweh.

Sounds a lot like our Gospel text, if you think about it. It's really interesting. And so you'll note, this food miracle of Jesus, it points us to several things. And you'll see in our text that the people when they saw this sign, they knew exactly who Jesus was, but they weren't paying attention to the word of God.

But I'm getting ahead of ourselves. So our Gospel text begins with the words, After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

You know, I remember when I used to live in Southern California, the only way you can get around in Southern California is with a car. Forget it if you want to do anything else. So you've got to get on the freeway.

But, well, with six lanes of traffic going one way, six lanes of traffic going another way, and people zipping in and out, well, collisions are bound to happen, right? And whenever a collision would happen, everybody had to slow down and stop and look.

It was annoying. We had a term for these people. We called them rubberneckers.

People who are, whoa, look at that!

And so here what this text is describing is kind of like signs and wonders rubberneckers. Part of the crowd, the reason why they were following Jesus is because, well, Jesus was putting on quite the show, healing the sick and doing the miracles that he was doing.

And then we learn from our cross-reference in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus spent the entire day, check this out, teaching them. You know, that's what Jesus does. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.

And so what I love about this text is that this doesn't follow standard conventional thinking, if you would. Jesus gets right to the important bit, and with his words, he feeds the souls of this crowd.

Souls. Yeah, and your souls need to be fed. You're going to note that when we talk about human beings, we recognize that we have a body and we have a soul, and they come together in what's called a hypostasis.

That's our theological term for that. A union of the two, and there's not two of you. There's not the body part of me and that's one me, and then the soul part of me and that's another me. No, no, there's one of you, body and soul, coming together.

And you'll note that Scripture constantly teaches that our needs as human beings go well beyond our bodies. Christ knows this. So the first thing he does with these rubberneckers, these signs and wonders rubberneckers, he gives them a good, hot theological meal of the Word of God.

And in the Gospel of Mark, we learn that it was long, the day was far spent. It was getting towards the evening and the disciples were saying to him, send them away, Jesus, send them away so they can go and get something to eat.

And so we pick up where Philip says, where are we to buy bread so these people may eat? Jesus had said this. I want to make sure. Where are we to buy bread for these people so they may eat? This is what Jesus said.

And he said this to test Philip for he knew what he would do. And Philip answered him. And I love this. Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little. I call this the mathematics of unbelief.

More proof that math is evil. Okay? I always have to get that in there. I know I'm doing some proof texting, but death by a thousand cuts. Just saying. Okay, pointing that out. A little mathematical humor there.

All right. So this is the mathematics of unbelief. And then one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, well, there is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. And what are they for so many?

And Jesus said, have the people sit down. And the picture here is like a shepherd having his sheep lay down, sit down so he can care for them. And now there was much grass in the place. Love the picture here.

It's spring. It's near the Passover time. So the men sat down about 5 ,000 in number. Oh, no, they didn't even number the women. Patriarchy, man. It's so evil. So then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.

So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up, filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

And when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who has come into the world. What's the big aha moment? Well, they remember something from their time in the synagogue, hearing Deuteronomy 18, that prophecy that Moses gave because the Lord told him to, where the Lord said, I will raise up a prophet like you, Moses.

And anybody who will not listen to him, I will require it of him. You've got to listen to that guy. And who's the prophet? Well, it's Jesus, and with the feeding of the 5 ,000, you know, a food miracle with a multitude of Jews in the middle of nowhere, sounds like our Old Testament text.

In fact, it really is a lot like our Old Testament text. These food miracles are important, and here's the reason why. Kind of pull back just a little bit here. Go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and then where God is handing out punishments for human beings disobeying the command of God and eating of the tree that God commanded them not to eat.

Well, to the woman, he gave pains and labor and a conflicting will with her husband. But then to the man, he said, by toil and sweat of your brow, you will eat your bread. And so you'll note, God still provides for us, but no longer do we get to walk around gardens naked and just grab lunch off of a tree.

Instead, we've got to, well, work and work and work hard. And you'll note that the world that we live in requires us, in order to put bread on the table, to get up in the morning and sing that song, and off we go.

And after putting in a long day at the office or the shop or wherever you work or in the farm, you go home, you eat the bread of your toil, and then you go back to bed, and then you wake up and you do it again, and then you do it again, and then you do it again.

Right? Yeah, yeah. And if you work at Walmart, you get time off of purgatory. So, you know, I'm just saying. But all of that, note then that God still is the one who provides for us, but we have to work to do to put the food there.

God causes the plants to grow. He's the one who feeds us. And with these miracles, God feeding His people, He is again revealing who He is. He's the one who gives us these gifts. And we need to recognize and thank God appropriately for the food that He provides us.

And then you're going to note in our Old Testament text, always and again I find this fascinating, there's a little bit of a tie-in all the way to the Lord's Supper. Because when God caused the manna to finally fall, that word manna is so weird, because in the Hebrew, manna just means, what is it?

So you can see them coming out of their tent that first morning. It looked like it had snowed, right? But thankfully it wasn't bitter cold. And so they looked on the floor of the desert and they saw the manna there and they said this.

They said, manna, manna, manna! And you have to say it like that. Because in Hebrew, if you want to say a question, it's all in your inflection. So, manna, what is it? And that became its name. And I think it's interesting that in the next part of John 6, which is not part of our Gospel text, Jesus then takes this miracle, the feeding of the 5 ,000, and says, I am the bread that comes down from heaven.

My flesh is true meat. My blood is true drink. And the Jews went, eww. That's what they did. And so to this day, when you have the Lord's Supper, you have to ask Christians, manna, what is it? Well, it is what Jesus said it would be.

He said it's his body and his blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins. And so you can see this connection then. Jesus shows by this miracle that not only is he the prophet, the prophet foretold by Moses, but that he is in fact our God.

He is the one who meets our needs of body and soul. In Deuteronomy 8, we actually have a little bit of a theological commentary given by God as it relates to the manna. And here's what the Lord says in Deuteronomy 8, starting at verse 1.

The whole commandments that I command you today He's speaking to the children of Israel as they're getting ready to go into the promised land. You shall be careful to do so that you may live and multiply.

Go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way Yahweh your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might humble you. Now in the types and shadows we recognize that the wilderness wanderings of Israel that 40 years and all the temptations and all the difficulties that they went through, that is a type and shadow of our very lives and our existence in Christ as Christians from the time between our baptism and our finally going into the heavenly kingdom, which is really truly the promised land that was promised.

The new heavens and the new earth. And so you will note that even our testings and the difficulties that we go through, like the children of Israel in the wilderness, they humble us as well. And so He said and I humbled you and I let you hunger.

And I fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And so the scriptures reveal here that these food miracles show us that God understands our true needs go beyond what we need for our body. And that God cares for us both body and soul. And that's really one of the big themes that we see in here.

And it is our duty then to pray, praise, and give thanks to God and honor Him and recognize that all these good things come from Him. It's really easy for us to think otherwise. And so with that then you'll note that the people of Israel, in Jesus' time, seeing Him multiply the loaves and the fishes, they recognized that Jesus was the prophet.

But they didn't listen to Him. The reason I say that is because Deuteronomy says when He shows up you must listen to Him. And they basically said to Jesus, we just need you to be quiet now, we're going to make you king.

It doesn't work that way. That's not why Christ came in His first advent to set up an earthly kingdom. In fact, Jesus makes it clear. His kingdom is not of this earth. Not of this earth, period. Let's just get that clear.

Our job as Christians is not to somehow take the kingdom and drag it down to earth and turn planet earth into the kingdom of God. And anybody who preaches that way is a liar and somebody who is very, very off topic and not following the true mission of Christ.

The mission of Christ is to make disciples of all nations and Christ Himself will bring the kingdom with Him, with the new heavens and the new earth. Our job is not to create the kingdom of God here on this earth.

And so you'll note, the people in Jesus' day, they wanted to make Jesus king, to set up the kingdom of God here on earth, here and now, under the sinful condition. But Jesus is not that kind of king. So rather than listen to Him, they wanted to force Him to do something for which He did not come in His first advent.

And so we would be wise to take that into consideration ourselves. And in that then, let me throw in just a little bit more regarding our theme. And that is that the scriptures are full of biblical texts where they show us that the good things that we receive, we receive truly from the hand of God.

I consider Psalm 104 in this regard. Psalm 104 is a wonderful text that I like to use to kind of shove up the nose of the deists. Have you ever run into a deist? These are people who legitimately believe that God, well, He created the universe.

Sure, He wound it up like a clock and spun it off into space and God has no interaction whatsoever with the creation. A text like this begs to differ. And not only that, our gospel text also begs to differ because there was God in human flesh caring for, feeding, teaching, and healing His own people and His own creation whom He's had mercy on.

Psalm 104 starting at verse 10 says this, Yahweh, you make springs to gush forth in the valleys and they flow between the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Besides them the birds of the heavens dwell. They sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains and the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and the plants, for man to cultivate so that he may bring forth food from the earth.

Listen to that. God causes the grass to grow. He causes the sugar beets, the edible beans, the wheat and the corn to all grow so that we can cultivate them so that we may bring forth our food. Wine to gladden the heart.

I had to put that in there. It's actually in the text. You Norwegians will just have to get used to that. Wine to gladden the heart of man. Oil to make his face shine. Bread to strengthen man's heart.

The trees of Yahweh are watered abundantly. The cedars of Lebanon that he planted. I love that picture. Have you ever seen a wonderful little patch of a forest or a grove or whatever and maybe taken a little walk into the trees and stuff like that and go this is really amazing.

This text says God's the one who planted it. It wasn't some random act of just nonsense. It was God himself who plants these little forests and the big ones too. In them the birds build their nests. The stork has her home in the fir trees.

The high mountains are for the wild goats. The rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. He made the moon to mark the seasons. The sun knows it's time for setting. You make darkness and it is night when all the beasts of the forest creep about.

The young lions roar for their prey seeking their food from God. That is an amazing picture if you think about it. I've only seen lions in the zoo or maybe back in the day maybe at a circus with the old lion tamers.

I've seen those documentaries where they send people to Africa. I remember Marlon Perkins in Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Y 'all remember that? You can hear the lions roar and you can see the beautiful documentary footage of these lions, these beasts out in the middle of the savannah roaring and things like that.

But I never thought of it until God's word taught me to think this way that when a young lion roars like that he's seeking his food from God. It's a very interesting thing. Even the animals seek their food from God.

So when the sun rises they steal away and they lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and his labor until the evening. Oh Lord how manifold are your works. In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures.

Here is the sea great and wide which teems with creatures innumerable living things both small and great. There go the ships and Leviathan which you formed to play in it. These all look to you to give them their food in their due season and when you give it to them they gather it up and when you open your hand they are filled with good things.

When you hide your face they are dismayed. When you take their breath away they die and return to the dust. When you send forth your spirit they are created and you renew the face of the ground. As we here in Minnesota and North Dakota are experiencing the spring thaw.

You can finally see the fields again still patches of snow out there. It was amazing I noticed this the other day that the farmer before the snow came was able behind our church to plow his field and get the furrows ready in anticipation of the coming spring.

Soon we're going to be putting seed into the ground for the harvest that will come and you'll note that this text talks about that God is the one each year who renews the face of the ground so that we can have the good gifts of our bread and our wine and our meat and all the things that we need.

So may the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in his works who looks on the earth and it trembles. Who touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to Yahweh as long as I live and I will sing praise to my God while I still have my being.

May my meditation be pleasing to him for I rejoice in Yahweh. Let sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more. Blessed be the Lord oh my soul. Praise Yahweh. And so we recognize that this is a major theme of scripture but we sinful human beings not only do we not recognize that the good things that we have come from God, sometimes we're not content with them.

We are guilty of coveting the good gifts that God has given to other people and not recognizing the good that God has given us. And we engage in idolatry by believing that we are independent, that somehow we are not dependent on the good things of God and so we give honor and glory and praise to things that are not God for the good gifts that we have.

And this is all sin. A breaking of the first commandment, a breaking of the ninth and the tenth commandments, and each and every one of us is guilty along these lines. And worse, we have anxiety as it relates to the things that we need in this life.

Jesus even in the Sermon on the Mount chastises people. He says, you worry about what am I going to eat, what am I going to wear, and he says the pagans seek after these things. God, your Father knows that you need them.

Don't be anxious about this. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God and His, Jesus' righteousness which is given to you as a gift. The call of Christ is to repent of our sins, to repent of our unbelief, to repent of the false narrative that we have that God has it out for us.

That somehow his desire is to kill us. It's just like the false narrative of the children of Israel in the wilderness. Oh, the reason why you brought us out here is to kill us from hunger. Oh my goodness.

Right? Are we there yet?

Stop touching me. Yes, it's the same thing. And so we recognize that here Jesus is merciful, kind, giving abundantly so, far more than we can either ask or imagine or even what they asked or imagined.

They realized who he was and they wanted to set up the kingdom of God here on earth. But like I said, that's not what Christ came to do. Christ came instead to fulfill the law perfectly for us. At no point did Jesus ever commit the sin of idolatry.

At no point did he ever doubt the Father's love for him. At no point did he fail to give thanks for the good gifts that God had given him and nor did he ever covet somebody else's stuff. Jesus kept the law perfectly for us because it's his righteousness that we are clothed in.

Seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness. And all these things they'll be added to you because God knows that you need them. And so you'll note that Christ in coming, he kept the law for us, but even better than that, he took our sin upon himself.

And since we're talking about Exodus, it's important to note that Jesus is our Passover lamb who was slain. It is his blood on us that when the destroyer comes, sees his blood and passes over us so that rather than perish and die like we deserve, we instead are allowed to live, set free from slavery, and then given an inheritance in the new earth and the world to come.

All of this because Christ carried our sins to the cross. He bled and died for you and I and all of the different ways in which we break God's command or worse slander him by our grumbling which is what we do.

So see the hand of Christ here in his mercy. Repent of your idolatry and your coveting and be satisfied with the good gifts that God has given you and rightly so in faith because we have the Holy Spirit and are forgiven and are children of God.

Properly give thanks for the good gifts that God gives you. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Minnesota. 567 -44. We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message. And again, thank you for listening.