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So That You Will Not Faint On the Way Text:
Mark 8:1-9 All four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—record the account of Jesus' feeding of the 5,000 on the east side of the sea of Galilee also known as Lake Gennesaret. Only Matthew and Mark however record this second miraculous feeding of the 4,000 on the other side of the lake. While there are similarities there are many more significant differences that mark these as two different events. Of all those differences what is of interest to us this morning is the purpose of each. In both we are told that Jesus “had compassion on the crowds.” In the feeding of the 5,000 his compassion is for their eternal and spiritual condition as he says he sees the people as “sheep without a shepherd.” In today's feeding of the 4,000 he has compassion on them simply because they “have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way.” Therefore this Word before us today is to encourage us to continued faith in the God who created us and provides abundantly for all our needs, spiritual and physical, body and soul “So that you will not faint on the way.”
I'm reminded of a wedding I had in Southern Illinois where two of the bridesmaids and the best man fainted and passed out during the ceremony. One of the reasons the gals fainted, I was told, was because they had not eaten anything that day. From Day One God created us as hungry beings and provided food for our bodies. Without food and water the body grows weak and finally starves. Except for some places in the world where there is starvation because of natural or man-made disasters, few if any of us have ever been in want for food. When the teenage son enters the kitchen in the late afternoon with the announcement, “I'm starving,” his hunger is almost immediately satisfied with a snack or the evening meal. And even in those places of the world that do suffer from famine, food is often shipped in from caring people in other parts of the world. Our own Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod World Relief and Human Care ministry, sometimes in conjunction with Lutheran World Relief is the main avenue our people have to support the poor and oppressed of less-developed countries throughout the world.
The greater famine in our world that affects everyone, however, is the spiritual starvation of the soul. This spiritual hunger was not created by God but is the result of sin and separation from God introduced by our first parents at the inspiration of the devil in the Fall into sin. As St. Paul said in today's Epistle, “the wages of sin is death.” Only then as a result of our rebellion against God did it become part of our inherited fallen nature to become spiritually hungry. Worse than that, while at least bodily people are born and live and move and have their being with God as their Creator, spiritually we are stillborn, spiritually blind, dead and at enmity with God from our very first breath. Unless this spiritual famine is reversed not only physical death looms but also our eternal destiny.
It was to restore God's original design, that we may have eternal life by being reconciled to God and God to us that God sent forth his only Son to save us, to release us from the power of sin, death and the devil. As St. John said it, “In him was life” [John 1:4 (ESV)]. But to save us he took on our human nature to fulfill God's Law for us, on our behalf. In a human body just like ours he also did everything else for us—he became hungry for us, he became lonely for us, he bore all injustice and poverty for us, and he even took on our suffering and death for us, being crucified, as St. Paul says, “at the right time,” that is, “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8). It had to be that way because spiritually dead people are completely helpless to do anything much less save ourselves. Yet, in him, still, even in death, he is life, the Lord of life. So full of life was he, even in death, that death could no longer hold him, and he destroyed death being raised from it body and soul. The Good News is this: that now by simple faith in him a person is born anew, restored to God's original design and given the gift of eternal life. Now, even though sin still wars in and around us, by the forgiveness of sin, even though the body dies, we live in the new and certain hope of the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come; paradise restored, but even better.
The only problem is this journey of faith we call “already but not yet.” In Christ we are already made heirs and citizens of heaven, yet this new life is ours now only by means of faith. In this life of faith awaiting the consummation of all things when sin, death and the devil will be completely overcome, this faith must be fed and nourished just like our bodies. If the feeding of the 5,000 emphasizes the need and God's gracious provision of hearing the life-giving Word of God, the feeding of the 4,000 reassures us that God will also not let us perish physically. In Christ God provides the Bread of Life that restores our souls in the forgiveness of all our sins, that we not faint spiritually on the way. In the same way God provides our daily bread for our bodies that we may not faint physically on the way. And He does both of these things purely “out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey him.”
We are taught to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Now, “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people.” So why are we to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”? It is so that “God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” Here both physical and spiritual sustenance meet together and we are made whole.
These words are to encourage the faith God has already implanted in us through our baptism into Christ and his Mighty Word spoken into our ears, minds and hearts. These words give confidence and hope to faith that we may not faint on the way, that is, that we may not become anxious and doubting of God's promised provision and deliverance. Is this not what our Lord meant when he said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” [Matthew 6:25, 33 (ESV)]? This is God's promise to you for your individual life and for us together as a congregation of saints. It is with this same faith that we together are being called to move forward boldly trusting his promises as we endeavor to reach out into our community with his life-giving Word. As we certainly trust that He will work saving faith in people's hearts through the divine Word we proclaim, so we must trust that He will provide everything we need to deliver that Word to people still sitting in spiritual darkness. Our renewed vision of making our congregation an inviting place to be, to draw people to the light of Christ can be accomplished only to the extent that we trust this Word and promise. May God supply you and us all together with that faith and confidence that we may not faint on the way. ____________________
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