 |
spent1102
"Satisfied"
downloand flash free
Text: Matthew 14:13-21
Date: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost 
8/4/02
Martin Luther commends the use of Psalm 145:15-16
to begin asking a blessing before meals: "The eyes of all wait upon
thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest
thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing" (KJV).
It is a prayer of praise and of deep spiritual insight. For it speaks
of the deepest and truest needs of every living thing, regardless
of whether they are aware of it at any given moment. Though it mentions
food and is commonly heard standing or sitting around a table fragrant
with aromas of yet-to-be dished up tender, sliced roast beef, potatoes
flanked by a boat of steaming gravy, a crisp salad and a slender
glass of a fine wine (are you hungry yet?), the prayer is for more,
much more. For it says that God opens his hand and satisfies not
just physical hunger but "the desire of every living thing." In
today's text there are two sets of desires: God's and ours. It is
hoped that in hearing the story of the feeding of the 5,000 in the
wilderness we might discover how our desires can become aligned
with God's desires for us that we may know what it means to be truly
Satisfied.
The first "desire" spoken about in our text
is not ours but God's. God desires that all should come to the knowledge
of the truth and be saved. God desires not "the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from his way and live" [Ezekiel 33:11 (ESV)].
So, as of first importance, our text reports that when Jesus heard
of the murder of John the Baptist, this marked a major change in
Jesus' mission. For in that event Jesus could see the dark clouds
gathering that would lead to his ultimate purpose for coming to
the earth: his own bitter and bloody but atoning death. As much
as his human nature recoiled at the thought, however, this was his
ultimate goal and desire-to offer himself as the one-and-only pure
and perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world. So now he withdraws
from his more public posture of preaching, teaching and healing.
He heads "to a desolate place by himself."
Martin Luther, in his Christian Questions with
their Answers for Those who Intend to Go to the Sacrament, asks,
"What motivated Christ to die and make full payment for your sins?"
The answer: "His great love for his Father and for me and other
sinners." So now, when Jesus came out from his short, private retreat
and saw the crowds that had followed him out to that desolate, desert
place, the compassion he felt for them was for a deeper need than
merely physical healing and food-it was that gut-wrenching compassion
for their need of forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the
gift of eternal life and salvation. But first things first. Before
making the people sit down for preaching and teaching, they needed
healing and feeding.
Now Christ could come and die and open the
kingdom of heaven, and just let everyone in. That's the "wisdom"
of our way of thinking, anyway. We get so confused over the various
religious teachings in the world that something inside us makes
us just throw up our hands and declare, "well, all religions, all
roads lead to God-we all worship the same God, just in different
ways." But what's wrong with that is that it is totally ignorant
of the fact that there is another power at work here. There is not
just one religion in the world. And there are not many. There are
only two: the true religion of the one and only Triune God, and
the religion of the devil. "For we do not wrestle against flesh
and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against
the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual
forces of evil in the heavenly places" [Eph. 6:12 (ESV)].
Therefore the salvation of God must be by faith.
The next desire of God in our text is for the gift of faith on the
part of Jesus' disciples. They came to Jesus, saying, "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." To their surprise,
however, Jesus said, "They need not go away." Then he gave them
a seemingly impossible challenge, saying, "you give them something
to eat."
We all have seemingly impossible challenges
all around us. There's the constant challenge of "making ends meet"
financially. And that is true both as individual families as well
as in the family of faith called St. Mark's congregation. There
is the great challenge of the vision we have inherited of establishing
a Lutheran school here, made, now, seemingly impossible because
of our size and seemingly thin resources. When the disciples in
our text were told by Jesus, "you give them something to eat," their
first and natural reaction was to look at the measly few loaves
of bread and couple of fish they had and then wonder if he was serious.
From their point of view, they looked at the situation and could
not figure out how Jesus could make such an impossible demand of
them.
But, you see, there was one other possibility
that they hadn't considered. And it was standing…he was standing
right in front of them. This was a moment for faith. Jesus told
them to bring the bread and fish to him. In his hands things happen;
seemingly amazing things. Matthew tells us Jesus took the food,
looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Do you think…? Could it
have been…"The eyes of all wait upon Thee; and thou givest them
their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest
the desire of every living thing"? Then he gave pieces of the bread
to the waiters (his disciples) who gave them to the crowds. They
must have come back a whole bunch of times, and each time they came
back Jesus gave them more bread to distribute.
We're not told the reaction of the disciples.
The only thing we're told is that the crowds ate and were satisfied.
The Greek word translated "satisfied" is from a word that means,
"to feed or fill with grass, herbage, etc., to fatten." Though they
got their bellies filled, however, there were deeper needs and desires
that could be satisfied only by faith in who Jesus is and what he
came to accomplish. But his disciples…. Did they get it? Did they
get faith?
| |
