A Costly Meal, John 6:1-15, 35
Introduction
A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I’ve gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
“I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals but I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" When you are down to nothing God is up to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for physical and our spiritual nourishment!
Transition
This morning we will talk about the most costly mean of all. Jesus; the bread of life! In John chapter six is recorded the account of Jesus feeding of the five thousand. It is interesting to note that this is the only miracle which is recorded in all three of the synoptic Gospels – Mathew, Mark, and Luke – as well as John’s Gospel. That fact alone should alert us to the significance of this miracle.
While the synoptics most often use the phrase “miracles” to describe the mighty works of Jesus, John alone focuses on seven signs of Jesus. He uses the word signs to indicate that Jesus was divine; the seven miracles of John’s Gospel are presented as signs to the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
John says that the sheer number of signs which Jesus performed is as innumerable as they could not possibly be recorded. The number of signs Jesus performed in light of the seven which John records indicates to us the great weight which should be given the eight which are recorded in John’s Gospel.
They were not chosen by happenstance or accidently. John is precise in His Gospel, as he wrote in John 20:30-31, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (NIV)
I love the Gospel of John. Indeed, I have studied it more frequently and return to it with greater passion than the other Gospels. While they are each of extreme value and are divinely inspired, John’s Gospel presents the eight signs of Jesus, the Eight “I Am” statements of Jesus which point to His divine nature, and the message of John’s Gospel centers around two key words, believe and live.
In his Gospel John declares, “Here is Jesus, the one who came in signs and wonders too numerous to recount, here are the eight of them which show us that He indeed is God. Here is Jesus, the one who declared Himself to be divine not only by His miraculous works but also by plainspoken declaration and here are eight ways He spoke it plainly, using the phrase of self existent deity; I AM. Here is Jesus, His words, His acts, that upon hearing you may believe and upon believing, you may live unto eternal life!”’
Upon entering my text, it is with fear and trembling that I handle such profound and precious a truth as this. It is with great weight of heart and earnestness of mind that I implore you to lend me your ear and the Holy Spirit access to your very will that in listening you might hear and in knowing you might be known. May it be we who are nourished this day by the bread of life!
Exposition
In today’s text, a great crowd has gathered unto Jesus. The people were very curious about Jesus. Word was spreading about the man who had performed so many miraculous healings of the sick and the man who spoke with such authority to the religious leaders of the day; even with regard to their sin! Jesus was something of a celebrity and people wanted to see what all of the talk was about.
A great crowd had gathered and it was growing late in the day. In Jesus concern for the welfare of the people we learn a great lesson for the Church. While Jesus is primarily concerned for the spiritual wellbeing of people and their eternal destiny, He also cares about the here and now needs of this life.
A Church that nourished the spirit but refuses to nourish the body neglects a significant portion of the ministry of God. Indeed, Jesus primary purpose in all His miracles or signs was to demonstrate His divine origins and power. This is clear from a plain reading of the Scriptures. However, time and again the Bible declares that Jesus took compassion on people.
God is primarily concerned with matters of eternity but His love for us extends to the immediate needs and circumstances of our lives as well. Just as God provided the manna which rained down from heaven to feed the Israelites on their journey out of captivity from Egypt, so too, when we are submitted to God’s will and authority in our lives, the Scripture says that He will provide all of our needs.
God has not promised to make us rich, O but by His riches He has promised to supply our needs in Christ Jesus!
The season in which this event took place was near the Passover feast in the spring. The Passover commemorated the “passing over” of the Spirit of the Lord on the houses of the Israelite people who had sprinkled their doorposts with the blood of a lamb at the time when God would judge the king and the nation of Egypt for their cruel treatment and unwillingness to free God’s people.
The events of the Passover and the provision of the manna which fell from heaven to feed and sustain the Israelite people are so closely linked to the life of Christ that anything other than a clear connection is unavoidable. The slaying of the lamb whose blood covered the doorposts of the people of Israel was a shadow of the spotless and blameless lamb which was to come in Christ.
The manna, the bread, which fell from heaven, was a picture of the bread of life which was to come in Christ. In Jesus feeding of the five thousand near the time of Passover He declares that it is Him who has come to ultimately fulfill the promise of God which was shadowed in the manna from Heaven. He is the bread of life. He is the bread of God’s sustenance and provision!
Jesus, always the master teacher, sets the scene in preparation for the miraculous sin when He asks Philip, “Where will we get bread enough to feed all of these people?” Philip replies that it eight months wages would not be enough even for each person to have a bit of bread!
Philip’s answer is like so many of our answers in the face of difficulty and challenge. Sure, his answer was accurate and perhaps he had even calculated the amount with fair accuracy. The trouble was that his answer was distinctly unimaginative. It is very often the case that our “realism” flies in the face of the gift of faith which we have been given. Faith’s potential and power in our lives is something so much great than optimism can possibly be or become.
Where realism only points out what cannot be done. Optimism’s great pitfall is its tendency to walk blindly while saying that it can all be done. Faith, however, looks at what God has done in the past and declares boldly, “He can do it again!” Faith looks at what God has said and shouts, “Surely God will live up to His word!”
Precious few bridges to opportunity are built on the back of realism. But faith is the bridge across doubt and trouble, built on the framework of God’s promises.
Where Philip speaks only the truth with a lack of imagination, Peter comes closer to faith in telling Jesus there is a little boy who has five barley loaves and two fishes. Peter, though terribly unsure of how this information will help, brings it to Jesus. We all do well to bring our fears, our doubts, our dreams, and possibilities to Jesus. Surely Peter had no idea what was about to happen next. Just as we don’t know what will happen next in our lives.
What a sight it must have been to see the disciples distributing the loaves and fishes. As they tore away a piece of bread and yet more remained. What an excitement must have swept through the crowd as the people realized what was happening. In John 6:14 is recorded the amazement of the people as they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is come into the world.”
In the next verse is recounted Jesus, knowing the intent of their hearts that they wanted to take Him by force to become their kind, retreated away from the masses. They wanted to take Him as king not because of His message but because of what He could do for them. Imagine a king who can do such miracles.
O how often do we, like that crowd, want to take Jesus away by force to be the kind of our own desire? How many in our day look unto Christ purely for what He can do for them in this life, rather than laying down their lives to Christ and declaring, “Take me a sinner and make me whole!”
Precious Saints of God, Jesus ultimate purpose in feeding the five thousand was not for the temporary satisfaction of physical hunger, although, as I have mentioned previously, God is concerned with such things. Jesus ultimate purpose in feeding of the five thousand is explained in the simply profound statement of John 6:35, “Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35 NIV)
Conclusion
Terry Bell relates a memorable experience: The year was 1969. It was my first “real” mission trip. I was in a little village in South India and terribly homesick. I was 20 years old and starving for a “good ole” American cheeseburger. I had not had one in 2 1/2 months. The land around me was semi-jungle, semi-bush. Tarzan would have felt right at home, but I did not. One boring afternoon I whiled away the hours by playing with the monkeys that forever enlivened our premises. Standing out on the balcony, I teased the little primate creeps by giving them dough balls made from a loaf of bread I was holding. A hairy hand (or is it a paw?) would reach over the edge of the roof, I would place a morsel in it, and like lightning, it was retracted to the squealing and grunting delight of his monkey-minded buddies. What a great game!
Suddenly I realized that on the street below my balcony a crowd had gathered. They were not nearly as entertained by this “monkeying around” as I was. One thin-faced, sickly looking boy looked up at me with bulging eyes. In broken English, he said, “Master, feed poor boys, not monkeys.” It was like a stab in the heart. In the street below were orphans, beggars, lepers … the off-scourings of humankind. Mothers and fathers who had starving children. Children who watched malnourished parents die. Parents who would watch their hungry children watching them die, knowing they left them to a miserable life on the streets. And there I was, playing games with the bread that for them was so precious. I was cut to the heart.
We, like those children playing the street are starving for the spiritual food which will nourish us unto eternal life! We, like those poor boys, desperately need the nourishment of the bread of life; Jesus Christ life through faith in Him.
And how many churches are they who sit in seats of padded pews week in and week out and feed the monkeys of our own making, rather than tending the needs of the poor boys of our streets?
Precious people of God, the feeding of the five thousand was a terribly costly meal, not because one little boy had to share his five loaves and two fishes, but because in the feeding of so many Christ taught us of the purpose of His coming into this world. He showed us that it would be His broken body that ultimately provides the eternal spiritual nourishment for which we all hunger.
O it is a costly meal because once we have eaten of the bread of life, once we have become partakers of the beautiful offer of the manna, the bread from Heaven, we must share such a meal with those around us. Even as we spread the message of Christ crucified for sin we must also lovingly share of our five loaves and two fishes with the starving boys of our streets; whoever they may be and whatever form they may take.
While we celebrate the broken body of our Lord in the Sacrament of Communion, it is in a life lived in likewise sacrifice, reflecting the love and grace of God in Christ, that our Lord is glorified and that we are satisfied fully, in Him! Amen.
