Trinity 7
Trinity 7 readings: Genesis 2:7-17; Romans 6:19-23; Mark 8:1-9
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God did not make us to be spirits only; He made us to breathe, breathing into our first father’s nostrils the breath of life. He also made us to eat, giving our first father the fruit of every tree of the garden save one, that man should learn how much good can come of obedience.
He made us to breathe, He made us to eat, and by these gifts from Him to live, as embodied souls – to live and not die. But the day is coming when we will draw our final breath, and we will no longer eat, but be eaten. An old word for a coffin is sarcophagus – lit., ‘flesh-eater’ – worms and maggots feasting on rotting flesh.
We don’t want that. We cannot bear the thought. So we embalm the bodies of our dead – to preserve a corpse! And then we purchase expensive coffins, with seals, to go inside expensive vaults, again that are sealed. But it is folly, a mass delusion. You cannot stave off death, you cannot prevent the eventual de-composure of your body.
And at some level, we all know that. That’s why we have junk drawers, it’s why we keep things “just in case,” and when we move, we wonder, “How did I accumulate so much stuff, and why did I keep it all?”
The answer is fear. We’ve accumulated not only things but wounds – broken bones and shattered relationships, dented cars and lost opportunities, harsh words that still ring in our ears, wasted time we will never recover. And so we cling to anything that can numb the pain, make us forget, make us feel good, make us believe that all is well with us. This is why the false prophets are described in Holy Scripture as preaching, “Peace! Peace!” when there is no peace.
But witness this crowd following Jesus. They have been with Him for three days. In the wilderness. Doing what? Listening to sermons. And they were so attentive to the Words of Jesus that they didn’t pay attention that they were running out of food. They’d been hearing Him say that although death had come to all men, because all sinned in Adam and all have kept on sinning and the wages of sin is death – despite all of that, God was at long last fulfilling His ancient promise to send a Redeemer, to remove the stain of sin, to give life in place of the death they all feared. He was telling them that they, poor lost sheep, have a Good Shepherd who will lay down His life for them. He was telling them that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. He was telling them they did not need to worry about what they would eat, what they would drink, what they would wear, for their Heavenly Father knows everything they need and will give them meat in due season.
But now, it’s been three days. They have almost nothing left. And they’re too far out in the wilderness to make it to a town before fainting from hunger.
They weren’t the first to be in such a pickle. The Jews who escaped Pharaoh’s clutches in Egypt were famished. But despite everything they had heard and seen from God through His servant Moses, they doubted. They complained. They wanted to go back to being slaves.
But we are told nothing of the sort about this crowd. Only that, when told to prepare for a meal, they sat down on the ground and waited.
The disciples doubt. Although they had seen the crowd of five thousand fed, they didn’t believe it would happen again. But the people sit down and wait. Passively. That’s the Gospel. We do nothing – nothing but receive. Jesus does the work. Always. For us. Even when it seems impossible.
But with God, nothing shall be impossible. He who created the world out of nothing, and made man from the dust of the earth – it is a small thing for Him to feed a crowd of four thousand men, plus women and children, with seven loaves of bread. And so our Lord Jesus Christ, on the third day, took bread and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to His disciples – and His disciples gave it to the crowd and said, “Take, eat. This is from Jesus.”
A greater miracle than that continues in our midst today. I’m excited to welcome two more disciples to the Lord’s meal today. He who can make seven loaves feed thousands, can be and is present with His body in the bread. And He gives to us this great Sacrament for the same reason He gave it to this crowd: He knows that we are dying, and without His help we will perish.
So first He preaches to us, calling us to repentance, showing us that the wages of our sin is death, but that we were not made to die, but for our bodies to breathe and eat and our souls to cling to God and receive His righteousness. And then He gives us what we could never obtain for ourselves. The wages of sin is death, but His gift in this Sacrament is eternal life: for whoever eats this bread will live forever, whoever eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks His blood will have eternal life, and He will raise them up at the last day.
And after this crowd is fed, He sends them to their homes. The same He does with us. For what purpose? We have been, as we heard in the Epistle, “set free from sin and have become slaves of God.” So we go to do our service to God by serving our neighbor, as a loving spouse, a protecting father, a nurturing mother, an obedient child, a caring nurse, an honest lawyer, an accurate engineer – in short, whatever serves your neighbor.
All that comes not from yourself, but from being with Jesus, from receiving His gifts. Apart from Him, you can do nothing. But you are never apart from Him. You are baptized! In Him will you live, in Him will you die, and His shall you be forever.
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