Laetare Sermon 2024

Laetare (Lent IV)

St. John 6.1-15

10 March 2024

Have you forgotten what it means to be a Christian? Being a Christian is more than membership in a congregation. Being a Christian is much more than having a culture, heritage, or a code of ethics. Christians are disciples, literally students. The student follows where the Teacher leads.

Today’s Gospel begins with many disciples; there is “a great multitude [following Jesus].” But by the end of the same chapter, after Jesus teaches about the Supper, almost everyone turns around and stops following Him. They loved the loaves, they marveled at the miracles – but they could not stomach His teaching. American Christianity preaches a gospel of success; Jesus is the giver of health and wealth.

But when the cross comes, it’s very tempting to turn back and follow Him no more. What about you? Have you been following Jesus as His disciple, or are you really following your hopes and aspirations? Have you been ruled by His Word, or ruled by your passions? Have you nurtured others, or nursed your grudges? Do you confess your own sins, or find it easiest to judge others?

The call of Jesus comes to you again today: “Follow Me!”

Lent puts us on the road with Jesus, following Him to the cross. It’s two more weeks to Palm Sunday. We’ll sing “Hosanna!” and wave our branches. But will we be following Jesus? Or will we be following Peter, denying Jesus when there is opposition? Will we be ready to pull out our swords and fight? Will we follow Judas, selling out before checking out, warped by our greed, then destroyed by our despair? “Follow Me!” says our Lord. Where?

“The Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.” Again and again, St. John mentions the Passover. John is driving home this point: Jesus is the true Passover, He is the Lamb slaughtered for our guilt; His blood marks our door, staving off death. As the Passover began the Exodus, Christ our Passover summons us out of bondage to a different kind of life with Him.

But it’s tough on the way. It seems we lack resources.

“[Jesus] said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?’ But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.” God tempts no one. But He does allow us to be tested. Why? The testing reveals our true fears, our true loves, what we truly trust. Do you fear, love, and trust in God above all things? God’s testing shows us the poverty of our discipleship. Money is not our real problem. This test reveals that to Philip.

“Philip answered [Jesus], ‘Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.’” Do you see how Philip thinks? It is a mathematical problem for him, a financial calculation. Philip has forgotten to look first to God for his daily bread. God made the world from nothing, but that’s an abstract doctrine, not something to be trusted when the bank account is running low.

Today’s Gospel teaches us to not make money the main concern. It’s not our work that produces anything. Our money is nothing to God. The love of it is a root of all kinds of evil. This Gospel teaches us to say, “Give us this day our daily bread, for without You, O Lord, our labor is in vain. We have nothing apart from Your generosity.”

Like Philip, Andrew also lost confidence in Jesus: “Andrew … said to [Jesus], ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?’” “What are they?” He saw their limited resources as insufficient and insignificant. The human perspective is often the opposite of reality. What seems significant is not; but what seems insignificant is the space God works.

We look for significance in money, numbers, fame, and good looks; but God works through the insignificant and foolish, the mundane and ordinary. By His Word, God makes ordinary things extraordinary. By His Word, God makes simple things holy. Yet Andrew still sees according to the eyes of unbelief. He looks at the crowd, then looks at the five loaves and two small fish and says, “What are they?” ‘It is impossible.’

But with Jesus all things are possible. “[He] took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.’” The earth was first made fruitful by the Word of the LORD. These loaves and fish are multiplied by the spoken Word of the Lord. As true Man, Jesus takes the bread and gives thanks to the Father; as true God, He feeds His people. The God-Man, Jesus Christ, stands as the Mediator between God and men. This is His everlasting work for us – to stand as our own High Priest, our go-between with the Father. He prays for us, intercedes for us, dies for us, atones for us, and at the last, will bring us through death and the grave and present us to His Father holy and spotless, giving to us eternal life.

That is the One we are following. What He puts into our hands is sufficient. As we give it away, it does not diminish.