Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Lent 2

27 Feb 2024

Text: Mark 6:35-56

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Jesus has been teaching, and has amassed a crowd of five thousand men, plus their families.  They have been enthralled with His Word for hours.  “When it grew late,” the disciples propose that Jesus break up the meeting and “send them away into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”  Our Lord has a better idea: “You give them something to eat.”  This is so typical of our Lord.  It sounds like a joke.  But it isn’t. 

Jesus has been undoing all of the curses of Eden, one by one.  He casts out demons.  He drives out sicknesses and raises the dead.  And here, he attacks the curse of scarcity: the ground itself producing “thorns and thistles” and being stingy with its fruits, and Adam’s curse: “by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.”  In the post-Eden world, demand outpaces supply.  Food is scarce.  We have to buy it.  It is a matter of labor and trade.  On this day, as thousands hear the Word of God, there are no trees bearing fruit effortlessly as in the garden.  The people must trade their labor for bread, and they must go away from hearing the Word of God in order to feed themselves. 

But Jesus came to return us to paradise.  And He gives us a glimpse into a post-scarcity world to come, one where there is no more need to trade one’s sweat for the stubborn fruits of the earth, mixing in even more labor to make a little bit of bread, just to stave off starvation and death for another day.  That is not how God made us to live.  Jesus has a better idea than sending them away to purchase bread: “You give them something to eat,” He says to His disciples.  For in a post-scarcity world, bread will be so common that it will not be a commodity of trade.  The disciples suggest that the people “buy.”  Jesus suggests that the disciples “give.” 

The disciples are dumbfounded.  There is so little for so many.  And, of course, our Lord miraculously multiplies the loaves and fishes, feeds the multitudes, and “they all ate and were satisfied.”  In the post-scarcity world, satisfaction replaces starvation.  And not only were their needs met, there were “twelve baskets” of leftovers – one for each of the Twelve.  For their ministry will be to likewise distribute the Bread of Life, including the Meal that began at the Last Supper: the body and blood of Jesus, that they and their successors will miraculously multiply for multitudes numbering in the billions across centuries of time.

For the bread that Jesus gives “for the life of the world is [His] flesh” (John 6:51).  The kingdom Jesus establishes has no starvation, only satisfaction, no “thorns and thistles” (Gen 3:18) but only God’s providence, no sickness and no death (Gen 3:19), but only everlasting life, and no serpent to deceive us with “Did God actually say?” (Gen 3:1), but only the Word Himself, delivering on His promises, rolling back the curses of Eden, and supplying us with superabundance, as His gifts to us never run out.  There are always twelve baskets of His grace left, no matter how much grace we have received. 

Multitudes today continue to need the Word of God.  For this is still a “desolate place,” and indeed, “the hour is late.”  People continue to struggle with sin, death, and the devil, with scarcity and sickness, and with their need to be fed.  Jesus continues to say to His church today, “You give them something to eat.”  This is indeed typical of our Lord.  It sounds like a joke.  But it isn’t.  Thanks be to God!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.