Sermon Tone Analysis
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COMMUNION SUNDAY: Give us this day PART TWO
FEEDING OF 5000: on of John’s signs (not just sharing)
IMAGINE: To have been there
Word spreads through the crowd: “5 loaves, 2 fish”
See? Hear?
Smell?
For once—Taste?
How would you feel?
Before the miracle?
During the miracle?
How about after the miracle?
How would you feel then?
What would be going through your mind as you sat there on the grass, enjoying how it feels to be full and satisfied, watching the disciples of Jesus gather up the leftovers: enough to fill 12 baskets!
Then the whispers start echoing through the crowd, building into murmurs and then rumblings…
“This must be him!
The prophet we’ve been waiting for!”
And as the excitement grows, you see people making their way towards Jesus with a determined look in their eyes.
They want to declare him king and get about the business of restoring Israel.
Then…just like that…he’s gone.
Jesus has slipped away.
And you’re left there with a huge multitude of folks.
A bunch of excited, confused, but at least not starving folks.
And again the question: How would you feel at this point of the story?
As this remarkable day draws to a close.
Let’s keep reading…picking up the next day (2 verses early)
[JOHN 6:22-35]
So the very next day this same crowd that had been fed by the loaves and fish start wondering just what’s happened with Jesus.
They’re confused, because they know that only one boat had been there, and only Jesus’ disciples had taken it across the lake.
He had not been with them.
Of course, the readers of John’s gospel know that Jesus had taken another way across the lake--the little-known footpath—but this crowd doesn’t know that.
But they do know that he’s been hanging out in Capernaum, so when boats become available, they make their own way there.
And sure enough, that’s where they find Jesus, and they greet him with a petulant, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
It seems like such a simple, innocent question.
“When did you get here?”
And yet it’s a question that leads to a teaching of Jesus that has been called some of the most profound in all the gospels.
It’s rooted in Jesus’ razor-sharp insight into this crowd and their true motives, and his crystal-clear understanding of himself and what he offers to humanity.
There is so much here in these few words Jesus speaks that reveals him for who he is…and also unmasks us for who we are.
Because, truth be told, we don’t need to use a lot of imagination to see ourselves in the crowd of John 6.
Their reactions are typically human, rooted in the same frailties every one of us knows from time to time.
Just like so many in Scripture before them, even after they experience the power of God in a significant way…almost immediately they just don’t get it.
And I don’t know about you, but I can identify with that.
Even the disciples, as close to Jesus as they are, struggle with the same kind of misunderstandings, confusion.
and short-sightedness.
And here Jesus uses the misunderstanding to offer them…and us…a powerful image of who he is and what he came to do.
“Rabbi…when did you get here?”
the crowd asks.
They start their question off with a word of respect, calling Jesus their teacher.
But Jesus knows their desire to be with him is based on more primal urges than the quest for knowledge.
“You’re here,” he says, “not because I filled your minds, but because I filled your bellies.”
“You want another free lunch.”
Jesus sees right through them and identifies them for what they are:
Consumers.
They’re only interested in Jesus because of what they think they can get out of him.
And isn’t that still our struggle sometimes today?
Aren’t we tempted to approach Jesus as some sort of divine Father Christmas whose primary purpose is to meet our felt needs?
Sad to say, but the church in recent decades hasn’t done much to dissuade us from that kind of thinking…
…in fact a lot of times the church has promoted that kind of thinking, offering a narcissistic approach to faith that focuses more on what we think we need than it does on what God desires for us.
Because sometimes what we think we need is the last thing we need, and sometimes what God desires for us is not something we’re willing to accept.
And as long as we are stuck in consumer mode as Christians and as a church…
…we will never thrive.
“Don’t work for food that spoils,” Jesus tells the crowd.
“Don’t focus on such minor, temporary things.”
The Apostle Paul will echo Jesus’ words in his letter to the Colossians when he writes: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
“Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
I have to be honest, the first time I read this passage I chuckled out loud because I never expected to encounter the phrase “seal of approval” in the Bible.
I associate that with Good Housekeeping (UK? Queen?) more than I do with the God of the universe.
But it’s a good image, in the Greek more of a verb than a noun: “For him God the Father…has sealed.”
Not in the sense of sealing something shut (kitchen), but in the sense of an important letter from the king upon which he has placed his seal as a way of authenticating the message it contains.
One of the coolest gifts Sharon and I ever received was from a dear friend in Scotland who knew of our fondness for ancient things…
So as a parting gift to us when we were moving back home he gave us a beautifully preserved wax seal that had been on letter from the 14th century sent by the abbot of a Scottish abbey.
It’s a fascinating thing to look at, to hold something in your hand that’s 400 years older than the nation where I was born.
Seals like this were used to prove that the message you received came from who they claimed to come from…and that’s the meaning of Jesus’ words here.
God himself has placed his seal on Jesus, he has authenticated his ministry.
He did it at his baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I’m well pleased.”
And he did it every time Jesus performed a miracle, just like the crowd had seen the day before.
These clearly show that Jesus is no mere rabbi, more than a wise carpenter or sage philosopher, he is the one sent from God himself.
And we should pay attention to what he says.
God says that pretty directly at another moment of authentication, the transfiguration, when he declares, “This is my beloved Son—listen to him!”
Because what Jesus says—what Jesus offers—is far richer than whatever we might gain from all these other pursuits.
What he offers is better than food for our bellies, it’s food for our souls.
Food, Jesus says, that “endures to eternal life.”
And what Scripture makes clear is that this kind of spiritual food should be our foremost pursuit.
Not that this means we’re just meant to fill up our lives with Christian activity.
When Jesus says, “work for food that endures to eternal life,” it seems the crowd really only hears one word of that: WORK.
Immediately their thoughts turn to what they need to DO for God.
“What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Interesting wording there.
What must we DO to DO the WORKS God requires.
I looked it up in the Greek, and it’s an accurate translation.
More literally, “What should we DO to WORK the WORKS of God?”
I don’t want to read too much into that, especially since the crowd wouldn’t have been speaking Greek, but I think John is capturing the mood and feel of their question…and their hearts.
They’re focused on activity, they’re associating the kind of full and abundant life Jesus is talking about with the things that they can do to earn it.
But Jesus stops that thinking in its tracks: “The work of God,” he says, “is believing in the one God has sent.”
He takes the emphasis off of DOING and onto BELIEVING, off of WORKS and onto FAITH.
I often talk about the dilemma I’ve seen a lot over 25 years or so of pastoral work.
Although to be honest I’ve seen it most in myself.
It’s the sad truth that for many Christians, we grasp the reality of salvation by grace through faith…that it has nothing to do with us and what we do but with Jesus and what he’s done…
…we grasp that initially…but then we so quickly fall back into the trap of legalism and works.
As if God give us a ticket to heaven for free but then we have to earn everything else.
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