The Bread of Christ

Jesus feeds the Multitude

Now I assume, and maybe I shouldn’t, that we all know either the story of Jesus feeding the 4,000 or the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Now in Mark 6:30-44 we see the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, and in Mark 8:1-10 we see Jesus feeding the 4,000. Now I don’t want to take a lot of time so I’m going to give you a summary of what you need to know from those stories, and they’re pretty similar.

The people came to hear Jesus preach, and when they became hungry Jesus had compassion and told his disciples to feed them. and they were confused because they didn’t have enough bread to feed such a large crowd. So, Jesus told them to take the bread they did have; which for the 5,000 was about 5 loaves and 2 fish, and for the 4,000 they had 7 loaves and a few fish. Then in both instances, Jesus prayed over the meal they handed it out among the crowd, and after handing out the bread they found that they now had 12 baskets full of leftover bread and fish from feeding the 5,000 and 7 baskets full from the 4,000.

That’s absolutely amazing and part of what makes these stories crazy is the inability for the disciples to understand that Christ can do this at will. both times they question Jesus asking, “Jesus how are we going to feed such a large crowd with such a little amount of food.” and even after this they still didn’t understand.

Open up to Mark 8:14-21, now after feeding the 4,000 and 5,000 Jesus and the disciples got into a boat and started sailing, and Jesus started to teach them.

Mark 8:14–21 ESV

14 Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

You can almost hear the frustration in Jesus voice. He cares so much for his followers and wants them to grow in their understanding of his teachings, and yet they continue to see things from a worldly perspective.

I’ve read this story plenty of times and I always tend to focus on the response of Jesus to the disciples worrying about the bread. But the whole misunderstanding comes from the very important and essential lesson that Jesus was trying to teach them in Mark 8:15

Mark 8:15 ESV

15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

Does anyone here know what Jesus means by Leaven?

In terms of bread making, when something is leavened it means that the Yeast which they put in the bread dough is expanding and causing the bread dough to rise. There’s a bunch of science behind all that but we’re not going to get into that. but what’s important to understand about this is that it only takes a little bit of yeast to cause bread to rise. But we’ll come back to the yeast...

When Jesus is talking about bread in this teaching he’s not talking about physical bread, he’s making an analogy. So when the disciples respond to Jesus’ statement in V.15 talking about physical bread Jesus looks at them and says, “why are you discussing the amount of bread we have? don’t you understand that this isn’t about bread.”

He’s not trying to tell the disciples not to eat the bread of the pharisees he’s saying beware of the “leaven of the pharisees and of Herod” and if we look at Matthew 16:5-12 which is a parallel passage to this one, we will see not just the leaven of the pharisees and Herod but also the Sadducees.

So this is what we need to figure out, what does the bread represent, what does the leaven represent and what do the pharisees, sadducees, and Herod represent.

So open to 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

1 Corinthians 5:6–8 ESV

6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I was doing a bunch of research on the science of bread making while preparing to write this sermon, and Im sure some of you have mastered the craft. However, my wife and I decided to take on the challenge this weekend and it’s fascinating to see how essential the yeast that you add is. If you don’t get the yeast right or if you mess with the yeast it will ruin the whole loaf… The yeast after all is what leavens the bread.

So when we think about this analogy we see that the leaven of the pharisees, sadducees, and herod, have a huge impact on the bread. and this is what 1 Corinthians 5:8 is talking about here. “The leaven of malice and evil”. and then it tells us what the bread is, “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” and so the picture comes together. What Jesus was trying to tell the disciples was beware of the influence you let apply to the truth of Christ.

What’s Ironic about this is Jesus is saying the bread of truth is is life giving and shouldn’t be leavened by the world around us, and right after he tells them this thy start think in a worldly way.

But here’s the thing, It’s easy for us to point and laugh at the disciples for not understanding, but they didn’t have the Holy Spirit instructing them, or Paul to spell it out clearer. but we do and guess what even with the Holy Spirit and even with Pauls explanation, we still let the world influence how we see Christ’s truth.

Christ list 3 people groups to be concerned about, does anyone remember who those groups were?

Pharisees

Sadducees

Herod

But like I said before these 3 people groups all represent something larger. So let’s take some time to discuss what these larger groups are and how they leaven the truth. Let’s start with Herod.

Herod

Herod was the son of Herod the Great and was the man who had John the baptist beheaded. Now Herod was the face of government in Judaea. So, Herod’s Leaven would be considered the Leaven of the government.

So how do we let the government leaven Christ truth. Now I will not get political, but there are laws in place like separation of Church and state which make it so that Christ truth can not be taught in school. In Canada, they have passed a law which prohibits any person or organization to profit from the practice of attempting to convert those who are homosexual. and if you do you can receive a large fine or serious jail time.

So we are faced with this situation; The bible tells us to go out into all the world making disciples and being a light in the darkness, and yet the government tells us that we can only do so where they say it’s okay. And in many ways we are content doing just that, because we don’t want a fine or to get in trouble. So we look at the command of Government and the command of Christ; Keep Christ truth out of school, out of the homosexual community, etc. But Christ tells us share the truth with everyone even in the face of oppression and persecution. We underestimate the power we allow the government to have on our personal faith. Now let’s move on to the pharisees.

Pharisees

So the Pharisees were the large religious party of Jesus’ time who’s key role was to see that the law was upheld, and this led them to be very legalistic. So they were very strict that every law needed to be followed, even to the point where it became damaging to people.

When I think of Legalist today, in many ways I think of those in the church. There are some churches and some believers who become so focused on tradition that it takes away from the truth of God. and I can think of hundreds of ways the church does this. We have to worship to this kind of music, our worship service has to be done in this order, we have to be dressed up for church, the pastor must be dressed up.

would you have a problem if I preached in shorts and a t-shirt? would you have a problem if we did communion at the end of service, what if we put all the chairs in a big circle and taught like it was one big discussion. there are certain things that if we’re honest with ourselves can hinder us from knowing God’s truth. It doesn’t matter what kind of music we worship to, it doesn’t matter how we dress, it doesn’t matter what order we do things during the service, what matters is that we come together as Jesus instructed and worship him. and there are a great number of ways that we can do that.

Hallelujah, Amen?

It makes me think of when Jesus called the pharisees white washed tombs, because though they looked nice on the outside they were dead on the inside. what matters is where your heart is at in worship not how worship is done.

Sadducees

But at the same time Jesus calls out the Sadducees. Not a lot of people know the difference between pharisees and sadducees. and the main difference is that the sadducees rejected spiritual and supernatural things. They didn’t even believe in the afterlife. So they picked from the law what they wanted to believe. Many have described this group as liberal. Rightly so they have allowed the truth of the old testament to be influenced in a way that leads them to reject an afterlife.

Just like it’s possible for us to be too strict with our traditions it’s also possible for us to be to free in thinking that Christ truth doesn’t matter at all.

For example, I would argue that taking communion every week is an essential part to fellowship and worship. and some churches don’t take communion more than once a month, sometimes once a year. I also think that it’s important to teach what’s in the bible and not to teach things that can’t be found in the bible or things that oppose the bible, there are a lot of churches out there today which teach that homosexuality isn’t a sin, and happiness is more important than Christ truth. There are certain things which we shouldn’t be willing to sacrifice.

So let’s review, cause we have covered a lot of information in a short amount of time. What does Herod represent? Government. What do the Pharisees represent? Legalist. What do the Sadducees represent? Liberalist.

That being said what does the bread represent? The Truth. What does the Leaven represent? That which influences the truth. I really love the analogies that Christ uses, because they help us to paint such a nice picture of his truth. I want us to read that last passage in 1 Corinthians 5:8 again

1 Corinthians 5:8 ESV

8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

We must protect the gospel, the truth of Christ from the influence of the world. How many of you have heard this said, “I believe in God and scripture I just don’t agree with all of it.” They believe it’s the word of God that is without failure and yet they pick and choose what to believe in it. or who has ever heard this, “If you don’t read the KJV then you’re not reading the true scriptures” Or how about, “Church should stick to themselves and government stick to themselves”

Do you understand the dangers of allowing the truth of Christ to be leavened by the world. If it sounds like I just keep repeating myself it’s because I am, they say repetition is the best teacher and I really want this to sink in.

Let’s again read Mark 8:14-21

Mark 8:14–21 ESV

14 Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

The unleavened bread of Christ comes in abundance, what i mean is just like Christ took the 5 loaves of bread and turned it to 12 baskets of bread, his truth also is freely given to us with no limit. We need to value the truth of God, we need to value the teachings we find in these scriptures. Alice and I were talking this past Sunday and she made the point that people have taken the Holy out of the Bible, what she meant by that, is people don’t value the scriptures as the word of God, as the eternal truth. I firmly believe that if we did recognize the bible as the word of God, we wouldn’t struggle to take time to read it everyday, or to follow it’s commands.

Let us keep the unleavened bread of Christ Holy and pure, and the best way to do that is by reading the bible and not allowing our emotions or how we feel it should say, or allowing the wacky interpretations people are coming up with today, influence it.