The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
In cultures across history, century after century, millennia after millennia, meals have been a central part of celebrations. Weddings, holy days, national holidays, funerals and more are all celebrated in part with a meal. A meal, you see, is a time to slow down and enjoy both what is being eaten and the people with whom the meal is being shared. The feast is also a central theme in the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments. The first covenant was celebrated with a feast in the presence of God on Mount Sinai, as the elders gathered on the mount with Moses to be addressed by God Himself. The New Testament was sealed with the meal of the Lord’s body and blood for the remission of sins. These feasts, you see, all pointed toward the final feast with God: the wedding feast of the Lamb in the heavenly realm. It’s prophesied in both Isaiah 25:6–8 and in Revelation 19:9 — the great heavenly banquet that is eternal.
In our study of the Gospel of Luke, we have seen that Jesus and table fellowship is a significant theme in the Gospel of Luke, as well as the other Gospels, by the way. And the table fellowship was a signal of the ministry of Jesus to sinners: prostitutes, tax collectors, those who needed the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. When Jesus multiplied the five loaves of bread and the two fishes, and the feast of thousands, we see another celebration centered in a meal. God, in the person of Christ, throws a banquet for that first gathering, the large congregation of the New Testament, on a mountainside. We see the outpouring of Christ’s love and compassion for His people by making sure they had their daily bread — an outpouring of both love and compassion for the people of God. We also see the delight that God takes in His people, and for His people, in His desire to have fellowship with us through a meal that He Himself provides. He gives, they receive. That is His greatest pleasure. For all the talk of the contemporary church about how we praise God, and we seek God, and we do this for God, and we do that for God — God’s greatest pleasure is that we receive the gifts that He gives to us in thanksgiving and blessedness.
By Mark chapter 6, life was now getting very busy for Jesus and His disciples. In last week’s Gospel reading, Jesus sent out the disciples two by two to go out and to preach the Gospel — the kingdom of God has come near — and to cast out demons, and to heal the sick with miraculous power. They did as they were instructed, and they were met with great success. This morning, the Gospel lesson begins where last week’s left off, with their return. The apostles gathered together with Jesus, and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. See, that’s the part of the great mission that has been mostly lost in Protestant churches around the globe. They don’t really think doctrine, teaching, is all that important. Emoting, feeling, “experiencing” is where it’s really at, in their view. It’s just that none of that has any language in the Bible whatsoever. The apostles gathered together, we’re told, with Jesus, and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. The disciples and Jesus had attracted a lot of attention in that first missionary undertaking in Galilee. So when the disciples returned back to Jesus to make their report, a great crowd had gathered and had followed them as well to the western seashore of the lake of Galilee, known as the Sea of Galilee. There were so many people that the disciples and Jesus were overwhelmed by their needs, by their pleas, by their desires. So, verse 31: “For there were many people coming and going, and they” — the disciples — “did not even have time to eat.” So it was time for a little R&R, rest and relaxation. So Jesus said to His disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” And they went away in a boat to a desolate place by themselves. Well, that was the plan. That was the goal. But that’s not what ended up happening. The crowd figured out what Jesus was up to and where He was going, and they made a mad dash up around the northern border of the lake to get to the eastern side of the lake. As the crowd hurried to the other side of the lake, why, the word spread about Jesus, the disciples, the miracles, and the like. And more people rushed to join the crowd. So no sooner had Jesus arrived on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus went ashore and was once again, verse 34, met by a large crowd.
Now, I wish I could say that those people followed Jesus because they hungered for a proper theological education rooted in the Bible’s two major things, the Law and the Gospel. But that’s not usually what people thirst for. That’s certainly not when they have a miracle worker amongst their numbers. The crowd generally followed Jesus because they were following after that miracle worker, not the theological professor of the Old Testament. Those are the smallest classes that are attended, generally speaking. They wanted relief from whatever ailed them, or whatever ailed one of their loved ones. And you know what? Jesus knew that. He knew they had a very utilitarian reason for following Him. We’re told in John 2:23 and 24 that many believed in His name when they saw the signs that He was doing, but Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people. In other words, He didn’t confide in them. He didn’t trust them. He didn’t naively believe that they were people of pure motives who wanted to learn theology of the Law and the Gospel, and to hear the grace of God spoken from Christ’s mouth. They followed Him because they wanted to get something back in return. They were hoping for a miracle in their own lives, in the lives of their families. They followed Him to get something temporal and physical, not a full-blown theological education of the Old Testament. And Jesus understood that. He knew what they really wanted, and He also knew what they really needed. And there was quite a difference between the two. They needed to learn what it meant to be children of the Heavenly Father, and what it meant for Jesus to bear titles like the Messiah, the Christ, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God. So when Jesus went ashore, He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things.
One of the late professors that I had, Professor Marquart, would often remind his students, including me, that sheep are sheep, and a shepherd is a shepherd, and the shepherd’s supposed to be the theologian and the teacher, and the sheep the hearer. Don’t expect the sheep to know theology thoroughly. That’s a rare creature these days. It’s a very rare creature, even among pastors, to actually know theology, and the right and wrong of what to say and not to say. It is here that Jesus has a deep-seated compassion for the people. The Greek word used here for compassion literally means to be moved in the inward parts. In other words, Jesus had compassion from the deepest depths of His soul. He really did feel for the people. He felt what they felt. Their distress was His distress. And that kind of compassion always moves a person to do something, to relieve, if possible, the suffering and the need of the other. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus saw a great multitude before Him of sheep, but sheep who were without faithful pastors — meaning pastors who didn’t know the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Moved by compassion, Jesus first teaches them the best kind of shepherding. He leads them to God’s truth, to a religion of grace and love and forgiveness of sins. He teaches them that the kingdom of God has come near to them, was with them and among them. Namely, He shows them that He is, in fact, their Good Shepherd, their promised Messiah. He fulfills what was written in Jeremiah 23:4, the Old Testament reading this morning: He will set shepherds over them who will care for them. We call them, at this point in Jesus’ ministry, the twelve disciples.
Verse 35: “And when it grew late, His disciples came to Him and said, ‘This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.'” They offer a practical suggestion to a very problematic problem. How do you feed 5,000 men, plus their wives, plus their children, in a desolate place? It’s an impossibility. So send them away, and they have to go forage and find food on their own. But Jesus’ reply to them is kind of surprising and shocking. He simply says, “You give them something to eat.” The response was something like this on the part of the disciples: “Feed them? Feed them with what? Should we drain all the money we have in our own financial resources, head off to markets, and spend all we’ve got on bread, and still come up short with people hungry?” And Jesus is replying, “Oh, feed them with what you have. Go count and find out what you have.” They come back, and all they have is five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus instructs the disciples to have the people gather in groups of hundreds and fifties, and have them sit down on the green grass. It was the first known church picnic. You know what happened next. And taking the five loaves and two fishes, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And He divided the two fish among them all. The people did as instructed, and Jesus provides for them a banquet in a desolate place. He takes the bread and the fish, and He gives thanks. He breaks the bread. He gives to the people, and they have more than they need. They all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men, plus their wives and their children.
The whole episode, you see, begins for one fundamental reason. Jesus went ashore, saw a great crowd, and had compassion on it, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things. Not a couple of things. He didn’t keep it simple, stupid. He taught them many things. He taught them the Law from the Old Testament, and He taught them the Gospel from the Old Testament. And He proclaimed Himself to be, in fact, the Good Shepherd, the one promised of old, and the prophet of Jeremiah. Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, stood on a grassy hill on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, the divine Shepherd, and He tended to the physical and spiritual needs of the flock. There, on that hill, the New Testament church gathered for the very first time. And as they gathered for the very first time, that large crowd, He fed them His table fellowship. For where the church is, is where the Word of God is rightly taught, the sacraments are rightly administered, and where the sheep hear what the shepherd preaches. Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them.” This was a few more than two or three, but it was the same fundamental theological truth in principle. Jesus gathered them, fed them, cared for them, gave them rest. Later on in His ministry, He would repeat this congregational gathering and give bread and fish to a crowd of 4,000 men, plus women and children. He’ll do it in the same kind of miraculous way. We call that one the feeding of the 4,000. It doesn’t get as much attention, but it’s recorded in Matthew 15:31–34.
The greatest gift, though, was yet to be given to that church, that New Testament church. That greatest gift would be given by the Good Shepherd, who is both the Shepherd and the Lamb. “I am the Good Shepherd,” Jesus said, John 10:11–15. “The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. But I am the Good Shepherd, and I lay down My life for the sheep.” On the cross, Jesus will give His life, not for just thousands on a hillside, but for billions and billions who would yet be born — the entire world. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” It is Jesus’ death on the cross that reconciles us to God, removes the sin that separated us from all God’s good gifts. It is the sacrifice of Jesus that invests the sacraments with their forgiving power and with His presence. This is what Jesus taught to His disciples and to those crowds that He ministered to in the New Testament. It’s because of Jesus’ reconciling work on the cross that we receive our daily bread and every earthly gift from God. That’s James 1:17, by the way: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” But we, we are starved by sin, scattered, harassed by the devil, and face our own death inevitably. We need far more than material bread and fish to save us. We need a meal that delivers the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, and connects us to the heavenly banquet. Peter would later write, “You were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” See, each and every time you come to church, you return to the Good Shepherd. You return to hear His words. You return to partake and to use your Holy Baptism, and to partake of the Lord’s Supper, of His body and blood. For He said, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And “whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.” Jesus promises and delivers eternal life, freedom from sin and the devil and death itself. Jesus promises and delivers comfort in time of need. God will wipe away all of your tears. “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water.” Revelation 7:17. “And they will neither hunger nor will they thirst anymore.” Here in this place, at little Immanuel Lutheran Church, Jesus the Good Shepherd calls you by name, provides you with a rich and blessed banquet, namely Himself. Jesus, who took bread and gave thanks, bound Himself to that bread, and broke it, and gives it to you, saying, “This is My body, given for you,” and “This is My blood, given and shed for you, for the remission of your sins.” And so it is. You’re here at the great table feast. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.