Genesis 2:7-17/Romans 6:19-23/St Mark 8:1-9
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is a lesson in contrasts. The lush grandeur of the garden described by Moses in the Old Testament reading and the harsh scarcity of the desolate wilderness from the Gospel. In the garden there is superabundance of provision. For out the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for good. But in the wilderness there is no beauty, no abundance; only lack and want, only the real problem of starvation and death.
There is one constant between these two opposites; one static variable; one unchanged reality: the presence of the Lord. In the beginning He created out of love and compassion. So too in the Gospel reading, our Lord Jesus has compassion on the crowd. In Genesis the Lord’s compassion moved Him to act in creation, in the formation of the man of dust, in breathing the life-breathing breath into him. So now, in the Gospel, the Man of heaven, the Lord God in the flesh, has compassion on the crowd and it moves Him to act; to feed them, not only on bread and fish, but to give them the wholesome loaves of His Word and promises.
Yet even with the constant of the Lord’s mercy, the situations could not be further apart. In the Garden there is not only beauty, but perfection. The man of the dust is holy and without sin. He bears the perfect image of the Lord God, formed after His likeness. He lived in perfect obedience, a slave of God.
But not as one who is bound and chained against his will. Slavery to the Lord is of another kind altogether, bearing none of the horrible connotations and terrible afflictions of slavery as we have known it in history. Just listen to the picturesque way in which St Paul describes slavery to God: freedom from sin; a righteousness leading to sanctification; eternal life as free gift. Who would scoff at such graciousness and refuse such treatment? Who would reject the great compassion of the Lord?
You. You have followed in the way of Adam and Eve. You are the man of dust, taken from the ground to which you shall return. For you have presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. But we have abandoned the work of the Lord and chased after our own labors. We have sought to fill our bellies with food that does not satisfy - with the pleasures of the flesh, gluttonous for the rotten fruit of lust and greed. We thirst not for righteousness, but vengeance and revenge, harboring grudges and spreading gossip. We hunger not for peace, but ache for hostility and seethe with anger. I tell you the truth, the end of those things is death. Our labor is useless and in vain. In the end we shall collect our wages, the due payment for our sins: death.
And so here we are. A great crowd, gathered together with nothing to eat. We have worked our fingers to the bone and yet our hands are empty. We have nothing to show for our labor. We cannot find our way back to the Garden. Just as the crowds could not feed themselves, but Christ Jesus had compassion on them and gave them nourishment; just as the slave cannot release himself, but one must absorb his debt and set him free, so we cannot work our way work our way to heaven, but “what mercy God showed to our race, a plan of rescue by His grace: in sending One from woman’s seed. The One to fill our greatest need” (LSB 561:3).
In His great compassion for you, Christ Jesus came down from heaven and took up the dust of your flesh by being born of the Virgin Mary. He presented Himself as a Slave to righteousness, perfectly fulfilling the command of God His Father. As it is written, The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mk 10:45). Trusting in His perfect life for you, by faith in His innocent death on your behalf, you have the free gift of God, the forgiveness of sins; and where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation.
And where there are these, there is the compassion of the Lord to care for the physical needs as well. That is to say, where the Church is, where the Word is preached rightly and purely, there is mercy, there is charity and compassion.
For Christ did not leave the crowds to fend for themselves in the desolate place. He works for them, on their behalf, for their benefit. And by His Word He multiplied loaves and fishes to feed four thousand people. And note this: there is an abundance - seven baskets full - left over. For with our Lord’s Gospel forgiveness there is always an abundance, always more than we either expect or deserve.
And He who breathed life into the man of dust, He who fed the four thousand, is the same One who comes to you here. For in the midst of the wilderness of this desolate world, our Lord has planted a garden, a small oasis of respite and refreshment: His Church. And the Tree of Life is here, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in our midst. The fruit of this Tree - His Word and Baptism, His Body and Blood, and the forgiveness of sins, are here for you to eat and be satisfied.
And just as the crowds were nourished and He sent them away, so does He do for you. Even from the earliest days the Church has seen in the miracle of the bread and fish a foreshadowing, a symbol of the great mystery of Holy Communion, bread and wine, our Lord’s Body and Blood. He spreads this bounteous feast before you and bids you come and eat, receive from His hand food for your body and for your soul.
And then, having cared for you, He sends you away, back out into the wilderness of this life. But you are not alone and you are not without provision. You have Christ. You have His Word in your belly. You have His promise of forgiveness in your pocket. You have the oasis of His Church within the desolate place of this fallen world. Return here often. For His compassion never ends and His bounty never runs dry. There is more than enough for you, more than enough for four thousand people, enough for all. For He gives grace upon grace; overflowing.
And so it is, dear ones, that in Christ you rest from your labors. You are given rest from striving and wrestling to work your way to heaven; He has come down and given it to you as gift. You are freed from your former slavery to impurity and lawlessness. In Christ, baptized into His death and resurrection, you have become slaves of God. And you use your freedom to serve your neighbor in compassion and love; caring for their needs of body and soul.
You may not have a great crowd around you on the brink of starvation, but with the daily bread with which you are fed, you feed your neighbor. With the daily forgiveness of sins in which you live, you forgive your neighbor. You family, your church, your vocation, this is the garden into which our Lord has placed you to work and keep. Not for merit or heavenly gain, but as the natural fruit produced from being formed in the image and likeness of the new Man, Jesus Christ, and given the breath of life through the absolution of His Holy Spirit.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is a lesson in contrasts. The lush grandeur of the garden described by Moses in the Old Testament reading and the harsh scarcity of the desolate wilderness from the Gospel. In the garden there is superabundance of provision. For out the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for good. But in the wilderness there is no beauty, no abundance; only lack and want, only the real problem of starvation and death.
There is one constant between these two opposites; one static variable; one unchanged reality: the presence of the Lord. In the beginning He created out of love and compassion. So too in the Gospel reading, our Lord Jesus has compassion on the crowd. In Genesis the Lord’s compassion moved Him to act in creation, in the formation of the man of dust, in breathing the life-breathing breath into him. So now, in the Gospel, the Man of heaven, the Lord God in the flesh, has compassion on the crowd and it moves Him to act; to feed them, not only on bread and fish, but to give them the wholesome loaves of His Word and promises.
Yet even with the constant of the Lord’s mercy, the situations could not be further apart. In the Garden there is not only beauty, but perfection. The man of the dust is holy and without sin. He bears the perfect image of the Lord God, formed after His likeness. He lived in perfect obedience, a slave of God.
But not as one who is bound and chained against his will. Slavery to the Lord is of another kind altogether, bearing none of the horrible connotations and terrible afflictions of slavery as we have known it in history. Just listen to the picturesque way in which St Paul describes slavery to God: freedom from sin; a righteousness leading to sanctification; eternal life as free gift. Who would scoff at such graciousness and refuse such treatment? Who would reject the great compassion of the Lord?
You. You have followed in the way of Adam and Eve. You are the man of dust, taken from the ground to which you shall return. For you have presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. But we have abandoned the work of the Lord and chased after our own labors. We have sought to fill our bellies with food that does not satisfy - with the pleasures of the flesh, gluttonous for the rotten fruit of lust and greed. We thirst not for righteousness, but vengeance and revenge, harboring grudges and spreading gossip. We hunger not for peace, but ache for hostility and seethe with anger. I tell you the truth, the end of those things is death. Our labor is useless and in vain. In the end we shall collect our wages, the due payment for our sins: death.
And so here we are. A great crowd, gathered together with nothing to eat. We have worked our fingers to the bone and yet our hands are empty. We have nothing to show for our labor. We cannot find our way back to the Garden. Just as the crowds could not feed themselves, but Christ Jesus had compassion on them and gave them nourishment; just as the slave cannot release himself, but one must absorb his debt and set him free, so we cannot work our way work our way to heaven, but “what mercy God showed to our race, a plan of rescue by His grace: in sending One from woman’s seed. The One to fill our greatest need” (LSB 561:3).
In His great compassion for you, Christ Jesus came down from heaven and took up the dust of your flesh by being born of the Virgin Mary. He presented Himself as a Slave to righteousness, perfectly fulfilling the command of God His Father. As it is written, The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mk 10:45). Trusting in His perfect life for you, by faith in His innocent death on your behalf, you have the free gift of God, the forgiveness of sins; and where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation.
And where there are these, there is the compassion of the Lord to care for the physical needs as well. That is to say, where the Church is, where the Word is preached rightly and purely, there is mercy, there is charity and compassion.
For Christ did not leave the crowds to fend for themselves in the desolate place. He works for them, on their behalf, for their benefit. And by His Word He multiplied loaves and fishes to feed four thousand people. And note this: there is an abundance - seven baskets full - left over. For with our Lord’s Gospel forgiveness there is always an abundance, always more than we either expect or deserve.
And He who breathed life into the man of dust, He who fed the four thousand, is the same One who comes to you here. For in the midst of the wilderness of this desolate world, our Lord has planted a garden, a small oasis of respite and refreshment: His Church. And the Tree of Life is here, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in our midst. The fruit of this Tree - His Word and Baptism, His Body and Blood, and the forgiveness of sins, are here for you to eat and be satisfied.
And just as the crowds were nourished and He sent them away, so does He do for you. Even from the earliest days the Church has seen in the miracle of the bread and fish a foreshadowing, a symbol of the great mystery of Holy Communion, bread and wine, our Lord’s Body and Blood. He spreads this bounteous feast before you and bids you come and eat, receive from His hand food for your body and for your soul.
And then, having cared for you, He sends you away, back out into the wilderness of this life. But you are not alone and you are not without provision. You have Christ. You have His Word in your belly. You have His promise of forgiveness in your pocket. You have the oasis of His Church within the desolate place of this fallen world. Return here often. For His compassion never ends and His bounty never runs dry. There is more than enough for you, more than enough for four thousand people, enough for all. For He gives grace upon grace; overflowing.
And so it is, dear ones, that in Christ you rest from your labors. You are given rest from striving and wrestling to work your way to heaven; He has come down and given it to you as gift. You are freed from your former slavery to impurity and lawlessness. In Christ, baptized into His death and resurrection, you have become slaves of God. And you use your freedom to serve your neighbor in compassion and love; caring for their needs of body and soul.
You may not have a great crowd around you on the brink of starvation, but with the daily bread with which you are fed, you feed your neighbor. With the daily forgiveness of sins in which you live, you forgive your neighbor. You family, your church, your vocation, this is the garden into which our Lord has placed you to work and keep. Not for merit or heavenly gain, but as the natural fruit produced from being formed in the image and likeness of the new Man, Jesus Christ, and given the breath of life through the absolution of His Holy Spirit.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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