The Church
Season of Trinity
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland,
MI (July 22, 2012)
Readings: Gen. 2:7–17
Psalm
33:1–11
Rom.
6:19–23
Mark 8:1-9
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and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel
Lesson from the 8th chapter of St. Mark, especially the following
verse:
Mark
8:1-8
1 In those days, when again a great
crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him
and said to them, 2 "I have compassion on the crowd, because
they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3And
if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some
of them have come from far away." 4And his disciples answered
him, "How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate
place?" 5And he asked them, "How many loaves do you
have?" They said, "Seven." 6And he directed the crowd
to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given
thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people;
and they set them before the crowd. 7And they had a few small fish.
And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. 8And
they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over,
seven baskets full.
In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Jesus said, "I have compassion
on the crowd, because they have remained with me now three days and don’t have
anything to eat." The great crowd that followed Jesus seemed to be a very
foolish crowd. They didn’t plan out their itinerary properly. They didn’t pack
the right amount of food for their journey. They hadn’t thought about those
considerations. What was important to them was Christ, and Christ alone. They
wanted to remain with Jesus. Oh that it be that we would be so single-minded. That
when we are challenged to follow our Lord even in hardship, may we never turn
away for fear of hunger or want. In the midst of their hunger, Christ looked
upon the crowds as He looks upon us. He saw their need that they suffered for
His sake, and He was moved to compassion. His compassion is stronger and better
than anyone else's. Christ had a deep affection, a pity for the people, a
tender mercy toward their need. He acted upon that compassion by giving them
food in the wilderness, miraculously multiplying loaves and fishes.
But, were the disciples
compassionate? The text doesn’t make the content of their hearts clear. They
seemed confused, and didn’t understand how Christ could satisfy the needs of
all those people. But their lack of understanding didn’t mean that they did not
feel compassion. Perhaps they did.
Whatever pity they felt for the
crowds, it could not compare with the pure and perfect love of the Savior.
Without His love and power, their compassion, no matter how sincere, would be
unable to do anything. Yet Christ makes them participants in His merciful deed.
He gives them the loaves and the fishes to hand out. They become the
distributors of His miracle. They become the hands and feet for His compassion.
Surely there was no one among the
crowd who refused to eat the bread because they thought that the disciples weren’t
compassionate enough. Perhaps such people, if they existed, might even be
correct. The disciples surely didn’t have as much compassion as they should.
Yet the gift of Christ was real and miraculous nonetheless, and exactly what
these people. To refuse the gift of Christ because of what they supposed was in
the disciples' heart would be the greatest of foolishness.
No one has enough mercy in their
soul toward another. At our best moments, we feel for others and their needs,
and sympathize with their pain. But there is always impurity in us. We are
never loving enough. However glorious our emotions and works of charity may
seem to us, they are always spoiled and rotten because of our sinful nature.
May we never go
around judging each other's hearts as to how much love is there. We cannot even
see each other's hearts. Our motives are hidden from one another. Any attempt
to judge another person's emotions is automatically a breaking of the Eighth
Commandment.
Let us focus instead on the heart of
Christ. His heart is perfect. His compassion never ends and is never spoiled.
He always sees our needs and supplies exactly what helps us.
What may still
disturb us is that He gives His perfect gifts through other people. In our
Gospel text, He did not pass out the miraculous bread and fish, but assigned
the disciples to do it. In the same way, Christ gives us vocations in which we
are to work and serve. All of our vocations really amount to us carrying the
gifts of Christ to others. We become the hands of His compassion.
The most obvious vocation at this
moment is that of preacher. In my vocation, I am giving you the gifts of
Christ, which are perfect and wonderful, by proclaiming this Word. Christ
Himself does not appear before you to speak. Instead, He uses a man to do it.
Should you
inquire into my heart to see whether I have enough tender mercy? Save yourself
the trouble. Take my word for it. I do not have enough. My love falls short,
since my heart is spoiled by sin. This is not because I am a particularly evil
man. I am a man like any other. I am a sinner, right down to my heart.
But that does not matter in my
vocation. Although I should strive to love, my love is irrelevant to the gifts
that you receive. I am merely the man who carries the gifts to you from someone
else.
So the Word I
preach is the compassion of Christ. He is the miraculous Bread of Life that you
are fed. He gives strength to all who are weak and fainthearted upon this
wilderness of life.
See how great His tender mercy is!
He sees your greatest hunger, which is the hunger for righteousness. In
yourselves, you are empty and need to fill yourselves with holiness. But who
could get enough holiness to satisfy all these people? You cannot find holiness
for yourselves. You cannot buy it or produce it by your hard work. You cannot
trade anything for it. So you might have starved, completely empty of
righteousness.
Yet Christ has
miraculously produced the feast of righteousness that you need. He has given
you His Word that declares you righteous. This precious Word gives all you
need, because the Word gives you Christ Himself. He completely fills you,
because the holiness of Christ overflows with infinite grace.
Of course, bread is something produced
by death. The wheat must be plucked and crushed and ground and baked. So your
Savior was betrayed and scourged and crucified, and finally burned with a
baptism of fire upon the Cross. The wrath of God for sinful man fell upon
Christ, until He died in bitter agony.
Because of His suffering and death,
Christ has become the perfect Bread of Life for you. He is the righteous One
who gives you life. He stops the death of sin that would have destroyed you.
You would have been lost in a worse wilderness than any on earth, hotter and
more desolate than any desert, the very furnace of hell. But He Himself, Christ
your precious Savior, suffered that furnace in your place so that you never
will.
Yet Christ is more than a Savior who
died once for you, and now He is dead and gone. No, He is the Living Bread. He
is risen from the dead, and can never die again. So you also, who eat the
Living Bread by faith, are also immortal. You are alive forever with Christ.
Although your body may sleep in the ground for a time, it will also rise, never
to die again.
This is the Word
and promise of Christ the Lord for you. Let no one doubt it, for it is binding
to all eternity.
In the
Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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