The freedom that comes from the Bread from heaven

Sermon for Laetare – Lent 4

Galatians 4:21-31  +  John 6:1-15

You all remember the story from the Old Testament when Moses handed down God’s Law from Mount Sinai and sealed with the people of Israel the covenant under which they would live for the next 1,500 years, the covenant of the Law. Do you remember what happened not long before the children of Israel reached Mount Sinai? Well, about two months earlier, they had celebrated the first Passover, when God spared the Israelite children from the plague of death that struck the firstborn of Egypt. The Lord led them miraculously through the Red Sea. And then, when they grew hungry on their journey to Mount Sinai, the Lord rained down that special bread from heaven that they called “manna.” A sign of His goodness, a token of His care, an incentive for Israel to embrace the covenant He was about to make with them, because He is a good God who cares for us poor sinners. And that bread was also a daily reminder that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

When did we hear those words last? Well, it was just three weeks ago on the first Sunday in Lent, when Jesus was forced by His dear heavenly Father to spend forty days in the wilderness without eating any bread at all. And the devil tried to take advantage and tempt Him. Forty years God provided bread for the children of Israel, while His beloved Son was allowed to suffer hunger.

Then, in today’s Gospel, we see Jesus not allowing His followers to go even one day without bread. Instead, He provides for them miraculously. Once again, Jesus suffers what He doesn’t deserve to suffer, but freely gives gifts to those who don’t deserve the gifts.

It’s a simple account. John tells us that the Passover was near. So the people of Galilee already had to be thinking about their plans to make the annual journey to Jerusalem, to commemorate the God’s redemption of Israel from Egypt, and the wilderness wanderings, and the manna, and the covenant established through Moses at Mount Sinai. With those things at least in the back of their minds, the people had spent the day with Jesus, listening to Him and being healed of their diseases. He had compassion on them, because it was growing late and there was nowhere to get food in the place where they were. So before they could even notice their hunger, Jesus had His disciples search for some food for the people, and they only came up with five loaves of bread and two fish—not nearly enough to satisfy 5,000 men, plus women and children. But Jesus blessed the bread and started handing it out to His disciples, who then handed it out to the people. And the bread and the fish just kept being handed out in that fashion until everyone had enough. And more than enough! They collected twelve baskets of leftover pieces.

And so, again, we see the kindness and goodness of Jesus, His desire and His ability to provide for those who follow Him. We see His divine power. We see the same God who provided bread from heaven to Israel now here in the flesh, still providing free gifts to His people. Who wouldn’t believe in this Man who is God? Who wouldn’t want Him for a Savior?

But John’s Gospel ends this account on a sour note. When the people saw the miracle Jesus had done, they said, “This man truly is the prophet who is to come into the world!” But Jesus knew that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, so he departed again to the mountain by himself, alone.

What happened? How did the people go from thankful and amazed to the conclusion that they should grab Jesus and force Him to be their King?

Well, this highlights one of the two errors that Israel fell into over the centuries. Throughout much of the Old Testament, they rejected the God who made the covenant with them through open idolatry, turning away from His covenant openly, openly worshiping idols, outwardly disobeying His commandments, not fulfilling their end of the covenant while still expecting God to fulfill His end.

There were still some in Israel who lived like that at the time of Jesus, but for the most part, Israel had fallen into a different error. While outwardly showing great zeal for the covenant God made with them on Mount Sinai, they inwardly put their trust in themselves and their works, in their circumcision, in their obedience to the Law, in their descent from Abraham. They thought, we’ve kept our end of the bargain. We’ve done our part in the covenant. We’ve kept the Law. Now God has to do His part. They still looked for the Christ to come, but not to save them from sin, death, and the power of the devil. They wanted a Christ who would be an earthly King, someone who would make all sorrow and sickness vanish for them, someone who would conquer their earthly oppressors, someone who would satisfy their bellies and make their lives comfortable and make their nation glorious. Isn’t that what the covenant of Mount Sinai was all about?

No. It never was. What few realized at the time of Christ was that the Law given on Mount Siani was pointing them away from the Law, to the salvation that the coming Christ would bring because of their disobedience to the Law. Everyone’s disobedience, from the open idolaters to those who simply trusted in themselves. The Law pointed ahead to its own fulfillment and to its own replacement, to a new covenant of grace and forgiveness of sins. The Law was there to guide them to Christ.

And so, about a year before fulfilling the Law and instituting that New Covenant in His blood, Jesus performed a miracle similar to the miraculous feeding of Israel in the wilderness. He fed the hungry people of Israel with bread, a sign of who He was—the same God who provided manna in the wilderness. A sign of His care and compassion, of His goodness and love, a sign that a New Covenant would soon be instituted, a sign that they should put their trust in Him, not only for their bodies, but also for their souls. That was the intended message behind the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus is the Prophet, the promised Messiah, who will save you from your sins.

But because the people were still in love with the Old Covenant, the message they received was: We should take Jesus and force Him to be our King, to provide earthly peace and comfort and security. We don’t need a Savior from sin. We don’t need a new covenant.

And the result? Jesus left those people behind. He departed again to the mountain by himself, alone.

This is what St. Paul was referring to in today’s Epistle. The people of Israel who rejected Jesus as the Christ who would offer Himself as an atoning sacrifice to save them from their sins—those people were actually enslaved under the Old Covenant. They pretended that they were keeping the Law, but they didn’t really read the Law or listen to it, because if they had, they would have recognized that their thoughts, words, and deeds were impure, that they had broken God’s Law and deserved only His wrath and punishment.

But Christians know and believe that Christ Jesus has freed us from the condemnation we deserve by suffering, not what He deserved to suffer, but what we deserved to suffer. We believe that Christ Jesus has freed us from having to “keep our end of the bargain,” because we can’t keep the Law as it must be kept in order to earn our salvation by it. We believe that we are saved by faith alone in this good and gracious Savior, who provided the sacrifice for our sins. And we don’t look to Him to take away all our problems and struggles in this world. We look to Him to help us through them, to provide the relief that we need, when we need it, even as He once provided bread in the wilderness to His followers. And we look to Him to bring us safely into His heavenly kingdom, and to the resurrection of the dead, when He will take away all our problems and struggles.

Until then, hold onto the freedom that comes from faith. Hold onto Christ as your Redeemer who loves you. Hold onto the Sacraments, where Christ gives you both forgiveness and strength to live a new life. Live in the freedom of the children of promise. Not free to sin, not free to treat people badly or free to ignore the Word of God. But free to serve your neighbor in love. This freedom from the Law, this freedom from salvation by works, this freedom through faith in Christ, is also the freedom to serve God without fear and to love freely, even as you have been freely loved. May Christ, the true Bread from heaven, keep you firm and steadfast in this faith and in this freedom, by the power of His Holy Spirit. Amen.