TITLE: “Jesus Satisfies the Hungry Heart”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for this morning is the Gospel lesson just read, the feeding of the 4000.

They had been at it for a long time.  Jesus was with a great multitude in the wilderness, and He was preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God and the forgiveness of sins through His upcoming death and resurrection.   For three days He had been preaching to them.  He looked out on these masses of people hungry to hear God’s Word, and then said:

I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar. (NKJV)

What does it mean to have compassion?  In Greek the word literally means that his innards, his guts were moved to help them.  Jesus’ compassion for the people, though, does not simply mean He has sympathy for them, or that He feels bad for them because they didn’t have enough to eat.  No, His compassion for these people moved Him to do something.  It moved Him to not only feed them with the Word of God, but to take care of their physical hunger as well.

Now let’s consider these people in the wilderness for a moment.  They had come out to the wilderness to hear Jesus preach and teach to them.  They had been at it three days, and it is Jesus who feeds them.  They didn’t ask for it.  He gave it to them.  They are embodying the words of Jesus from Matthew, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Contrast this with our own attitudes toward hearing God’s Word.  The way that you and I live and work is generally quite simple: you do what you need to do to make money, eat and have a roof over your head, and maybe a good car or truck.  After that, we see what God might have to say to us.  Christ and His Word rarely have much priority in our lives.  The Catechism says that we should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.  We may despise preaching and His Word by staying away from church, by coming and not paying attention, or by thinking that we know everything and don’t need God’s Word except when it’s convenient.

This is perhaps the most clear here in the summertime.  Attendance at church goes down by about 35%.  Now I would like to think that everyone who goes on vacation is going to church somewhere else on Sunday.  I’m sure that many do, but at the same time, many do not.  Many of us take a vacation from hearing God’s Word.  It’s important, but it’s only important when it’s convenient for me.  I like going to church and receiving Christ’s body and blood, but as long as it doesn’t interfere with my weekend plans, or my sleep schedule, or whatever else it may be.

This attitude is, though, how we basically would like to view God.  God will fit into my schedule.  He will work in this box, and if it costs more than that, takes a little more time, or just doesn’t seem to work quite like I would like it, well, forget it.

It really goes back to the Garden.  In our Old Testament reading we heard how God placed Adam and later Eve into the Garden of Eden to tend it and take care of it.  This Garden had food of every kind from the trees.  They were beautiful, and wonderful to eat.  This was how God made the Garden.  But there was one tree they were not to eat from.  They were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.  This tree was not good for them to eat.  This fruit would not bring life; it would bring only death and misery.

You know what happened.  Eve ate from that tree.  Instead of hearing God’s Word and trusting in His mercy, she chose instead to go her own way.  And Adam went with her.  They refused to hear the Word of God, and so their priorities, indeed their whole life changed.  And it wasn’t for the better.

Now what does that have to do with our Gospel lesson and Jesus’ compassion on the multitudes?  The connection is this.  The multitudes weren’t in the Garden where everything was good and perfect.  They were in the wilderness, in the desert of their sins and death.  They had heard the message from Jesus that Paul says so well in our Epistle reading; The wages of sin is death.  In the desert they saw the wasteland of their sin for what it was: separation from God and from His good gifts of life and forgiveness.

But in this wilderness where they were there was a difference.  They were in the presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  And what was amazing was that it was like the Garden of Eden was being reversed.  They heard the Word of God, and even though they were in the wilderness, it didn’t matter.  Jesus words were like the richest feast they ever had.  As we sang in the hymn, You satisfy the hungry heart.  Jesus’ Word was so rich that they forgot to eat for three days!  They stayed with Him for three days, like Jesus lying in the tomb for three days, and came out victorious at the end.  Jesus recognized that if they were left to their own devices, they would faint on the way home.  He couldn’t simply toss them out, no; He was their God, for both their bodies and their souls.  Jesus fed them.  Creation was coming back together.

Now what does this have to do with you?  My friends, this has everything to do with you.  We live in the wilderness, in the desert of our own sin and self-destruction.  This is the place where we dwell.  There are troubles in your life and mine that are beyond our own ability to deal with.  We are, as St. Paul said, dead in trespasses and sin.  That is the wage, which is what we have earned because of our sin and hatred toward God.  But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Jesus gives you life.  A life full of promise and hope.  In the desert of our sin He has set a feast before us that is greater than anything we can imagine.  I have people ask me from time to time why we go to church.  Well, we go to church because this is where God preaches to us and brings us back from the dead.  We go to church because Christ longs to forgive your sins and feed you with His very body and blood.  We go to church because that is who we are.  The very word “church” means “called out”.  We have been called out of the desert and wilderness of sin.  Christ Himself gathers us around His very body and blood week after week after week.  This gives you the strength to go on.  This gives you the faith to look beyond yourself and your own problems, and see all the wonderful things Christ our Lord has in store for you.

Jesus Christ satisfies the hungry heart.  He feels your soul with His very body and blood.  He feeds your body by giving you a job and a place and family to take care of you.  You are in His hands.  Why?  Because He is the creator of heaven and earth.  He is the ruler over all things.  He is the one who can satisfy your deepest needs.  As long as you try and satisfy yourself with the pleasures and things of this world, you will be disappointed.  Jesus is the only one who can satisfy the longing in your heart for something greater than yourself.  He has compassion on you, and gives you life, because He fills you with Himself.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.