Text: Mark 7:1-13
Date: Pentecost XIV Proper 16B + 8/26/18
In our walk through Mark’s Gospel this year, a few weeks ago we left Jesus and the crowds in a desolate place just after He had fed the 5,000 from only five barley loaves and two fish. Then we invited the Evangelist St. John who told us everything else Jesus said on that occasion. For Jesus preached to them explaining the full significance of the miracle they had just experienced. Continue reading “The Written Law of God”
Text: John 6:51-69
Date: Pentecost XIII Proper 15 + 8/19/18
John 3:16. God so loved the world.
In God there are two kinds of love. The first is His ineffable delight in His whole creation when upon its completion He declared it very good. God created everything reflecting His own perfection. Continue reading “God So Loved the World”
Text: John 6:35-51
Date: Pentecost XII Proper 14B + 8/12/18
We come to the second third of Jesus’ famous Bread of Life discourse. In the first third we saw God as giver of everything we need for life. As His highest gift He gave His Word, His Torah through His servant Moses. So also was His Word given through Jesus. As He gave quail and manna to His people of old in the exodus through Moses so now He gave bread and fish to the more than 5,000 who were following Jesus through a desolate place. The important difference between Moses and Jesus however is that Jesus is the Word of God and Jesus is the Bread of God, and not in just a metaphorical sense but in reality, in the flesh, with both feet firmly planted on the ground, the Incarnate Word. After years of wondering I am glad to say that I have finally sided with the early church fathers, Luther and those to this day who “in, with and under” these words identify eucharistic meaning to them. When Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh,” He spoke not only of faith in Him and His words but also of a real eating with the mouth, as real as the loaves and fish they had just feasted on, as real as the lamb eaten at the annual Passover Seder, as real as the sacrifice in His flesh on the cross for the life of the world. Continue reading “Real Eating”
Text: John 6:22-35
Date: Pentecost XI Proper 13B + 8/5/18
Do you say Luther’s Prayer Before Meals? It’s in the Small Catechism. You can see it now on page 327 in Lutheran Service Book. It begins by quoting Psalm 145. “The eyes of all look to You, [O Lord,] and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing;” then the little prayer, “Lord God, heavenly Father, bless us and these Your gifts which we receive from Your bountiful goodness, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.” At first it looks like this prayer is only talking about food for the body. But notice the psalm says, “You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.” Our desires include much more than for food but also things like those listed in the meaning of the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” “a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.” In a similar way the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel at first seems to only be talking about food for the body. But as we shall see Jesus uses the feeding of the 5,000 and the metaphor of food in a much deeper way. Continue reading “God the Giver”
