Ruth and Jonah (Midweek Lenten Worship, Part 4)

[Below, you'll find the live stream video of the midweek Lenten worship service of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio for March 30 and the prepared message for the service. I hope God blesses you through His Word here.]



Jonah 2-3

Tonight, two themes will take our attention: the sign of Jonah and God’s call to a life of change.

Jonah is the only Old Testament prophet to whom Jesus compares Himself. Jesus was and is both God and human. Jesus is sinless. Jonah, by contrast, was a sinful man. When God called Jonah to rise and speak God’s Word to the Ninevites in the kingdom of Assyria, he ran in the opposite direction. When God the Father sent Jesus to die for our sins, Jesus was “obedient to death—even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8) It would be hard to find an Old Testament prophet less like Jesus than Jonah. Yet when a Pharisee asks Jesus to show a sign of His deity, Jesus says, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40)

What is “the sign of the prophet Jonah” exactly? Jesus’ resurrection is one part of the sign of Jonah. But so is death. Jonah prays to God in tonight’s lesson: “From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help…” (Jonah 2:2) In the belly of the fish, Jonah was at first, as good as dead, with no reason to think he could survive such an ordeal. And, Jonah was as good as dead because he had sinned against God. “The wages of sin is death.”

Like Jonah, Jesus has died for sin. The difference is that while Jonah would symbolically die before symbolically rising from the belly of the fish for his own sin, Jesus would actually die before actually rising from the dead for our sin. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says of Jesus: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” God has gone to the lengths of enduring death itself to reach us with His forgiving love. Do you want to see what God is like and how much He loves you? Look at His death, when like Jonah, buried in the depths of the sea, God the Son lay dead in a tomb for your sin. This is the sign of Jonah that Jesus gives to us.

In our reading from Jonah tonight, we see that God didn’t give up on Jonah or on the people of Nineveh. He wanted to call them to repentance and faith in Him. In the belly of the fish, Jonah repents for his rebellion against God and “​​the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” (Jonah 2:10) God delivers Jonah from death for a reason. Jesus has also delivered you and me from sin, death, and eternal separation from God for a reason. 1 Peter tells baptized believers in Christ: “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” Those are blessed things to be; but then Peter tells us why God, through Christ, makes us a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” It’s this: “...that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:10) Faith shared, grows; faith unshared is stuck in perpetual immaturity, likely as not to die. God saved Jonah from death in the deep not just to save Jonah, but also so that Jonah could take life with God to others. In Christ, God has saved you and me to do the very same thing in our world and in our time, not as an obligation, but as a joyous privilege.

And so, saved from death in the deep, Jonah becomes the only prophet in the Old Testament that God calls (or has to call) twice. God once more tells Jonah: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” (Jonah 3:2) God doesn’t say, “All right, Jonah, go to Nineveh and get it right this time.” When God forgives our sins, it’s as if they never happened. Forgiving Jonah, God again sends the prophet on his mission to the Ninevites.

Over the course of several days, Jonah delivers God’s message to the Ninevites: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:4.) The original Hebrew in which Jonah is written literally says, “Forty days yet and Nineveh shall be neh·pā·ḵeṯ.” That last word can be translated as overturned. But it can also be rendered as changed. God’s message to the Ninevites was, “In forty days, CHANGE is coming!” This isn’t much different from our message as Christians to the world, “When Jesus comes back, things are going to change. We can be on the right side of that change with Jesus or we can be on the wrong side of the change against Jesus.”

The Word of God that comes to the Ninevites through Jonah is both Law and Promise. The Law says, “God condemns your sin and without repentance, you won’t like the changes coming.” The Promise, like the Gospel that comes us through Jesus, tells the Ninevites, “When you repent and believe in God, there will be a change in your relationship with God. And when you believe in God, He will set out to change you to be more like Him.”

In ancient Israel’s history, God had sent prophets to His own people, the Jews, and their calls for repentance and faith were often rejected, the prophets killed. But: “The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” (Jonah 4:5) Later, the king himself will repent and believe in God and say, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” (Jonah 3:5)

The trusting attitude of the Ninevites is remarkable! They repent and believe in God. They accept that God is entitled to bring any changes to their lives He wants.

Change, in fact, is the essence of the life of faith in God. When we live in daily repentance and renewal, we accept that God is likely going to make changes in our daily lives. He’s going to call us to do things we don’t want to do, to change the ways we think about other people. We will either curse the changes that God brings to us, as Jonah did when God wanted him to change from being a prophet just to his own people and to reach out in love to people he hated as well, or we will embrace God and trust Him through all the changes that He calls us to make in our lives. Friends of ours had a negative view of people who came to America from other countries. But when God called them to help their local church teach English to immigrants who spoke Spanish and Arabic, they didn’t run in the other direction like Jonah. They embraced the call God placed on their lives. It meant changes in their lives. Big changes. But it has also brought them the joy that always belongs to those who are open to the changes God wants to bring to our lives. How is God calling you to change your life tonight?

The Ninevites trusted in God. “When God saw what [the Ninevites] did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened,” Jonah 3:10 tells us. God loves to destroy our old sinful ways of thinking and living and forgive us, then sets us free to live out the lives He is daily changing, to face the new callings He sets before us each day.

While the repentance, faith, and life of God-driven change we see in the Ninevites inspire us, Jonah presents a different story. More on that as we conclude our series next week.

When the cross answers our prayers

[This is part of the journal entry from my quiet time with God yesterday morning.]

Look: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered…” (Hebrews 5:7-9)

The passage goes on to say that because of His humble submission to the will of God that He, as the perfect Son, would die on behalf of sinful humanity, would become our great high priest, able to give new life to all who believe in Him. (This is similar to what Paul talks about in Philippians 2:5-11.)

But what strikes me about this passage is that it affirms that because of Jesus’ “reverent submission,” His prayers were heard. Apparently referring to Jesus’ anguished prayers at the Garden of Gethsemane, the preacher in Hebrews says that Jesus “offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death.”  At Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

The question that occurs to me is: Were Jesus’ fervent prayers offered in humble submission heard by the Father?

One answer is that, while Jesus had asked to be spared “the cup” of suffering and death, He had also submitted to the Father’s will. In that sense, His prayer was answered. I think that this is a good explanation, but maybe, incomplete.

Today, this passage from Hebrews, which I’ve read many times, for the first time, suggests another answer to me. It’s this: The only way for Jesus or us to be “saved...from death,” the very thing for which Jesus prayed, is to go through death. Had Jesus skipped death and accepted whatever temporal power the world and the devil might offer Him, He would have been condemned to everlasting, final death. (And destroyed our hope for new life with God in the bargain.)

Although, Jesus, like any normal, sane human being, didn’t want to suffer or die, He understood that the way of life is the way of the cross. It’s only when the power of sin over our lives is extinguished that we can have life.

Jesus’ prayers were heard, including those for salvation from death. Thank God for that!

Listen: The clear implication for me in my daily life is to daily submit to the crucifixion of my old self so that Christ can save me from death. It means facing the fact of physical death with confidence, knowing that I must die to all pretense of being “like God,” while submitting to the God I know in Christ, to have a share in the victory over sin and death Jesus won on the cross. That’s part of what Jesus is talking about when He says that we’re to take up our crosses and follow Him.

In daily submitting myself to God through Jesus, I’m asking God to do His will in my life, to save me from death by killing off everything about me that isn’t of Him. Because the wages of sin is death, I know that for God to save me from death, I will go through death, beyond which is a perfect life with God, without sin or death.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Servant Leadership

[This was shared during the Service of Installation for Pastor Dwight Hanson as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Eaton, Ohio.]

Mark 10:42-45
Recently, someone asked me whether the term “Christian leader” wasn’t an oxymoron, an internal contradiction. 

The question wasn’t unreasonable. After all, Jesus, the One we confess as our Lord and God, was a servant “Who,” [according to Philippians 2, despite being] in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant...he humbled himself  by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” This, the apostle Paul tells us, is how you and I are to be with each other in the Church, humble servants (Philippians 2:5-11).

Is it possible then for anyone to be a servant and a leader as a Christian? 

In Romans 12, Paul gives a list of seven spiritual gifts God grants to individual Christians for the benefit of the church and how the people given those gifts should use them. “If [your gift] is to lead,” Paul says, “do it diligently.” So, it appears, one can be a Christian and a leader. (Romans 12:8)

The reason that the phrase Christian leader may seem like a contradiction, I think, is that we get confused by what the world says a leader is. The world tells us that a leader is a kind of dictator who always gets his or her way. 

But even without delving into the Bible’s understanding of leadership, the world’s definition doesn’t pass muster. A friend of ours, General Curtis Scaparrotti, the son of the congregation I formerly served in Logan, Ohio and today the commander of NATO, once told me that even a general must rely on more than power to lead people. You can hold a title, but you only earn the right to lead others by being a servant. Leaders never ask those they’re called to lead to do things that they themselves are unwilling to do. And so when he was second in command in Afghanistan, General Scaparrotti regularly jumped out of aircraft with his paratroopers. Friends, nobody is worthy of designation as a leader who is not first of all, a servant.

That’s why I was happy to see the lessons from the Bible chosen for Pastor Hanson’s installation. It shows that he has a healthy, Biblical understanding of what it means to be a Christian leader who is a servant and disciple of Jesus Christ!

Our gospel lesson, Mark 10:42-45, teaches us all what it means to be a disciple and a leader in Christ’s Church. Just a few verses before, Jesus has told the disciples that soon, in Jerusalem, He’s going to be rejected, arrested, crucified, buried, and then, raised by God the Father. According to the gospel of Mark, this is the third time that Jesus told the disciples about His impending cross. They’re at least as oblivious this time as they were the previous two times. They don’t even react to the prediction. The idea that the Messiah--the Christ, God’s anointed King--would be overcome by opposition is so foreign to them that Jesus’ prediction of a cross doesn’t compute. “There He goes again,” they may have thought.

Just how little they thought of Jesus’ words can be seen in what happened immediately after He spoke them. Two of the twelve, James and John, brothers, make a request of Jesus: When He becomes king in Jerusalem, they want to become His right- and left-hand men. The vision that James and John, and apparently the other ten apostles, have of the kingdom Jesus has come to bring to earth is pretty much the same as all the other kingdoms in the world, only with Jesus and them in charge. They envisioned a reign in which they would have a piece of power, prestige, and patronage.

It’s in the midst of this confusion that Jesus brings clarity about what life in His kingdom is all about. Take a look at our lesson, starting at verse 42: “Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”

“The Gentiles, the pagans, the people who don’t know God or His amazing grace,” Jesus is saying, “have their own ideas about what it means to be important, to be a leader. They go around barking orders, always seeking to get their way.” But this is not how it is when you belong to the God we know in Jesus Christ.

This God sets free all who dare to trust in Jesus Christ, the One Who bore our sin and the punishment for it we deserve, death, so that when He rose from the dead, He could offer new and everlasting life to all who repent and believe. The only sermon given by Jesus that is recorded by the author of today’s gospel lesson, Mark, is contained in just one verse. Jesus says, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) That’s it!

We can do nothing to make ourselves fit for life with God. We can’t be good enough, influential enough, enough of a big shot, enough of anything. Only Jesus Christ and our faith in Him can make us fit for His kingdom. Only Jesus can justify sinners and make them forever new. And Jesus’ salvation can come to all kinds of people when they daily believe in and follow Him: big shots, little shots, no shots. 

So, in the Kingdom of God, there’s no reason to push or shove. When I trust in Jesus Christ, I already have the kingdom of God and because of that I can be a servant, accepting whatever role that Christ has given to me. When you know you belong to the King of all creation, you’re not particularly concerned, as James and John were, with the seating arrangements. And speaking only for myself, I would say that in light of what a sinner I know that I am, I’m so content to be a saved child of God that I have long been cured of any human desire to be a big shot. That’s what it’s like to belong to a servant Savior in Whose kingdom the first are last and the last are first.

Because we know how much God loves us and all that He has done for us in the crucified and risen Jesus, the Christian can dare to pray the most revolutionary of prayer petitions, “Thy will, Your will, and not mine, be done, O Lord.” 

That’s the prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray, of course. But, servant-leader that Jesus is, it’s also the prayer He offered in the garden as He prepared to go to the cross for you and me and for all who, without a relationship with Jesus, would face a Christ-less eternity. 

Jesus has the authority to tell us to fall into the arms of God the Father because He dared to do just that on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday! 

And, Pastor Hanson, you will have the authority to call this people to follow Christ when they see that you, however imperfect and human you are, seek to follow Christ yourself.

Dear people of Grace Lutheran Church, you’ve waited a long time for this day. I’ve been following your journey and praying for you and I know how difficult it has been for all of you. But God has blessed you with a servant leader. He clearly understands what it means to be a Christian leader. 

• I ask you to pray for him and honor him for what he is for you, a gift from God. I ask you to pray for Kelly and him as they adjust to their life in a new place. 
• I ask you to take it upon yourselves to be servants of Christ in serving and working alongside them. 
• I ask you to honor his work here, the same work which the young pastor Timothy was reminded to do in our second lesson: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

Pastor Hanson, I ask you to be a servant of Christ to these people and this community as you seek to be faithful to the Lord Who has set you free from sin and death by grace through your faith in Him and has brought you to Grace Lutheran Church.

Galatians 3:28 tells us that in Christ’s Church, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Understanding that the only way to freedom from sin, death, and darkness is in following Jesus Christ as the Lord over our lives, Martin Luther once remarked that, “a Christian...is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian...is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”

In the freedom that comes from belonging to Jesus Christ for all eternity, I urge you, people and pastor, not to be afraid to serve each other, to pray for each other, to listen to each other, to worship together, to confess sin and be absolved from sin together, to work together, to witness together, doing all of this knowing that while you may differ in the functions to which God has called you in Christ’s Church, you do not differ in status. You are all redeemed children of God called to join together in telling the whole world the good news of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ.

God has called this congregation and this pastor and his wife together in partnership for one purpose and one purpose only: to be and to make disciples of Jesus. Dear servants of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen One, since that is your one and only mission: Have at it! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

[Welcome to Pastor Dwight Hanson, installed today as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Eaton, Ohio. The clergy of our Southwest Ohio Mission District are incredibly supportive of one another and a contingent was able to be present there today. Clergy l to r: Brian McGee, Dean Haferman, Heidi Holst, Alan Knoke, Dwight Hanson, me, David Matevia, and Marv Hileman. (Thanks to my wife for snapping the pic.)]

The Freedom To Act

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on Sunday, July 22.]

Mark 6:30-44

The story of Jesus’ feeding miracle, the subject of today’s gospel lesson, is so well-known to us that we may not confront two important questions I want to address this morning:

• First, did it happen? 
• Second, what difference does it make?

You often hear people question whether Jesus performed the miraculous signs attributed to Him. Some even question whether there actually was a person named Jesus of Nazareth. 

On this latter point, you only have to turn to the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus. Josephus wrote major works on the history of his people. He wasn’t a follower of Jesus. But in his history of the Jews, Josephus talked about Jesus: How Jesus won a large following with His preaching and teaching, how the movement that gathered around Jesus continued after His crucifixion. Even today, historians consider Josephus a credible source, his histories being constantly proven by new archaeological discoveries.

But did Jesus actually perform this notable miracle? 

Consider this: All four of the gospel writers include a narrative of this amazing event in their books. When Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John published their gospels, many eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were still living; such eyewitnesses could have corrected misimpressions they thought were in the gospels. But they didn’t. Early second-century church leaders also wrote of speaking with eyewitnesses, people who told them how Jesus performed this miracle. So, I think that we can confidently say that Jesus fed a horde of people in a miraculous way.

So, what does it mean? 

What does it mean for us? 

To answer those questions, we need to look at the incident more closely. Please take a look at the lesson, Mark 6:30-44. It begins: “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”

This is the only time that Mark uses the word apostles. It’s a Greek compound meaning sent ones. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus has sent out the twelve to preach, teach, and perform signs. They’ve been working hard. 

But Jesus now wants them to get some quiet time to reflect and rest. We all need time to rest, recharge our batteries. And, as believers, we need time to reflect through prayer and the consideration of God’s Word. We need these things because, as our lesson shows us, such quiet time can be hard to come by. Life gets in the way.

Verse 32: “So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”

When Jesus and the twelve crossed the sea, they learned that the Jesus groupies had beaten them there. 

But Jesus wasn’t angry. He had compassion for them because they were like aimless sheep who had no leaders. 

Of course, they had political leaders, like Herod Antipas. But Herod’s recent execution of John the Baptist showed that he and his henchmen were really about themselves. 

They had religious leaders, too. But they were, as their conspiracy with Herod and Pilate would soon prove, in league with the self-seekers in the government. 

Neither Herod nor the priests nor the scribes nor the Pharisees were authentic leaders. They were pretenders.

In a sometimes frightening world, people crave leadership. We want--we need--someone to show us the way through the challenges of our lives. 

There are always would-be dictators and authoritarians offering counterfeit leadership, of course. They're people who seek and keep power by telling us that what’s bothering us is not them or us, but all those other people out there: Samaritans, Romans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Egyptians, the others. 

The only real leader this world has ever seen is Jesus Christ. Jesus led not with an iron fist, but with compassion. 

Paul says of Jesus that “being in very nature God, [He] did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,  in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11) 

The only leader the Christian has is Jesus Christ. 

And the only kind of earthly leader we should follow, even as we pray that God would guide all leaders, both the authentic and the pretenders, is a person who follows Jesus Christ. 

The fact is that we all need the one true leader, the one true God in the flesh, Who has died and risen for sinners like you and me--because of the compassion He has for each one of us--so that when we trust in Him, we have a life with God that will survive this world and can never be taken from us!

Verse 35: “By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. ‘This is a remote place,’ they said, ‘and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’ But he answered, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?’”

The apostles are thinking, “Hey, what about our quiet time, Jesus? We have some wowser stories to tell you about our preaching and casting out demons and stuff. Send this crowd home, Lord!” They make it sound that they’re concerned for the crowds when they tell Jesus that if He sends them away, they can go get something to eat. But Jesus tells them simply: “You give them something to eat.”

This is a word to today’s Church, to you and me. 

Are you concerned about the millions who don’t yet have an eternal relationship with the God we meet in Jesus? Give them something to eat; share the gospel, pray for people to share the gospel with people who will go to hell without a saving relationship with Jesus. 

Are you concerned about an injustice? Then do something about it. Don’t wait for a church program. Don’t wait for the pastor. Follow your leader, Jesus. Allow the compassion He planted in your life to be expressed. 

You have Jesus’ permission to be compassionate. 

In fact, you have His command to be compassionate. 

Pray. Serve a neighbor. Write an email to a public official. Work at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen. Volunteer for one of our ministries. Join a group.

“You give them something to eat,” Jesus says. You be about your mission as a Christian. Jesus died and rose to set you and me free from sin and death to do just that while we walk on this earth. It’s one way we can give Him thanks and glory for His grace.

After the accounting department reported to Jesus that, among the crowd, they could only find five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus demonstrated what a servant leader does with the compassion for others that God stirs in believers.

Jesus had people sit in groups of hundreds and fifties, just as Jethro told Moses to organize the people of ancient Israel facing the frightening uncertainties of the wilderness centuries before. Then, Jesus has the disciples distribute this food. We’re told that this throng ate “and were satisfied.” There were even twelve baskets left over. 

And then, Mark writes this: “The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.” (Mark 6:44)

This last verse is significant for two reasons: 

• (1) 5000 is the number of men in a Roman legion of soldiers; 
• (2) Because there were women and children who were fed that day, Jesus fed many more than 5000.

What does this tell us? 

The first thing it tells us is that there’s a place for military might in our fallen world. Not everyone trusts in Jesus and so, doesn’t have the power and impulse for love that Jesus plants in His disciples. That's why in this fallen world, God rules in two ways: by grace in the lives of those who trust in Him, by governments in the lives of those who don't trust in Him. Christians acquiesce to God's ordination of governments for the good of their neighbors. (This all describes Martin Luther's two kingdoms understanding of the Bible's teachings on these matters, by the way.)

A friend of mine, General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, commander of NATO, is originally from Logan, Ohio and a son of the congregation I formerly served as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. In the Army, his nickname is Scap, but those of us in Logan knew him as Mike. I got to know him on his visits home. He's the kind of commander who never asked those who served under him to do anything he wasn't willing to do, like jumping from airplanes in Afghanistan and Iraq when he was a two-star general. Mike is performing an essential service, leading American forces in, among other things, protecting this country in Europe, so that our children will never have to suffer attack by our adversaries, the Russians, here. 

But, here's the deal: No army in the world can protect us from our greatest enemies: sin, death, and ourselves. 

Only Jesus can. 

And Jesus looks to enlist legions of people who have been saved through His compassion, expressed on the cross, confirmed at the empty tomb, to be an army of believers who live out His call to love God and to love all of our neighbors just as He has loved us.

The second thing that the last verse of our gospel lesson tells us is that, because Jesus is our leader and has saved us by grace through faith in Him, we need not be afraid in the face of the world’s challenges. The disciples couldn't imagine how they were going to feed 5000 people. But they did what Jesus commanded because they trusted in Jesus, they believed in Him. We too can act on Jesus' command to share Him with the world through our lives, deeds, and words.

And we can do that with absolute confidence. Why?

Because we already belong to God for eternity. 

Because neither Satan, nor sin, nor death can intimidate us. 

Jesus once referred to the miraculous works He performed and told Philip: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things [by which Jesus here means, more works] than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

In Jesus, we have the power and the commission to feed those who are hungry for food, hungry for the good news of new and everlasting life for all who believe in Jesus, hungry for God’s truth. 

We don’t have to have all the answers or have everything figured out in advance, any more than the disciples did on the day, on Jesus’ command, they passed out the few bits of fish and bread they had. 

We simply need to follow Jesus. 

We simply have to believe in Jesus. 

Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]