"Red and yellow, black and white...we all need Jesus"

Matthew 15:21-28
God has interesting timing.

Just as the attention of our country and much of the world is on the recent activities of white supremacist and Nazi groups in our midst, the lectionary--the plan for Bible lessons based on ancient Christian practice--appoints today’s gospel lesson for tens of thousands of churches throughout the world.

That’s no coincidence...it’s a God-incidence!

It is exactly the word that you and I and all the world need to hear today.

The lesson tells us about Jesus’ encounter with a woman who is a member of a race of people hated by God’s people since Old Testament times, the Canaanites.

At the end of the lesson, Jesus confirms two important insights into Christian faith known by this Canaanite woman, insights that Saint Paul later summarized: “...all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28)

Jesus came into this world to die and to rise and to call all who believe in Him to become part of one race, the fully restored human race who populate the Kingdom of God.

The Church of Jesus, whatever the denomination, color, or nationality of its people, is a preview of John’s vision in Revelation: “I looked, [John says] and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language...And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’" (Revelation 7:9)

One of my favorite Sunday School songs growing up, said: “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight / Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Today, in a world rocked by hatred, we need the gospel message. We need Jesus!

When I say that, I’m not just using words. I’m proclaiming the absolute, bottom-line truth: WE NEED JESUS!

Only Jesus can fill our deepest need.

Only Jesus can bring forgiveness of sins.

Only Jesus can put God’s love into our hearts.

Only Jesus can give us sanity for living and thinking.

Only Jesus can give us eternal life with God.

WHAT WE All NEED IS JESUS AND ONLY JESUS!

As the Church, we need to be challenged to proclaim, with no embarrassment, that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through Him; that God loves us and that Christ came to die and rise to offer new life with God to all people: Jews, Canaanites, blacks, whites, browns, yellows, Republicans, Democrats, Americans, Arabs...everyone.

WE NEED JESUS!

Desperately.

Totally.

Now.

In today’s lesson, Jesus meets a woman who knows just how much she needs Jesus.

Jesus, she knows, is the only hope for her demon-possessed daughter.

By faith, she knows the truth of what the Bible repeatedly teaches: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:13; Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32)

Let’s take a look at our gospel lesson, Matthew 15:21-28. It begins: “And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.”

Jus before our lesson's narrative begins, Jesus has been teaching His fellow Jews that it’s not the outward rituals that people perform that make them right with God, it’s a faith that turns to God in humility, repentance, and faith that God uses to build righteousness within us.

Most of His fellow Jews didn’t care for this message. They thought of their religion in transactional terms: They offered sacrifices, did good things, or pointed to their pure Jewish ancestry as their part of the bargain and they thought that in return, God had to give them favor.

Jesus said that unless they (and we) turn to God in surrender and faith, we will still be dead and separated from God. No matter how many good things we do. No matter how religious we are.

Not a popular message. Even today. People don’t like to think that their relationship with God or their salvation aren’t under their control, but God’s control.

So, Jesus left His homeland for a bit. It wasn't that Jesus was afraid of unpopularity or of dying. He had come to be rejected by the people and go to the cross. He had His face set for Jerusalem for precisely this reason. He would go to a cross, but it wasn’t the right time yet (John 7:6, 30). He and the disciples go to Tyre and Sidon, a pagan area filled with Gentile unbelievers.

Verse 22: “And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.’”

Back in Old Testament days, God decided that because of the Canaanites’ idol-worship and injustice, He was going to take their land from them and give it to Israel, the Jews, His people. That’s what God did. Canaanites were still, at the point when Jesus meets this woman centuries later, idol-worshipers. They were also hated and mistrusted by the Jews. And yet, here’s this Canaanite woman, approaching Jesus, calling Him by the title that Jews associated with the Messiah, “Son of David.”

See what happens next, verse 23: “But [Jesus] did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is crying out after us.’ [Jesus] answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’”

Some people look at this passage and think that Jesus is being heartless.

I’ve even heard some preachers suggest that the Canaanite woman came along and taught Jesus a lesson. According to these people, Jesus was a bigot who had to be set straight by this petitioner.

Please! Jesus is both God and man. He knows exactly what's going to happen before it happens. Jesus was not surprised that this Canaanite showed up.

And there is no bigotry in Jesus! God does not hate what God creates. The God Who is love, Who commands loves, and Who is sinless, doesn’t need to be taught how to love. (1 John 4:8)

So, how do we explain Jesus’ words then?

For one thing, they’re the truth. Although in the Great Commission, Jesus would later command His disciples to go to all peoples, Old Testament promises from God said that, during His time on earth, the Messiah would go to Israel. Jesus knows, as Paul writes in our second lesson, “God did not reject his people...” (Romans 11:2) And so, while Jesus would encounter Gentiles (non-Jews) in His ministry and even make a Gentile, the good Samaritan, the hero of one of His most famous parables, the Messiah had to be proclaimed among God’s people before Jesus died and rose.

I think Jesus also said this--"I was sent only the lost sheep of Israel"--because Jesus had things to teach His disciples, including you and me. Jesus always knew the teachable moment!

Verse 25: “But she came and knelt before him [Jesus], saying, ‘Lord, help me.’”

Most English translations of the Bible do an inadequate job of rendering this passage. The verb knelt translates the Greek word proskuneo, which is the word that Matthew used when writing this verse in the Greek. Proskuneo means worship.

It’s the same word Matthew used of the eleven disciples who meet the risen Jesus, about to ascend to heaven in Matthew 28:17, literally, “Having seen Him, they worshiped Him...”

This foreign woman of the wrong race and ethnicity, from the wrong side of the tracks who is hated by Jesus' fellow good Jews, worships Jesus!

She sees Him not only as a human descendant of King David, she sees Him as God.

And she offers no evidence that she’s a good person deserving of what she begs Jesus to do for her daughter. She just believes and is completely helpless.

And belief and helplessness, as our mentor Ole Hallesby has taught many of us here at Living Water, is what we need to be every time we approach God in Jesus’ name. As Hallesby points out, without belief and helplessness, it's doubtful that any of our prayers are really prayers. The Canaanite woman truly prays!

“Lord,” she says, “help me.”

Jesus accepts her worship because He is God. You may remember that in the book of Acts, the Christian missionaries Paul and Barnabas were being hailed as gods by Gentiles. They were horrified and told the crowds to stop, that there was only one God, the one revealed in Jesus (Acts 4:12-15).  Jesus accepts the woman's worship. How could He not? He IS God!

It's hard to imagine what the disciples who were with Jesus must have thought of all this. But Jesus lets things go on a bit still: He has a lesson to teach we disciples.

Verse 26: “And he answered, ‘It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.’”

Many Jews used the term dog for Gentiles the way that white racists use the N-word to describe African-Americans today.

Most Jews regarded non-Jews as subhuman trash.

Now, we must always let Scripture interpret Scripture. And what we know from the rest of Scripture about Jesus totally precludes the notion that He shared His people's prejudice against Gentiles.

I believe that, as one Bible scholar has said, Jesus used this term with a twinkle in His eye, a bit like a comic tweaking prejudice. Humor is always a good tool for demolishing prejudice. 

Make no mistake about it though, Jesus saw this woman’s desperate, audacious faith. He was about to perform a sign showing that He is the Messiah and God of all who have a desperate, audacious faith in Him.

And the Canaanite woman is in on Jesus’ joke. Verse 27: “She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.’” 

“Yes, Lord,” she’s saying, “I know that the Jews are God’s people and that salvation will come into the world through the Jews. That’s the first thing I know. But I also know a second thing: that You are the Lord of heaven and earth and that through You, salvation will come to all who believe in You. Even those with the wrong color of skin and those with the wrong ethnic background. Just as the dogs get the crumbs, You have grace enough to spare for everyone!”

In verse 28, Jesus explodes with the same kind of joyous exclamation that must come from God every time we turn to Him with desperate, audacious faith. “‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”

God receives all who turn from their sin and trust in Jesus as their only hope, the only way to life, the only way to God.

God receives all who turn to Him with desperate, audacious faith.

God hears all who trust Jesus with desperation and helplessness, who know that Jesus is our only hope for this world and the next!

God will, through Jesus, even receive you and me and all the other Canaanites who trust in Jesus.

The only in-crowd in the Kingdom of God is the crowd who confess that Jesus is Lord and then follow Him wherever He leads!

Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the text for the worship message this morning.]

Happy Beginnings

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, today.]

Mark 13:24-37
A confession: I’m a sucker for chick flicks. A friend recommended one of them, The Lake House, to me and so, this past week, when I saw that it was going to be on, I set my recorder and watched it the next night.

I don’t want to give it all away if you haven’t seen it. (I loved it, by the way.) But The Lake House revolves around two people, played by Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock who, having realized their love for each other, nonetheless face the impossible obstacle of living in two different time periods, able only to communicate, miraculously, by letters they place in the mailbox of a lake house.

It’s hard for two people to get together under those circumstances. And so, Bullock’s character, tired of the futility and the sense of defeat, tells Reeves’ character that while they had been involved in a beautiful fantasy, they should leave it behind and move on with their separate lives. But Reeves’ character responds with a simple message: “Don’t give up on me.” (I will tell you that there's a happy beginning at the end of the movie, but that's all.)

The plea of Reeves' character, “Don’t give up on me,” is really the message of Jesus to us on this first Sunday in Advent.

“I know that You can’t see Me right now,” Jesus, the groom, is telling us, the Church, His bride. “I know that our only communication is through the printed Words of the Bible, the water of Holy Baptism, the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the fellowship of people as imperfect and as needy as you are. There will be tough days when My love for you will seem to be making impossible promises and giving you seemingly impossible hopes. But it is going to work out. With God all things are possible.”

“We will be together one day,” Jesus is telling us. “There will be a happy beginning beyond the world's endings. Don’t give up on Me.” 

This, in fact, is truly the message of the entire Advent season. Don’t give up on Jesus.

Advent, of course, is just a human creation. But it’s a shrewd one. Think about it: Here we are preparing for the celebration of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. You may have noticed, though, that few of our preparations, whether as individuals, families, or nations, includes anything about Jesus.

One reason for that, I think, is that, in our minds, we tend to put Jesus in the past. He lived on this earth in the past. He died in the past. And we Christians believe He also rose in the past.

We seem to live in separate times, the notion of connection between us an impossible, beautiful fantasy. And so, we move on with our lives as though Jesus weren’t even there.

Advent is a gauntlet thrown down before a disbelieving world and an often disbelieving Church and, calling our attention to God’s Word, the Bible, tells us, “The same Jesus Who was born at Christmas, died on Good Friday, and rose on Easter, is coming back and when He does, He will bring a new heaven and a new earth and an end to this world. What good will all your frenzied materialism be then?"

Advent says: “Do not make the mistake of giving up on Jesus. Trust in Him."

We see that message in today’s Gospel lesson, Mark 13:24-37. You’ll find it on page 710 of our sanctuary Bibles.

Now, in this passage, we find Jesus speaking, I think, simultaneously about two different times and events, compressing them into a single narrative.

On the one hand, He’s talking about the invasion of Roman armies and their desecration of the temple in Jerusalem, an event that would happen about forty years after Jesus spoke these words. That event, Jesus asserts, will be the result of God’s chosen people’s failure to reach out with His love and grace to the whole world.

The Temple, the Old Testament teaches, was meant to be a house of prayer and worship for people of all nations, Jews and Gentiles. Empowered by regular encounters with God in the temple, Israel was to be God’s messenger into all the world, teaching people to repent and believe in the God of Israel in order to have new life with God. As God told the people of Israel through the prophet Isaiah: "“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Instead, Israel largely chose either to ignore or horde God. But faith in God, just like the manna with which God fed His people Israel in the wilderness, will go bad if it’s horded. It must be given away or it will rot, die, or disappear. Whenever Israel forgot God and its mission to the world, it always led to problems. And in His words today, Jesus is saying, it would ultimately lead to its destruction as it did in 70 AD.

Now, Jesus says elsewhere, that He is the temple that cannot be destroyed and today He sends all who believe in Him into the world to make disciples.



But in today's lesson, Jesus also speaks more generally of the end times, when this world will come to an end and He will establish His eternal kingdom.

Verse 24: “But in those days, [Jesus says] following that distress [times of persecution and hardship He has been talking about in earlier verses], the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;  the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ [Here Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament book of Isaiah.] At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

The first time Jesus came into our world, He did so on a silent night in an obscure village of which the world would not have heard. God sent His angels to announce the birth only to shepherds, people on the bottom end of the economic and religious food chain. Jesus lived and died and rose again in a backwater country that had spent most of its history under the thumbs of foreign powers.

But when Jesus returns, there will be nothing obscure or silent about it.

The whole world will know at once, “in the twinkling of an eye.” And, He will send His angels out to gather together His elect--those chosen for salvation not by fiat, but because they have believed in Jesus Christ. They are elect because God has saved them by His grace through their faith in Jesus.

Interestingly, that word that we translate as elect is, in the Greek language in which the New Testament was originally written, eklektos. It literally means "called out from." But it's transliterated into the English as eclectic, a word that can mean, diverse.

The elect the angels will gather on the day of Jesus' return from this world will be diverse, eclectic. They will come from "every nation, tribe, people and language," formed by the Holy Spirit into a single family through their faith in Christ.

The elect are the people who refuse to give up on Jesus.

They face tragedy; but they don’t give up.

They face death; but they don’t give up.

They face opposition for their faith but keep believing.

They wrestle with the will of God, but keep holding onto Jesus.

They’re the people who believe that it’s always too soon to give up on Jesus, the conqueror of sin and death.

They trust the promise of Jesus in Matthew 24:12-13: “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”



Verse 28: [Jesus goes on] “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

Two messages come to us from Jesus here, I think:

(1) Most obviously, be ready for His return;

(2) And you never can tell when His return may happen because every condition necessary for His return has already happened while Jesus was still on the earth.

It’s such a silly waste to look for “the signs of the times.” The world was already full up on those signs, full up on sin and death even before Jesus went to the cross. It was ready for the end even then.

So, our focus shouldn't be on speculation. It should be on being ready for Jesus to return.

And how we do that is to keep repenting for sin and to keep trusting Jesus, the Way and the truth and the life, to cover our sins with God’s forgiveness and to fill us with life eternal.

We get ready for Jesus’ return by following Him now and into eternity even when the world wants to tie Him down to the ancient past.

That’s why the words with which Jesus closes in today's lesson, found in verses 32 to 37, boils down to one word alone: “Watch.”

The One we try to tie to the past is actually our future and through the eyes of faith, we need to keep focused on Him.

One Bible scholar has observed that, “Modern Christians often think, ‘Since the time [of Jesus’ return] is unknown, it could be hundred, or thousands, or millions of years from now…[But Christ’s words for us this morning should cause us to think]...’since the timing is unknown, it could be today! Maybe this evening, or at midnight, or when dawn breaks.’”

The scholar goes on to ask: “But does anyone actually think that way? Does anyone go through every day, wondering at morning, noon, and night if now is the time that someone long gone might return?"

"Yes," he says. "People who are in love do that.”

Are we in love with Jesus enough to take Him at His word that one day He will return and make all things right?

Because of the love God has shown us in Christ, because of the cross and empty tomb, because the Holy Spirit has given us faith in Christ, we know that we are loved and we know that it’s safe to love Him in return. We're on solid ground in loving Him back. Christ’s love is one that will never let us down.

And so we wait for His return.

We wait with eager anticipation.

We ready ourselves while we wait by attending to His Word, worshiping with His people, receiving His body and blood, sharing His love and His message with others.

This Advent season, may Christ teach us to look forward to a lot more than Christmas day.

May He teach us to live lives spent in active attentiveness to Him.

May we learn to watch for Him and, in the watching, be ready for anything in this life or in the one to come.

When we watch for Jesus and trust in Him to return, to dry our tears and to make things right, we can be assured that beyond all the endings--beyond the end of this world, beyond the ends of our own lives, He will bring us a happy beginning that never ends. Amen

What's the Big Deal About Feeding 5000?

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 14:13-21
Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 14:13-21, tells us about Jesus’ miraculous feeding of more than five-thousand people. This incident is recounted in all four gospels, not only in Matthew’s, but also those of Mark, Luke, and John. In addition to that, Matthew and Mark also tell us about a time when, similarly, Jesus fed more than 4000 people. The feeding miracles get more attention in the four gospels than does the history of Jesus' birth--the narrative of the first Christmas--which only appears in Matthew's and Luke's gospels.

But it’s fair to ask what exactly is so important about these miraculous feeding incidents that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the writers of the four gospels made certain to tell us about them?

What is the significance of the feeding of the 5000?

And, more to the point, what is the significance of this incident for people gathered for worship in 2014?

The first thing to be said is that Jesus Himself thought His miraculous meals were important and that the lessons they taught about Him and His kingdom needed to be remembered by disciples like us.  In Matthew 16:9, He asks the disciples: “Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?” But what are the lessons that the first disciples and that we twenty-first century disciples are supposed to take from the feeding miracles?

Take a look, please, at our lesson. It begins: “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

The thing that Jesus heard had happened was the execution of His cousin, John the Baptizer.

Jesus was undoubtedly grief stricken.

On top of that, He had to know that now, both the crowds who had reposed so much hope in John and the authorities who had taken John’s life, would turn their focus, for good and ill, but mostly for ill, on Him.

Jesus came into our world to die for our sins and to rise to give new life to all who believe in Him. With John’s execution, Jesus’ own suffering and death drew closer.

So, Jesus, just as He had done when John had been arrested some time before withdrew to a solitary place.

To grieve.

To pray.

To prepare.

But when Jesus got off the boat meant to take Him to a place of peace and respite, He was met by an enormous crowd. We've all been there, haven't we? We're all set for downtime and suddenly, without warning, there's a party at our house.

But in this circumstance, Jesus, true man as well as true God didn’t vent His spleen. He didn't say, “Go away. I need time to myself.”

Instead, Matthew says that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and healed people. So we see the very first significant thing in this incident even before Jesus fed the crowd. It’s this: The God we know in Jesus Christ is available.

Jesus is interruptible.

He has time for us.

He’s anxious to listen to us.

He has compassion for us.

He has compassion for you.

A woman came to me for counseling years ago. She gave an impressive catalog of her sins. There were a boatload!

She wanted to be right with God. She wanted Jesus. But she was certain that Jesus would refuse to hear her, that God would never forgive her, and that God wouldn't even have the time for her.

I assured her that if we want Jesus, it’s evidence that His Holy Spirit has already been at work on our hearts for this simple reason: Jesus always wants us.

Even if we’ve made it a habit to violate every one of the ten commandments every day, Jesus is still available with forgiveness and new life.

He’s available to us too, when we’re hurting.

He’s available.

Next in our lesson, we read: “As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’ ‘We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,’ they answered. ‘Bring them here to me,’ he said.”

The disciples weren't being ogres here. They were being completely sensible.

They were in a remote place. They didn’t have enough to feed this throng.

The disciples weren’t suffering from compassion fatigue. They simply saw no way to feed all those people.

And they were right. There was absolutely no way they could feed the 5000.

But Jesus told them, “Give me everything you have. I’ll make something of it.”

The second significant about this miracle: We can’t; God can.

Jesus says, “Go, make disciples.” We say, “We can’t.” Jesus says, “Go and I’ll make disciples through you.”

Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” We say, “If you knew how annoying my neighbor is, you’d know I can’t do that.” Jesus says, “I know how annoying your neighbor is. Furthermore, I know how annoying you are. Make yourself available and I will love your neighbor through you.”

Jesus says, “Feed the hungry. Care for the poor. Give the hope of the gospel to those who aren’t even interested.” We say, “There’s no way we can do that, Lord.” Jesus says, “Depend on me and act; ready, fire, aim; I will make a way.”

In Mark 9:23, Jesus says, “Everything is possible for one who believes." Give Jesus your loaves and fishes; He will take care of the rest.

Let me point something out here. This entire incident happens wMithin the context of the disciples being together with Jesus. God, of course, can work in the lives of individuals. He does it all the time. But no one will remain long connected to Christ outside the fellowship of the Church. Or our connection will become self-directed. We’ll go off on our own tangents. In the fellowship of the Church and in the fellowship of small groups within the Church, we grow together, we keep each other on track, we encourage one another, we lovingly call each other to the carpet. The disciples never would have had the courage to give Jesus those five loaves and two fishes if they had stood alone with Him on that hillside. The Church is Christ’s creation. It is His very body in the world. Being a Christian is no solo operation.

Verse 19 says: “And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.”

This folks, is truly a foretaste of the feast to come. Believing Jews had for centuries looked forward to the time when the Messiah would invite all who believed in Him to His eternal table. And in Matthew 8:11, Jesus had said: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

You and I are privileged to receive a foretaste of Jesus’ eternal table every time we receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion. We see the connection with Holy Communion (and the ultimate messianic feast to which it points) in the verbs describing Jesus’ actions as He fed the 5000, all of which appear in the New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the Sacrament. Jesus takes the food. He gives thanks. He breaks the bread. He gives it to the disciples. And the disciples give it to the crowd.

From the time Israel wandered in the wilderness and fed on manna, God’s people have looked to God to feed them, to provide for them. Jesus teaches us to pray for “our daily bread.” We look forward to that day when “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language [all who have turned from sin and trusted in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior and Lord over their lives], [stand] before the throne and before the Lamb” and partake of all the blessings God has in mind for His people.

Here, in our lesson, in the shadow of John’s execution, with His cross clearly ahead in Jesus’ sights, Jesus gives a clear sign that it is all true, that our hopes in Him are well founded.

The One Who could feed a multitude with a few scraps of food is good for all His promises.

He is the way and the truth and the life.

He is the only way to God. He is the way to new life, freed of sin and death.

He is our only hope.

The feeding of the 5000 is a sign that everything the apostles told us about Jesus, everything we confess about Him on Sunday mornings, is true.

The lesson ends: “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

With our modern sensibilities, we may read that bit about “besides women and children” and think, “What a sexist, patriarchal thing for Matthew to write.” I can understand how some might think that.

But consider this for a moment: In first century Judea, women and children were supposed to be barely seen, never heard, and certainly not accounted for. But Matthew accounts for them! He makes a point of mentioning the women and children for the simple reason that in the eyes of Jesus Christ--in the eyes of God--every human life matters. Every man. Every woman. Every child. All are the objects of His love and compassion. All need Jesus. And Jesus wants to bring life to all who are willing enough to receive Him as their Savior and King.

There’s much more to this incident than we have time to talk about today. But remember, please, the four things that we've talked about today that give it significance, that make it important.

First, the God we know in Christ is always available. Call out to Him, as Martin Luther put it, “in every time of need.” He will hear.

Second, give yourself to Christ and He will take care of the rest. It won’t always be easy. There will be times you question His will and His wisdom. (I know that I sometimes do. "God," I ask, "do you really expect this of me?" And knowing from His Word, the Bible, that He does, I strive to accept His will.) Struggle to surrender and do God's will and, often even against your will, He will fulfill His purposes for your life.

Third, Jesus has prepared a feast for us, a celebration that will last eternally for those who trust in Him. Knowing that encourages us any time we’re laid low by life or just feeling, and this is a technical theological term, blah. Neither blah nor tears are the eternal destiny of those who follow Christ.

Fourth, in the eyes of Jesus Christ, everybody counts. He died for all. He rose for all. He offers everlasting life to all who believe in Him.

Now, if you can't remember those four things, then just remember Jesus. He is our God and our only hope. He's all you really need to remember. Amen!