The Lord Will Provide

          In the name of Jesus. Amen. All four of today’s Scripture readings are about God providing for his people. In the Old Testament reading, we heard the account of God sending mana for the Israelites in the wilderness. In today’s Psalm, we praised God for providing abundant provision satisfying the poor with bread. In our Acts reading, we were told how God provided for the early New Testament church through the generosity of fellow believers. Then, finally, we read one of the most well-known miracle accounts in all of Scripture: the feeding of the 5,000. This is the only miracle that shows up in all four Gospel accounts (excluding Jesus’s resurrection, of course). If you are like me, this is a narrative you might not spend much time thinking about. On the surface, it is remarkably simple. It seems easy enough to understand. Last week’s Gospel had teachings and parables that took a lot of effort to comprehend (who is the strong man? What does it mean for a soul to be “swept and put in order”? etc.). Not so this week. Today’s Gospel is simply about Jesus miraculously meeting the needs of his followers. The message is plain: God provides for his people. There is beauty in that simplicity. This is a message we need to hear over and over again because it is something we forget over and over again.  How many times has God richly provided for every need of your body and soul? Every single week he gives you not only physical food to eat, but also the spiritual food of his Word and his true body and blood in the sacrament. He has sustained you every day of your physical life and is even now keeping you in the faith through the gifts that you receive here. He has done the same for me. But, if you are like me, even despite all this, you are probably still prone to worry about the future. It’s not good enough that God has given us everything we need every day of our lives until now. We still worry when we lose a job. We still get anxious about big life changes. God can manifest his gracious provisions hundreds of times, and in our fallen state we will still ask, “but what about next time?” How forgetful we are of God’s mercies!

          The good news for us is that God’s faithfulness is not dependent on our faithfulness. The Lord provides for his people apart from whether or not we deserve it. This could not be more evident than in our Exodus reading today. Just look at how this reading began: “And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”” Can you believe that? The Lord used miracle after miracle to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. The Plagues. The Passover. The Parting of the Red Sea. They witnessed all those things with their own eyes. And then they have the audacity to say that they wish they would have just stayed in Egypt where they had plenty of bread and meat? God would have acted justly if he had wiped them all out on the spot. For that matter, he would act justly if he did the same with us, who are just as quick to forget his mercies as the Israelites. But thankfully, he doesn’t do that. Instead, despite their grumbling, he performs another miracle and makes mana rain from the sky. What is interesting about this account is that these miraculous provisions came with a stipulation; the Israelites were commanded only to gather what they could eat, and ensure none was left over. We aren’t told exactly why God commanded this, but it isn’t difficult to speculate. It is clear that God’s people had difficulty trusting that God would provide for them. He knew that this miraculous gift of mana could turn into an occasion in which they no longer had to rely on God. They could simply gather a bunch of it up, store it, and then not have to worry about whether or not God would provide for them again. So in order to guarantee that they must continually trust God for their daily bread, he told them they must only gather what they can eat, and to ensure nothing was left over for the next day. They, of course, did not listen. They thought, despite being given the command, they could pull a fast one on God. The text says some kept leftovers, yet God destroyed it by worms. Even after that, God continued to send the mana! Even after the constant grumbling and subsequent disobedience, he still kept sending it. If that isn’t grace, I’m not sure what is.

          Now let’s get to the Gospel reading. These two stories have a few interesting parallels. First, both accounts happen in the wilderness. The first verse of our Exodus reading tells us that the Israelites were grumbling in the desert. Our Gospel reading doesn’t tell us exactly where the feeding on the 5,000 took place; it simply tells us it was on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee. Verse ten tells us that there was a lot of grass in this area, which indicates a rural setting. While we don’t see this in John’s Gospel, the other Gospels explicitly say that this happened in a “desolate place.” So in both stories, you have a massive group of people in the middle of nowhere, with little opportunity to find food.

          The second interesting parallel is the Passover connection. Verse four of John 6 tells us that “the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.” Everyone was out following Jesus in the wilderness as preparations for the Passover were being made. Certainly, these Jewish believers would have been thinking about the events of the first Passover as they prepare to celebrate this major feast. Now,  Exodus 16 describes the events that happened immediately after the first Passover when the Israelites were led out of Egypt. They started grumbling a matter of weeks after the angel of death killed the firstborn of the Egyptians, which turned out to be the catalyst for their freedom. So both of these groups would have had the Passover events in mind; the Israelites because they had literally just experienced all of it firsthand a few weeks earlier, and the followers of Jesus because they were anticipating celebrating the Passover meal very soon. This is significant because the Passover itself was one of the most obvious and well known examples of God miraculously providing for his people in the Old Testament, and of course, God providing for His people is the dominant theme in both of these narratives we read today.

          The third, and perhaps most interesting, parallel is that both of these miracles involved a test from God. Exodus 16:4 says, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” This is an interesting part of the story. God was going to miraculously provide the Israelites with their daily bread, but he was going to do so while testing their obedience. The feeding of the 5,000 involved a test as well. Verse 5 says, “Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.” Why would God include tests alongside both of these miraculous feedings?

          For that matter, why does God test his people at all? A lot of people have this idea that God tests believers to see what they’re made of. People think that He gives these tests in order to be assured that they are fully devoted to his cause. But this is a silly explanation, isn’t it? God already knows everything. He’s omniscient. He doesn’t need to do some sort of experiment to measure anyone’s obedience. Think about one of the biggest tests God ever gave to one of his servants, when he asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. That story starts by saying, “God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!... Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.” Now that is a test indeed. And, as you all know, Abraham set out to do exactly what he was told. Did God tell Abraham to do that because he wasn’t sure if he was going to obey? No, of course not. He knew exactly what Abraham would do before the creation of the World.

          So why the test? Let’s read the conclusion of Abraham’s testing in Genesis 22, starting at verse 13. The Angel of the Lord just told Abraham not to kill his son, revealing it was a test. Then, the text says, “And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”” Abraham’s test was for his own benefit. God commanded him to do something he really did not want to do. But, trusting God, he set out to do what he was told. Then, when God provided the ram for the sacrifice, Abraham instantly became aware of God’s superabundant provision, so much so that he named that place, “The Lord will provide.” Abraham’s test wasn’t about God learning something about Abraham. It was about Abraham learning something about God. And this is ultimately why God tests any of his people. The tests provide an opportunity to rely on God’s grace. This was just as true for the Israelites in the wilderness as it was for Abraham. God told them to only gather what they could eat, having nothing left over, to get them to trust God to provide their literal daily bread. The test was for their benefit. It was for the strengthening of their faith. The same is true in John 6 when he tests the disciples by asking them where they are going to get bread to feed all these people. Jesus was providing them an occasion to trust him to provide in a seemingly impossible circumstance.

          Saints, as God tested Abraham, and the Israelites, and the disciples, he will also test you. Not because he wants you to prove your devotion to him. Not because he wants to see what you are made of. But rather to give you an occasion to trust him to meet your needs. Your tests might look different than the ones we read about today. It might be losing a job. It might be getting an unfavorable diagnosis. It might be losing a loved one. All these circumstances, and more, are occasions for us to say, along with Abraham “The Lord will provide.” When we trust God to provide for us, we are exercising our faith muscles, so to speak. This is a means by which God strengthens your faith. This is the most important way that God can provide for you. Yes, he provides for your physical needs, as he promised, just as He gave mana to the Israelites and bread and fish to the 5,000. But all of that is far less important than the fact that he also provides for your spiritual needs. Jesus died on the cross atoning for every single sin you will ever commit. Even if we all starved to death by the end of the year, those sufferings would be nothing compared to the endless joy that awaits those who die in the faith. So the next time you are met with a trial, remember that trials are the means by which God gives us opportunities to trust Him to provide. By taking away the things we rely on, he teaches us to trust in him alone. And it is that trust, that faith that God works in us, meets our deepest spiritual need, giving us eternal life. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus.