Seventh Sunday after Trinity—Can These Be Satisfied?
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“The Lord’s disciples asked Him, ‘How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?’” (Mark 8:4). How can anyone feed these people? That is what they must mean. How can someone satisfy these people in this desolate place, this wilderness? This is a different crowd and a different question than the previous feeding in Mark’s Gospel.
These people who are following Jesus aren’t the sheep without a shepherd, the sons of Israel that Jesus has compassion on when He feeds the 5,000 in Mark 6. This group of 4,000 men, as well as even more women and children, aren’t carrying Jewish baskets, the kóphinos, those smaller twelve baskets that collected the leftovers when Christ fed the Israelites. No, these people today in Mark 8 are Gentiles. Jesus doesn’t call them sheep.
He doesn’t refer to them in the same covenant terms. And they carried Roman baskets, spyrís. It is a different basket for a different people.
This is why, if you have a different translation than what you heard this morning at home, it might say of the 5,000 in Mark 6 that “they took up twelve baskets full,” and then in today’s feeding, Mark 8, it says “they took up seven large baskets” (Mark 6:43; 8:8). These Roman baskets are the kind that are big enough to carry a human person.
It’s the same kind of basket they used to lower St. Paul down out of the wall of the city so he wouldn’t be put to death leaving the city through the gate (Acts 9:25). We should never blend these two stories together—“It’s just feeding. It’s all just feeding stuff.” As if Matthew and Mark accidentally included it twice and just fudged the numbers a little bit each time. That fails to see the unique qualities of both events. And you’ll never be able to see that this is a feeding of the Gentiles, the pagans.
The disciples see this clearly, and it is why, after Jesus says that He has compassion on this crowd and wants them fed, the disciples respond differently than they did in the previous feeding. It’s why they say, “How can one satisfy these people with bread in the wilderness?” (Mark 8:4). This isn’t what the disciples say at the feeding of the Jews, the sheep without a shepherd. There the disciples say, “Shall we go buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?” (Mark 6:37). They’re caught off guard because there are so many people, but at least they assume that Jesus wants to feed them.
The question is one of logistics. Where do we get enough? But now their question is different. Today their question is different.
It’s not just logistical. It’s theological. It’s a question of who these people are and whether they are even within the reach of God’s compassion and provision, or if His provision could even satisfy this kind of people.
The disciples aren’t worried about feeding Israel bread in the wilderness. They know that that’s the sort of thing God does.
He gave Israel the manna in the wilderness—manna from heaven and water from the rock—when He saved them from slavery in Egypt. As they walked through the wilderness toward the Promised Land, our Lord Jesus followed them and gave them food they needed to sustain them. He was there in the cloud and in the fire.
He fed them heavenly bread. So the disciples aren’t concerned with whether or not God could satisfy Israel with bread. They just think it might cost too much for them to go out and get enough.
But in our Gospel today, they are asking a different question. They are wondering how God could feed Gentiles, the pagan nations, in the wilderness as if they were sons of Israel. And what’s more, how these people could ever be satisfied by what God would give them for food.
Even God’s chosen people, if you remember the story, even God’s chosen people, Israel, spoke against God and against Moses in the wilderness when they said, “Why have You brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread” (Numbers 21:5). Even Israel said that about the bread that God gives.
The disciples must be thinking, if even Israel spurned this bread given in the wilderness by God from heaven from time to time, how could anyone expect Gentiles—the dirty, pig-eating, Sabbath-breaking, uncircumcised, and worse kind of people—to be fed bread from God and be satisfied? How could one expect this? It is just bread after all. It isn’t all the exciting pagan experiences that the Gentile world gets riled up about—the things that Jesus speaks of when He tells us, “Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek” (Matthew 6:31–32).
This bread He’s going to give is not that kind of thing. It isn’t expensive delicacies, fancy cocktails, or fine clothing. This bread isn’t money, sex, or power.
It isn’t binge-worthy television, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook shorts, or video games. It isn’t hookup apps, pornography, or drugs. Bread isn’t lights, smoke, people yelling, running around smacking each other on the forehead, blaring music, or soft music playing in the background of some really impactful speech.
It isn’t sports. It isn’t fun and games. It isn’t endless entertainment and distraction.
It isn’t the popular political commentators telling people what needs to happen to save this or that nation, or this or that institution. This bread isn’t experts giving hidden knowledge, or giving you that thing that’s going to unlock the next life hack or key to mental and/or physical health. Those are the kind of things that pagans seek after and would be satisfied by.
That’s the sort of food that pagans run away for. “How can anyone satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” And truth be told, this crowd hasn’t even asked for bread. They’re just following Jesus.
They’re here. They’ve been listening to Him for three days. And it’s Jesus who says, “If I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way” (Mark 8:3).
They may not even realize how desperate their situation is. They’re not asking for this from Him. But He knows they need it even before they ask.
They don’t demand signs or miracles. They’re not clamoring. They’ve simply been with Jesus, and now He wants to feed them.
Jesus has compassion on the Gentiles and feeds them to teach His disciples the answer to that question. Mark records it for us to hear that answer of Jesus as well. Whether you fully realize it or not, when you’re doing it or when I’m doing it, whether I realize it fully or not, it is the case that at times we doubt that we could be satisfied with the bread God gives.
Think of the places you go when you feel those first little parts of heat, those first little sensations of heat from the fires of affliction and tribulation. Where do you go? Do you go to distractions, to food, to drink, to entertainment? Do you go to your therapist or to prescription drugs? Do you go to your best artificial intelligence friend? In that suffering or doubt or struggle, at what point do you pray, open up the Scriptures, talk to a Christian family member or friend?
Talk to your pastor. Seek out individual confession and absolution. Think about the priority in your mind.
We might miss Divine Service, but how likely are we to miss an appointment for our chiropractor? Therapy and medication may have their place. God works through means. And food, drink, and entertainment in moderation are not necessarily evil.
These things can be re-creative—recreation in moderation. But where do we go first? What is our natural instinct when things go south in our life? God’s own means often don’t feel like they are enough to satisfy. They might be in the list, but they’re not at the top.
We reach for the world’s remedies before even tasting the smallest morsel of bread that Christ would set before us. We doubt that our children could be satisfied by the bread that God gives. We think our kids need entertainment and busyness.
We think they need someone. Maybe our kids think they need that too. We think our kids need entertainment and busyness.
We think they need something or someone exciting or more knowledgeable than us to teach them the faith, instead of just opening up a Bible or a story Bible with them and just reading it as God’s own Word that is more than enough to save them and to save you. And what’s worse, we sometimes believe the lies that they’ll reject the Church because it’s too boring or too different.
So we water it down or delay it or apologize for it or leave it up to them whether we go to church or stay for Family Catechesis, instead of handing them this precious bread from heaven as a treasure—as the daily bread that they need and that we need to be preserved in body and soul in the wilderness of this world. We leave it up to them.
We doubt that our friends and family could be satisfied with the bread that God gives. We are insecure when it comes to inviting someone we know to church. It’s like we’re the significant other that doesn’t want to take their boyfriend or girlfriend home to meet their family.
We warn people that we are weird—or at least our worship practices are—when really we should be selling this as a place where we really believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead to save us from our sins, that He ascended to the right hand of the Father, that He rules now, and that He’s coming to us actually, really, here and now, and feeding us and saving us and nourishing us and sustaining us. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about in that. A place where people believe that it isn’t our job to convert people through our carefully researched best practices, but that God does it through His Word.
A place where Jesus comes to abide in us by His Body and Blood and gives us certainty that we’ll live in His everlasting kingdom for all eternity. That’s the kind of place you’re inviting people to when you’re inviting them here. That’s not something to be embarrassed about.
That’s the bread from heaven. Remember why you are here and what you are receiving from your Lord. If you remember that, when someone says, “The people are nice and I like the service, but I’m looking for a place that has more programs for kids,” or dot, dot, dot, in that moment remember what God is giving you here.
Remember it and be bold in that knowledge, because our Lord isn’t interested in entertaining you or anyone else. He isn’t interested in this being fun.
In case you didn’t know that already, He is not interested in this being fun. He is interested in saving you eternally. He is interested in persevering—making you to persevere—in preserving you in body and soul as you walk about in the wilderness of this life, where you are surrounded by mortal enemies that would rejoice to see you being cast into hell.
That’s what He’s interested in: saving you from that. And you know that He is working mightily to save you in this place in ways that the world may condemn or dismiss as plain, ordinary, and boring. But remember that next time you feel challenged.
Jesus is not interested in making sure you’re having a good time. When the disciples asked Jesus, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” Jesus doesn’t skip a beat. He says, “How many loaves do y’all have?” He takes the loaves.
He gives thanks. He blesses them. He breaks them.
He gives them to His disciples to set before these people. He blesses some fish as well and gives them to the disciples to give to these people declining on the earth. And when every single person was satisfied, they took up seven Roman baskets full of fragments.
The same kind of basket that lowered St. Paul down the wall of the city so that he would not be killed by the Jews plotting to murder him. These weren’t Easter baskets. They were baskets big enough to carry a full-grown man, and they were full of bread left over.
It’s abundance. It’s not just enough. It’s more than enough.
Seven full baskets from seven loaves and a few fish feeding 4,000 men plus women and children. One for every loaf broken, a visible sign that what is given in Jesus’ hands is never diminished. It will always be more than enough to accomplish His purposes for His people.
It will always be more than enough. And Jesus blesses Word. He blesses water.
He blesses bread. He blesses wine. He gives us the Scriptures, the true preaching of our fathers in the past and today.
True hymns and liturgies faithful to the Scriptures, passed down to us by believers who came before. And He blessed all of these and gives them to His Church reclining on the earth today, setting them before all nations, even amongst us Gentiles. We dare not treat them as miserable leftovers or call them miserable food as our fathers called the manna in the wilderness.
This bread from God is the feast prepared for us in the wilderness. The same Jesus that takes a few loaves, feeds thousands, and produces enough to leave several hundred pounds of leftover fragments can and does satisfy. He is enough and more than enough to satisfy you, your children, your family and friends and acquaintances, and all of these people walking around in the desolate wilderness of this world.
He is enough and more than enough to satisfy every ounce of your hunger and thirst in body and soul in the ways that truly count. Don’t despise this bread. Don’t mock the means that your Lord chooses.
Don’t underestimate the mercy of God for the nations. Don’t underestimate the power that He works through these ordinary things. He satisfies, and there are still huge baskets left for you and all whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.
Let us pray. Lord Jesus, You care for the great assembly of Your hearers, who have nothing with them to eat, and You say, "I have compassion upon the people, for they persisted with Me for three days now, and they have nothing to eat." We ask that You would grant us also to be diligent hearers of Your Word, that we would endure with You and Your Word in cross, misfortune, misery, and distress, and that, in the midst of every concern, we would be comforted by Your care and heartfelt mercy, with which You feed whatever has life and breath. The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand, and You fill everything that lives with good pleasure. Therefore, we firmly believe that You will not abandon us and our beloved little children, together with Your Christian congregation, in any danger, You will relieve the present scarcity, and You will let the abundant Jubilee year of Your heavenly glory draw near, where no cold, cross, harm, hunger, or misery shall come and hurt us; For You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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