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When the men saw the sign that he did, they said: “This One is truly the Prophet, the One Coming into the world (v 14). [Introduction] Apart from the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the feeding of the five thousand in the wilderness near the Sea of Galilee is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. That should tell you something about how important this great event is in the life of the church.  THROUGH THE FEEDING OF THE 5,000, OUR LORD TEACHES US THAT HIS HIGHEST PRIORITY IS OUR ETERNAL WELL-BEING Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Gospel of John not only specifically associates the feeding of the five thousand with Passover and that it happened on a mountain, the place where heaven and earth meet ... we learn that it is Jesus himself, Jesus alone, who sees a need among the people, fills that need himself personally, and doesn’t wait for his disciples to do it. His highest priority is our eternal well-being. After taking bread and giving thanks, in John’s Gospel, it is Je...

Our Gospel Lesson for this Fourth Sunday in Lent reveals a wonderful sign of the times ... Jesus himself feeds five thousand men ... in addition to their wives and children. Jesus himself does this with five loaves of barley bread and two small fish. Jesus himself does it in connection with Passover (v 4). Jesus himself ensures that everyone is able to receive as much daily bread as they want (vv 11-12). And then Jesus himself dispatches his disciples to gather the remaining abundance filling twelve baskets, so that none would perish (v 12).  Yes, God desires all men to be saved (2 Tm 3:16). He desires that all men come to the knowledge of this truth ... that he alone connects this action through his feast ... the feast he prepares in the wilderness and in the Promised Land and on the mountain ... for the early church ... and the church today ... so that, even here at Trinity Lutheran Church ... you ... like all of God’s Chosen Ones ... we will not perish. Talk about a wonderful si...

All you can eat.  There was a time in life when that phrase was music to my ears ... especially if it involved Grandma’s blackberry cobbler or lemon meringue pie. I definitely could eat a lot of that.  Thirty years ago, that broke my father’s heart. Our oldest daughter Rachael was just a baby then. We had gone to Chester, Illinois to visit Grandma, and so, of course, she made a cobbler. When you are 20-something, you can never eat too much cobbler.  In any case, Dad just happened to be in town, too. He also loved to eat Grandma’s cobbler. After packing up the car to go home, I remember telling Valerie, I’ll be right back. While she waited in the car ... I then went into the kitchen for one last helping of cobbler. Like I said, you can never eat too much of that.  Now, I’ll qualify ... or should I say, quantify ... what happened this way: I didn’t actually eat the whole thing, but after we left, I learned later, Dad sure was completely unsatisfied when he went to the ...

Then, when they had their fill, he told the disciples, gather the abundance of broken pieces, in order that not even one would be destroyed (v. 12). There is a hunger deep within the heart and soul of man that can be satisfied only by the presence of the living God. Man tries feverishly to fill the void on his own. We convince ourselves that ... on our own ... we can find him in our heart, in our work, in our logic, in the world. We think we can grow closer to him in nature. But these are all just lies of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. Our search never pans out.  The marvel of God’s love and grace is that he satisfies the heart and soul completely. He is the one who comes to us. He is the one who finds us. He is the one who satisfies our hunger. He desires all to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tm 2:4), so that no one would perish (v. 12; 2 Pt 3:9). Jesus leads us to the mountain, where he teaches us, heals us, feeds us, nourishes us, saves us. He knows the lo...