Sermon Text: Matthew 14:13-21
Date: August 6, 2023
Event: Proper 13, Year A (The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)
Matthew 14:13-21 (EHV)
When Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns.
14When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. He had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15When evening came, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place and the hour is already late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
16But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17They told him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”
18“Bring them here to me,” he replied. 19Then he instructed the people to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish. After looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. The disciples gave the food to the people. 20They all ate and were filled. They picked up twelve basketfuls of what was left over from the broken pieces. 21Those who ate were about five thousand men, not even counting women and children.
Do You Trust the One Who Provides?
The young child calls out from the back seat, “Can we get ice cream now?” “No, dear, we said we would get ice cream after we have dinner with Grandma. We still need to drive for another hour to get to her house and then have dinner and then we’ll go get ice cream.” “Oh, ok…” is the quiet reply. 10 minutes later the question rings out again, “Can we get ice cream now?”
For the parents, maybe this incessant questioning is obnoxious as they’re trying to make the drive to visit family. But it does point to something very positive. The child trusts that Mom and Dad will keep their promise and they will get ice cream. Maybe the child thinks that the timing is negotiable, but there’s no doubt that it will be coming. Because if the child thought her parents were lying to her, she wouldn’t even bother to ask. If it wasn’t real, if it wasn’t going to happen, why bother? But, because she knew the promise was trustworthy, the questions kept filling the car.
The theme for our worship service this morning and especially of our Gospel is the promise that God will provide for us. But when we hear God’s promises, are we like the child who trusts and continually pleads to God for what he’s said he’s going to do, or do we fret and worry and thus dismiss his promises as fiction and assume we’re on our own? Do you trust the one who provides?
Our Gospel begins with the phrase, “When Jesus heard this,” which doesn’t tell us what “this” is, but the “this” is very important. Because if you were to open your Bible and look through the verses that come before our Gospel for this morning, you would see the retelling of John the Baptist being beheaded by Herod. The beginning of our reading for this morning comes hot on the heels of Matthew 14:12, “John’s disciples came, took the body, and buried it. Then they went and reported this to Jesus.”
Let’s pause for a moment and consider what that would have meant for Jesus. John was his relative, perhaps even his cousin, as both John's mother Elizabeth and Jesus’ mother Mary were relatives. We don’t know exactly how close they were growing up, but certainly the family bond existed between these two.
Then there was the more important link that John and Jesus shared in their work. John was called to be Jesus’ forerunner, to get people ready for his work. His preaching and teaching addressed the people’s sin and pointed them to Jesus—the Lamb of God—as their Savior. John’s work, promised by several prophets in the Old Testament, was absolutely vital in the God’s plan to save the world from sin.
Never mind those close connections, we see time and again how grieved Jesus is at death because death was not part of his original design for the world. While Jesus came to solve death caused by sin by his innocent death in the place of all people, he still was hit hard by the fact that people suffered these horrible wages of sin. Perhaps most notable was Jesus’ time outside of Lazarus’ tomb where he wept—and in that case he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead in just a couple of minutes! But Jesus knew the loss of death, he knew the unnatural separation of having someone dear to you ripped away from you. As a man, he felt that; as God, he despised it and had to fix it.
So, it’s in this context that Jesus is seeking a deserted place to be alone. This is not just Jesus being tired from his work (though surely, he was), nor was he needing some time off from the hustle and bustle of the crowds (though surely, he did). But this was much more pointed—Jesus wanted to be alone to grieve. As a man, losing his relative; as God, seeing his dear creation endure death; and as the Savior seeing the one who prepared the way for him suffer such an ignoble end all were cause for great pain of heart and soul.
What happens next for the grieving Jesus? When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. Can you feel it? What would have made sense for Jesus to be feeling and thinking? “I just needed this little bit of time by myself. I have nothing to give you all. Please leave me alone.” But we don’t see the veins starting to pop in Jesus’ neck. In fact, shockingly, we see just the opposite. He had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Here we see the heart of our Savior on display. When you come to God in prayer, what attitude do you envision God having? Do you think he’s the stern old man who’s not interested in your whining? Do you imagine your prayers have to stand in line for a chance to be heard by God? I think our minds and hearts can create all sorts of pictures. But I would encourage you, as you pray, to think of Jesus as he is here. According to his humiliation and human nature, desperately needing some alone time, but having his heart bleed for the people coming to him.
Trust the one who provides for you. He cares for you; he has compassion on you. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, how “good” or “bad” you feel like you’ve been. You need him and he wants to pour himself out for you. Whether it’s the smaller day-to-day things of this life, the bigger life-and-death issues around us, or the eternal needs that we have, Jesus is there to provide. From our daily bread to the forgiveness of our sins and rescue from eternal death in hell, he provides it all. And the event that follows Jesus’ outpouring of compassion shows just the same thing.
Matthew tells us, “When evening came, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place and the hour is already late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ ” We are not told what the disciples’ motivation is here exactly for coming to Jesus with this problem. It’s likely that they just had a legitimate concern for the people. Jesus had chosen this place because of its remoteness; it’s not a surprise that there weren’t a lot of places to secure food for a huge crowd.
But also, let’s consider how are the disciples doing. Remember that many of Jesus’ twelve disciples had been John the Baptist’s disciples before they started following Jesus. How were they taking the news of his execution? How much time were they wanting to grieve, to be by themselves? Maybe that evening would work well. Maybe the crowds could go and they could finally have that processing time, though a few hours after they originally had hoped.
Jesus’ answer is a bit surprising. “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Why is that his answer? He knew that they had few resources with them compared to the number of people. In John’s Gospel we learn a bit more about Jesus’ mind, “Jesus was saying this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do” (John 6:6). What would Jesus be testing them on? Perhaps, he was looking to see if they would trust him as the one who provides.
The miracle that Jesus performs here—feeding a group possibly numbering 10 or 15,000 when you add women and children to the count of 5,000 men—with just a few bits of food and then having twelve basketfuls of leftovers really points to the rest of his care. Jesus was concerned for the people’s well-being. He wanted them to trust him; he wanted his disciples to trust him; and he showed that he could provide even in miraculous, baffling ways. This miracle is really Jesus saying, “You do not need to worry. I will take care of you.”
Do we trust the one who provides? God has promised that you will have what you need. Do you believe that? God has promised that he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do you believe that? God has promised to be your eternal Helper, your Savior. Do you believe that?
Because the providence of God is not limited to a nice meal in a remote part of the Holy Land. His care is not limited to ensuring that we have enough clothing and food and a roof over our heads. No, all of these things are important and certainly the result of his love and compassion for us, but they point to a much greater providence. The crowds would get confused after this. They would want Jesus to be their bread king—someone to provide them with food they didn’t have to work for. But Jesus will need to be clear that he didn’t ultimately come to be the source of food that is consumed and then is gone. No, he came to give them the bread of life—to be the Bread of Life for them.
Jesus’ ultimate goal is not that we have what we need in the here and now (though that is very important to him). Jesus’ ultimate goal is that we have what we need for eternity. And so, Jesus’ work was not primarily about healing diseases or driving out demons or feeding the masses a nice miracle meal; Jesus’ work was primarily about providing for that greatest need—the need for the forgiveness of sins.
These miracles are all in service of and signs pointing to the one who promised to provide that forgiveness and eternal life. Do you trust him to provide that? All we need to do is journey with him a bit longer in his earthly ministry. The crowds will get smaller and smaller as people lose interest. But the greater miracle is to come, as God himself suffers hell on the cross to pay for our sins and then, three days later, rises from the dead to prove his victory over sin, death, and the Devil.
That’s where his compassion for us leads him. That is where his promise to provide for our needs and to take care of us ends up. He serves not as the provider of the temporary, but of the eternal, not of bread that we could buy for money, but of eternal life that is priceless and also given to us as a free gift.
My brothers and sisters, in all things, earthly and eternal, let us trust the one who provides, for he is trustworthy. He provides our daily bread now; we will have no more needs when he provides eternal life for us with him in heaven. He lived and died for us so that we will live with him forever! Thanks be to God for providing all we need! Amen.
