God the Provider

Many of us have started New Year's resolutions already. Many of us have started failing our New Year's resolutions already. I started a diet of, you know, low GI food, brown rice, wholegrain, multigrain bread, then realised how boring that is. So I've already failed. I'm sure I'll try again a bit later.

But the reason we, some of us, have started our New Year's resolutions has something to do with diet, probably. It often is to do in relation to how much we've been eating at Christmas time. We've got a few extra kilos that need to be shed. But there's an amazing thing. My family is big on food. There's any excuse to celebrate, any excuse to eat, we try and find.

If it's a graduation, we eat. If it's Christmas time, we eat. If the Swans lost a game, we eat. It's usually like guilt eat, sorrow eat, like ice cream. Yeah.

There's something in us, I think, generally as humans, that loves celebrating and having fun and having joy around food. Well, this morning we're going to be reading in the Gospel of Luke something about a celebration that Jesus was the host of, and it is a massive feast. It is a massive feast. It is a feast that had 5,000 plus guests, and Jesus had to cater for them all. Jesus was there, the people were there, but where was the food?

Someone forgot to call Subway ahead of time. So we're going to read Luke chapter 9, verses 10 to 17, about the feeding of the 5,000. Luke chapter 9, verse 10, and it should also be up on the board. Jesus had sent out His disciples to preach, to spread the gospel of the kingdom of God, and verse 10 starts on their return. When the apostles had returned from this short term mission trip, they reported to Jesus what they had done.

Then He took them with Him, and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida. But the crowds learned about it and followed Him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed healing. Late in the afternoon, the twelve came to Him and said, "Send the crowd away so that they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." He replied, "You give them something to eat."

They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all this crowd." About 5,000 men were there. But He said to His disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each." The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He, Jesus, gave thanks and broke them.

Then He gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. We come to this story, like I said, with the disciples having returned from a bit of a short term mission trip. They had been preaching in the surrounding villages of Galilee, and in verse 10 we read that they had all returned to tell Jesus about what happened. They come back for the debrief, and Jesus says, "Okay, let's pull aside. Let's withdraw, and we can talk about this, and we can celebrate this, and we can thank God for this."

They are tired, these disciples. They are worn out, as you can imagine they would be, and yet crowds, Luke says, found out about this. Masses of people had found out about this. The news spread of Jesus being in the area, and thousands upon thousands of people flock to see Him. Jesus doesn't send them away, however.

We see, in fact, He takes pity on them. The Gospel of Mark writes that Jesus had compassion on the crowds. And Jesus begins healing the sick, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. Mentally and emotionally drained, the disciples helped out Jesus again, carrying these sick people to Jesus probably, ushering people in closer to hear Jesus talking, perhaps praying and laying on hands with other people.

And at the end of the day, which would have been a massive day, after being already tired, can you imagine how exhausted they were? They realised, however, that these crowds, it's getting late and they haven't had anything to eat yet. They haven't had dinner yet. It wasn't like us where we can just pop down to the Maccas here and buy something, a bit of takeaway. Food needed to be prepared.

It was, you know, a timely sort of thing. It took time to get food, and they say, "Lord, send them away. They need to get food." Jesus says to them, however, "You feed them. You feed them."

But there's absolutely no way they can do that. They managed to scrape together something. Another gospel account says that a little boy gave five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus prays over the food, however, blesses it and starts breaking it, and hours later, miraculously, everyone had had something to eat. In fact, not just a little morsel, but so much that there were leftovers, twelve basketfuls at the end of the day or the night.

Now, I don't know if you've ever had to cater for a large group of people. Some of the ladies at this church are great caterers, and they do amazing work looking after us with our Salt and Light events and our Christmas carols and that sort of thing. I don't know if you've ever had to do something like that, but you have to be mindful of so many things. You have to be mindful of dietary requirements. You have to be mindful of amounts.

You know, you don't want to do it over the top. You don't want to have too much left over. You don't want to run the risk of not having enough. Imagine being asked to do all that. Imagine being asked to cater for Open House Christmas carol service and not having any food.

Jesus asked the disciples to do this impossible task. They are totally under resourced, but Jesus is the one who completes this task. I think Luke tells the story of the feeding of the 5,000 to bring about or to bring out the responsibility of the disciples to look after these followers of Jesus, these other disciples of Jesus, and yet he points out their inability to help. Just before this story, Jesus sends them out onto a mission field, onto the mission field, and tells them not to take any bread, not to be concerned about their daily needs, that it will be all looked after by God, and now they must rustle up bread out of thin air. They weren't allowed to take bread.

Now they must prepare bread for all these thousands of people, not just for themselves, but for 5,000 people. In some of the other gospel accounts of Matthew and Mark and John, the reference to this huge amount of people is made at the end of the story to emphasise just how able Jesus was and how unable the disciples were. His ability to feed this huge amount of people is miraculous. In Luke, however, this detail is mentioned earlier in the story to emphasise the absolute inability, the absolute shock, the absolute terror of the disciples. "We have no food.

5,000 people are here. There's way too many people to feed," they realise, but Jesus steps in and provides. In fact, He over provides, and there's twelve basketfuls left over. When it comes down to it, Luke, the gospel writer, wants to make this point that the disciples can't provide for the people. They have the power of Jesus, however, but it is His power.

It is His power. They share the ministry of Jesus. They are His ambassadors. They point to Christ. They preach and share the message that Jesus has empowered them to share, but ultimately, they share Christ.

Ultimately, point to Christ, who is able, like we sung this morning. The situation is set up in such a way that Jesus has to do something truly miraculous, and it leaves a lasting impression, an impression that has resounded throughout the church for 2,000 years. So much so, so huge is this impression, that all four of the gospel writers recorded it. It is the only event in the ministry of Jesus that all gospel accounts write down. It was a big thing.

It left a mark. It left an impression. But again, as with all of Jesus' miracles, it's not just some party trick. It's not some little sideshow alley just to do something neat and to raise a few eyebrows. What Jesus does here has implications of meaning regarding His identity, who He is.

Jesus never performed healings or miracles simply because. It was always a sign to point to His authority. It was always a sign to flow into what He was preaching. At the start of this chapter, in verse 7, King Herod starts hearing about Jesus and about His growing popularity, and he's perplexed. He doesn't know who this Jesus is. All sorts of stories have come to him.

Some say that He's Elijah, the prophet of old, resurrected. Some say that He's John the Baptist that, you know, he had killed and he's sort of come back on the scene somehow. There's equations to Jesus and Moses. Is this like another Moses? And the question that Luke poses or asks of us, leaves us to answer, is also the question, "Who is Jesus?"

Who is Jesus? Well, the interesting thing, isn't it, with this question is, possibly, Jesus could have been like an Elijah or a Moses. In the Old Testament, the Jews would have known very well. Elijah was the one who caused a widow and her son to have unlimited flour and oil to feed them for the entire season of drought that they were in. Elijah, by the power of God, was able to cause an urn of oil and a basket or container of flour to never run dry in the drought.

Moses, we also know, the man who called down manna from heaven, provided for the nation of Israel food to eat. So here is Jesus feeding 5,000 people miraculously, and people could have thought, "Maybe it is like one of these Old Testament prophets. Maybe Jesus was like one of these." Maybe, but there's something happening that happens here that suggests something more than this. Because Peter and the apostles see this happening, and then after this event, in verse 20, Jesus asked them the question, "Who am I? Who am I?"

And they say, "People have said You are this, and people have said that You are that." And Jesus says, "Who do you think I am?" Peter, the man that's always first to answer, says, "You are the Messiah. You are the Christ of God." He relates what has happened in the feeding of the 5,000 somehow and connects it with the Messiah that was to come.

He sees something of God's new kingdom that the Messiah was to usher in in what had happened. And that's because Peter recognised in the feeding of the 5,000 a glimpse of the promise that was made regarding the Messiah. Seven hundred years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed this promise from God in chapter 25 of his book, chapter 25, verses 6 and 9, and I might just read that for you as well. Isaiah 25, verses 6 to 9. "On this mountain, the Lord will prepare a feast of rich food for all the people.

A banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain, He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all people, the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces. He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth.

The Lord has spoken." The Jews knew of this as, or called it, the Messianic Banquet. And the Jews knew that a time was coming where this celebration would usher in the kingdom of God, where God's Messiah would defeat death itself, put the world right, and enable every willing person to enjoy God's presence forever. It's a wonderful, joyful celebration and an image of God making everything right again. It's a symbol.

It's an image of provision, of plenty, of satisfaction. It is like a giant harvest feast where all the foods have been brought into the barn and we can celebrate with so much abundance. It's a feast with hope. The feeding of the 5,000 was not the full deal, however. As amazing as this meal of fish and loaves were, the language of Isaiah 25 is even more majestic.

It is even more grand. This was not the feast of Isaiah, but Peter recognised that this was a glimpse of it, enabled for him to understand and answer that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He saw something in the feeding of the 5,000 that led him to that conclusion. And I think that is what Luke is alluding to here. Luke points out all the necessary elements to draw some very strict and very legible connections. Jesus is seen as a host of a feast on a mountain.

He says they were on this mountain. It's not a picnic, simply not just a nice little meal between even a few of the disciples or, you know, a hundred of the disciples. It is a large, miraculous feast brought about from nothing. This feast points to the fact that Jesus is special. This points out that Jesus has authority. In fact, He is so special, the disciples eventually call and identify Him as the Messiah, the Messiah of the banquet that would be amazing.

And we are in need of hearing this as well. We are in need of hearing this as well. This is why God has given us this this morning. This is why God has given this in His Word to us, because we are so aware of a world that is in need. We are so aware of a world that is hungry.

It may not be necessarily for loaves and fish. It may not be for, you know, the daily needs that some of these people may have needed, but we are aware of hunger and pain and suffering, of longing in the soul. We are unsatisfied. Australia may not long for bread, but we long for healing. We long for intimacy.

We long to be satisfied. Australians long for the world to be sorted out. I read again this morning in our newspapers of two Australians being kidnapped in Africa, and there's a sadness to all these things, and we feel what is happening in the world. We pray for what is happening in the world. There is something in us that is desperately seeking satisfaction.

But here, in this desolate place in Luke 9, for a moment in history, we are given a glimpse to a reality of satisfaction, to a reality of fulfilment. At least 5,000 people, verse 17 says, ate and were satisfied. It's true that these people would go away and would be hungry again the next day, but here we have a foretaste of something special. There are twelve basketfuls left over. It wasn't simply enough.

It wasn't simply satisfactory. It was more than enough. It was abundant. And there's many theories about what the twelve basket loads refer to. Was it the twelve tribes of Israel that would now be fed?

Was it that the twelve disciples who must now take this Word of God to the nations? What do these twelve things refer to? I'm not going to speculate this morning, but I am going to point out the very obvious thing, because I am the king of obvious things, and I'm going to say that it was a sign of gracious provision that was left over. That was left over. It was a sign of a feast where there was enough, more than enough food.

And maybe it's also a sign that the feast is not over. In this desolate place, a group of needy people gather together and they share food with Jesus at the centre and with Jesus as the provider of this feast. There is absolutely nothing that the disciples could have brought to have, or contributed to have brought about, the feeding of these people. And so we see in this event, like a crack through a just a slightly open door, a glimpse of the kingdom of God in its fullest, in its most satisfactory, in its most joyful. And we see Jesus in this kingdom at the centre of it.

There is something for us as a church to recognise in this story, and I love this story, and we probably know this story very well. When our church meets together, how do we view it? When Christians in this church meet together, how do we view it? Do you recognise that it is a family of believers recognising that they are needy, coming together with Jesus at the centre, with Jesus as the provider? And do you recognise that when we come together, we feast and we celebrate with this God of ours?

Do we recognise that this is what the church is? A coming together where there is something profound and spiritual happening at the centre of it, a Jesus, a Saviour that provides. The Christian community is a glimpse of God's coming world, our times together, yes, even our meals together. Because all throughout Scripture, God's kingdom is portrayed in feasting and celebration and food and just communal events like that. It's a foretaste of a Messianic Banquet.

In these times, we proclaim and demonstrate the good news of our faith. Isaiah writes further, much later, in Isaiah chapter 55, verse 1, and he talks about this great banquet in other words, in other ways, and he says that this food is available to all who are hungry and desire it. It says in Isaiah 55, verse 1, "Come, all who are thirsty. Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, you who have nothing to contribute, come, buy and eat. Come, buy the greatest things on offer. Come, buy wine. Come, buy milk without money and without cost." He says, "Why spend money?"

This is the words of God, actually. "Why spend money on what is not bread and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen to Me. Listen to Me. Come and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of food."

God said through Isaiah, "A time is coming when His people would be able to come and receive soul satisfying food. It would be a celebration of the ages, and it was all free." There's a story I read of a man who decided to have a great celebration and feast with his family. He was a top surgeon and was celebrating something significant, and he invited his entire family to the most luxurious, grandest restaurant in his city. His entire family was there.

They were given these menus with lobster and steak and the most magnificent foods, and yet on these menus were never listed any prices. He was the one who had the menu with a price on it. He said to his friends and his family, "Eat anything that you want." Cassie's stressing out about that. He said, "Come and eat anything you want.

Order anything you want. This is my shout. Don't worry about the price." And so they ate the most sumptuous of meals, gladly paid for and freely given. The promise this morning seen in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is that God will provide a lavish feast that will surpass any five star restaurant meal.

What's more, our menus also won't have prices on them. There is nothing we can contribute to this feast. God says, "Come, all of you who are thirsty, and you will have the finest wine. Come, all of you who are hungry, and you will have the best meal, the heartiest steak." A few verses later in chapter 9, we see Jesus and the story heading in a completely new direction.

Luke chapters 1 to 9 talk about this question of who is Jesus? Jesus healed people. Jesus drove out demons. Jesus ultimately does this amazing, amazing miracle of feeding 5,000 people, and the question comes again, "Who is Jesus?" And Peter says, "You are the Christ.

You are the Messiah. You are the one that would host this amazing wedding feast." But then in verse 51 of this chapter, towards the end of the chapter, we see part B of the story happen. And Luke writes, "As the time approached for Jesus to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." Another translation says that Jesus set His face upon Jerusalem.

We see now part two happening. The rest of the Gospel spells out what it would mean for Jesus to be the Messiah. First part, who is Jesus? He is the Messiah. And now part two, what it means for Jesus to be Messiah.

He is the Christ who must die. And Jesus, as the host of God's banquet, the very wealthy Son, would provide the Messianic Feast at the cost of His life. The feeding of the 5,000 was a glimpse of the hope of a great banquet in heaven, but it was not the true banquet. In the feeding of the 5,000, we would have to look at the cross for that. That is where God provided for us.

In our meeting together as Christians, as we meet in our small groups, as we meet in our prayer groups, as we meet in our discipleship groups, as we meet in three weeks' time when we have our Mysterious Dinner together, know that in this communion, we celebrate. We celebrate a glimpse of the heavenly feast we will share with Christ. Jesus breaking bread with 5,000 was a glimpse of that as well. That's why it's important to belong in a church community. As a Christian, we belong to community. Why?

Because if you don't, you truly miss out on the goodness of the Gospel. You truly miss out on just that little glimpse, and it is always just so fleeting. We just have a sniff of the beautiful food that awaits us on the other side. We just have a glimpse of the reality that is going to be revealed in the fullness of time. But it is in these moments that we share together this morning where we see some of that celebration and feasting.

So this morning, it might be a reminder to some of us that investing in each other's lives is an important thing for us to pursue as Christians. For others, we might need reminding that God provides, that, you know, as we go into this year, that our God is able. Our God is able to do amazing things out of nothing, out of two fish and five loaves. That we can go to Him and ask Him boldly. But all of us need to be reminded this morning, all of us, wherever we are, that God has a vast, unending, lavish banquet available for us for free for the rest of our lives.

He invites us to join Him today to celebrate with other people, with His family, with His guests invited to this feast, and to accept His free forgiveness, to accept His free welcome and fellowship, and to find everlasting life, everlasting celebration, everlasting feasting with Him. Let's pray. Father, Your Word is so amazing and so powerful. We see again in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 9 just the amazing dynamics of Your Word, of what is happening there. And we see, Lord, that our need is also to answer daily, "Who is Christ?"

And so this morning we recognise again and we say to our hearts and to one another that He is the Messiah, that He is the one who provides, that He provides out of nothing we can bring. But Father, we also realise that there is a feast, there is a celebration that is alluded to from ages past, centuries past, thousands of years, millennia past, where there is a feast that we can enjoy and go to and return to over and over, where You are the host, Lord Jesus, that You have provided. And we know that that feast was provided ultimately through the sacrifice of the cross. Thank you, Lord, that You resolutely set Your face on Jerusalem, that all these things, these miracles, these healings, this provision, Lord, prepared us, prepared Your people for this event, that You would go to Jerusalem to give up Your life for us. Thank You, Lord, that You have done this.

Father, we ask forgiveness. We ask, Lord, that You will cleanse us from our inability to have loved You as we should, but we also accept this morning the newness, the freshness, the joy of new life in You, and we accept it, Lord, knowing that You are the one that will seal it in us as well. You are the one that will protect it and guard it and fight for it even on our behalf. Father, may we be a church that loves coming together in fellowship and community, celebrating these things, because we recognise that it is a foretaste of what awaits us in the new life to come. We commit our lives to You again in Jesus' name. Amen.