15 February 2020 - bread that satisfies

Today's Readings

(Audio)

My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.

Normal food satisfies our hunger only for a time. We have a deeper hunger for a food which satisfies. This is the bread that only Jesus can give. He sees how hungry we are. He looks on us with compassion. He himself desires to be the one who satisfies us for all eternity. 

Are we willing to stay with Jesus for three days even though we are hungry? The crowds spent three days with him before they were able to receive the miraculous bread. Many of us would choose to leave him and try to provide for ourselves before that long. We would try, but not succeed.

If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.

Only by choosing to stay with Jesus even when we are experiencing the deepest hungers and longings of our lives will we experience the miraculous and providential care of having him feed us. If he simply sated the desires as they came to our attention we would be at risk of caring more about those things than Jesus. The way Jesus leads us apart and has us wait on him helps us to acknowledge his centrality in our lives.

Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.

Jesus alone is enough to fulfill the deepest longings of our hearts. We need to stop acting like Jeroboam who set up easier alternatives to the ways of the LORD. He was more attached to his own power than to the truth. He refused to wait on the LORD for satisfaction but attempted to satisfy himself instead.

You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough.
Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.

May we not fall for the false promises of Jeroboam which tell us that there is an easier way than the LORD's way. It may be that the LORD's way does not seem easy. But certainly and emphatically it is the only way that actually reaches the goal, the only way possible. Other ways may seem easier, but they never arrive. They end in disaster.

Let us turn instead to the LORD who longs to satisfy us. He often chooses to do so through the disciples who distribute his bread to us. And we in turn help to bring others to this sacred feast.

He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.

With the psalmist, we pray, "Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people."