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INJ
'They Came to Make Him King'
St John 6:1-15
Lataere, Lent IV
March 26th, 2006
Hope Lutheran Church, Aurora, CO
Dear Saints,
Jesus feeds the 5,000. This should be no surprise for us, for daily the same Lord Jesus feeds millions, billions, indeed all the people of the world. Every day, for almost every person ever to live the Lord has answered the prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and even for the unbeliever and the wicked. It is none other than the Lord Jesus who gives us life and sustains our life, “in Him we live and move and have our being.” [Acts 17:28]
The trouble is that we don't always see it. The fact that God takes a tiny grain and multiplies it a hundred-fold and feeds all the people of the world doesn't seem like such a miracle, and the devil takes this hidden working and miracle of God and tempts us to unbelief, into believing that we provide our own daily bread, that we are the one's who bring home the bacon, that we are safe and secure that we have all that we need apart from God by our own strength.
But in the wilderness that day everyone could see Jesus working this miracle. The wilderness is a place of hunger, of fasting. In the wilderness there are no cultivated fields, no orchards, no rivers and streams, but all is barren, dry, hungry. So when the people of God were rescued from the bondage of Pharaoh and spent forty years in the wilderness they had to be fed with bread from heaven, called “Manna, What is This?” There, in the wilderness, the miracle of God feeding and providing can be seen with the eyes, and so it is with Jesus in the wilderness: with five barley loaves and two fish everyone is eating, and eating, and is full and satisfied, and still there is more, crumbs enough to fill a dozen baskets. 5000 plus fed.
They see the miracle, preformed by the hands of Jesus, and that crowd comes to a conclusion about who Jesus is, and makes a confession, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world,” [St John 6:14] and they want to make Him king.
If we stop here we might think, “All right, they get it. They understand who Jesus is, that He is the Lord and Christ.” We might be glad that they want Jesus to be the king. After all, is not Jesus the King of kings and Lord of lords, and is it not a good thing that this crowd sees it, and understands it and wants Jesus to be their Lord and king?
But we are shocked, or perhaps we ought to be, when Jesus, seeing that they want Him as king, will not have it, “Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.” [St John 6:15] Why does Jesus act so strangely? Why does He refuse to be made king? Did not He come to be the King of the Jews?
Perhaps we will find the answer if we consider another time in Jesus' life when they came to take Him. After Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Judas came with a detachment of guards from the temple and “they laid their hands on Him and took Him.” [St Mark 14:46] Then Jesus let Himself be taken. Then He let Himself be crowned as king with a crown of thorns. Then He allowed it, that He is given the title by Pilate, the sign that was nailed to the cross above His head: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
The crowds sing His coronation song, “Away with Him! We have no king but Caesar. Away with Him!” And the all join the wicked refrain, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Then He is draped with the royal purple robes of mockery, anointed with His own blood, covered in the jewels of His own agonizing sweat. He does not sit in His royal throne, but is hung from it. This is His coronation, this is His kingship, His kingdom, this is His throne, His rule, this, His cross, this is where Jesus is King.
Jesus will not be taken as king in the wilderness, but He will be taken in the garden outside Jerusalem, and this tells us exactly what kind of king He is.
Jesus did not come to be the “bread-king,” to rule the kingdoms of this world and to provide for all people physical well-being. This He already does, and has done since the beginning of creation. Jesus comes in the flesh in order to be another type of king with another type of kingdom.
Yesterday was a very important day in the church year, March 25th, nine months before December 25th. So yesterday the Lord's church celebrated the Annunciation, the day that the angel Gabriel spoke to the Virgin Mary, and in her womb was conceived the Christ, our Lord Jesus. We normally think of the incarnation of Jesus at Christmas time, but the actual event of the incarnation took place nine months before. At that very moment the eternal Son of God took on Himself man's flesh and blood, and He does this for a purpose.
He comes in the flesh not to govern with power and provision, but with the promise of forgiveness. His kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is of His Word, and here He rules, not by power but by humility, by weakness, by death; not with the rod but with the cross. Jesus takes upon Himself our flesh in order that He might die and be the atoning sacrifice for all of our sins, and it is in His death that He establishes His kingdom of righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
In His kingdom, His church, things are different. Here He rules by the gospel, by the forgiveness of sins. Here He feeds us, from this altar, not just with bread as He did for the 5000 in the wilderness and as He does for us every meal, but with His very own body and blood, and the fruit of that broken body and spilt blood: the promise of the forgiveness of all of our sins. More than bread alone, we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Here, in His kingdom, His church, we are gathered around the Lord Jesus in this wilderness of sin and death and sorrow, and He feeds us His food redemption and immortality and who rules over us with His Word and gifts, He protects us from all evil, He keeps us from the devil, and He rescues us from sin and death and gives us eternal life and salvation.
The devil has this temptation of us, the Lord Jesus' church, that we would have Jesus as the King without the cross, that we would take hold us Him so that He could serve us and meet our own felt needs, that He would fill our bellies and our bank accounts and would see to it that we are always healthy and happy, that we never get sick or get old. This is the Jesus the devil wants us to take hold of, a powerful cross-less Jesus, the Jesus that the crowds wanted in the wilderness. But this is not how Jesus comes to His church, not how He gives Himself to us. Jesus comes always with the cross.
Here we have Him as King, not the bread-king, but the crucified King, the dead and risen King, the Savior. “Behold your King.” It is there, on the cross, that Jesus is King for you and for your salvation. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
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