Jan van Eyck The Adoration of the Lamb from the Ghent Altarpiece |
In Exodus the people of Israel moan an awful
lot, in this morning’s reading they are hungry and they long to be fed, and so
God answers their prayer and gives them manna and quails, they are fed with
bread and meat, a miracle which points forward to the more miraculous feeding
when Christ will give his flesh, the bread of life, so that we his people may
have life in Him, so that we may be built up in love, so that His Divine nature
may transform our human nature and prepare us for heaven.
In this morning’s Gospel,
we see people who have been fed in the miraculous feeding, the feeding of the
five thousand, following Jesus around. Perhaps they’re hoping for another free
lunch? They have seen and yet they have not seen the signs; they haven’t
understood what’s going on. They haven’t seen what Jesus is doing and why he is
doing it
Jesus feeds people not as
a combination of magic trick and mass catering, but as a sign of God’s generous
love, his healing and forgiveness. That God loves us, you and me, all of us, so
much, that he longs to feed us with himself, that he gives himself to be
tortured and die on the Cross for us, to show us that he loves us, to heal our
wounds, to take away our sins. His feeding of the people of God points to this,
so that they might believe in Him. And believing in Him, be fed by Him, fed with
him, so that they might have life, and life in all its fullness.
Jesus wants us to believe
in him, to trust in him, to be fed by him, with him, the Word of God made
flesh, to be fed by word and sacrament, to be strengthened to live our life of faith,
growing into His likeness, and to live out that faith in the world around us.
Jesus is the true bread come down from heaven which satisfies our spiritual
hunger in a way which the world: success, money, possessions, what we have and
what we do, cannot. He is the living water which satisfies the thirst of our
souls. If we believe in Him, and in Him alone, we will never be thirsty. He
gives us not what we want, but what we need: a love, a true love
which gives meaning to human love, and to all of human existence: a generous self-giving
love.
One of the Desert Fathers was
asked by a soldier if God accepted repentance. After the old man had taught him
many things, he said, ‘Tell me my dear, if your cloak is torn do you throw it away?’
He replied, ‘No, I mend it and use it again.’ The old man said to him, ‘If you are
so careful with your cloak, will not God be equally careful about his creature?’
God’s grace does not abolish our human nature but transforms it, through the power
of the Holy Spirit, so that we may live forever in Him, living out our faith.
If we trust in God, and
live our lives according to his will, loving God and each other, with faith in
him alone we can win a reward which lasts far longer than human praise or
glory: the crown of eternal life and the glory of heaven. So let us be fed by
him, with him, let us be nourished by word and sacrament, let us believe in
him, let us love Him and love one another, and live lives which proclaim his
life, his truth and his victory to the world around us: a victory which allows us to win a greater prize, a greater
glory than anything this world can offer – true life, true glory, and true joy
with him forever in Heaven, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
No comments:
Post a Comment