Resurrection Hope

Mark 6:30-44: The apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So, they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

One of the themes that consistently shows up in the Old Testament is this theme of God taking nothing and making it into something. In Genesis, for example—when God created the world—He took chaos and darkness and somehow transformed it into the beautiful creation that we see around us today. Later on in Genesis, God chose an elderly, childless, infertile couple to become the parents of a great nation. It took some time, but eventually, Isaac was born to Sarah and to Abraham. In Exodus, God took a bunch of slaves and delivered them out of Egypt and shaped them into that great nation that had been promised many years earlier. In Judges, God took a cowardly and uncertain warrior named Gideon and made him into a great judge. In Esther, God used a subjugated woman in less-than-ideal circumstances to save an entire people. In Ezra and Nehemiah and Isaiah, God led a tired, bedraggled, and defeated people home, and enabled them to rebuild their lives.

It’s an idea that shows up everywhere—in nearly every book and in nearly every story—that God creates abundance out of lack. It’s one of the things that makes the story of God and of His relationship with human beings so captivating, and it is also one of the reasons why the way in which Mark tells the story of the feeding of the five thousand is so meaningful. It is a continuation of the story of a God who does the work that is set out before Him with the least number of resources possible. It is yet another stop on the big bus route that is the story of God’s unshakable love and magnificent grace.

Mark’s version of this miracle picks up on a bit of a cliffhanger. After having faced rejection in His hometown, Jesus has sent the disciples out to do missionary work. They have been travelling from village to village, preaching the Good News. But now, they are back, and they are tired. It is not easy work to do ministry, especially in the way that Jesus has asked His disciples to do it—with no money, extra clothes, extra shoes, or plans. So, with nothing in their tanks, Jesus invites the disciples to follow Him into the wilderness to rest for a little while.

Jesus, however, has become rather famous, and when people realize that Jesus is boarding a boat and going somewhere, they follow Him. They can’t allow this incredible healer and teacher to leave their sight even for a minute. And of course, when Jesus and His disciples arrive at their destination and see five thousand people waiting for them, Jesus can’t help Himself. In His great love and compassion for humanity, Jesus provides these people with what they need. He is so committed to this, in fact, that several hours pass by, and the time grows late. Noticing this, the disciples come to Jesus and encourage Him to send the people away. After all, this was first century Israel. One couldn’t exactly hit up the McDonalds drive-thru on the way back home. If the crowd wanted dinner, then they would need to start heading home.

I can picture the disciples standing there—pleased that this is the case—because by golly, they were promised rest, and it hasn’t happened yet. If Jesus is working, then they are working. Surely, they can’t wait for Jesus to send these people home so that they can relax. I can also picture the looks that had to have come onto their faces when Jesus replies, “You give them something to eat.” The sarcasm in their response to Him is almost deserved. The disciples have essentially given up everything to follow Jesus. They don’t have any money. Are they supposed to just casually drop a whole year’s salary on bread for these people?

Jesus has a plan, though. He tells the disciples to find out how much bread there is. The disciples consult, and they discover that there are five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus tells the disciples to have the people sit on the grass and to break up into groups. The disciples sort everyone out, and then Jesus blesses and breaks the loaves. He hands them to the disciples to pass around—along with the fish—and miraculously, there is more than enough. Every person in the crowd not only eats, but eats enough to be filled, and there are twelve baskets of leftovers.

There was no energy, no bandwidth, no money, and no food. There weren’t even enough disciples to serve bread to five thousand people. But in the end, there was grace upon grace. There was beauty from ashes. There was abundance from scarcity. There was something from nothing.

We live in a world that suffers from a lot of things. We could walk outside of the front door and take a look at our neighborhood and identify a lot of it—poverty, violence, substance abuse, and lack of care for one another. A lot of times, though, I think that what we suffer from the most is a lack of hope. In an attempt to be realistic and to stop gas-lighting people who are suffering into being more grateful and happy, it seems to me as if our society has over-corrected into cynicism. And I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you all that if a person doesn’t believe that things can get better, that they probably won’t. If a person is just going to relapse anyway, if there’s just going to be another stabbing, if someone else is just going to be cruel to someone anyway, if the neighborhood is still going to look trashy despite anyone’s individual effort to fix up their house or to clean things up, then what’s the point? Why try?

Why feed those five thousand people when they will just get hungry again tomorrow? Why keep delivering and saving and investing in a group of people if they are just going to be imperfect and unfaithful and constantly running into problems? Why even bother to create order from chaos if that order is going to get screwed up again just days into Adam and Eve’s existence?

Friends, there is a whole lot that I could have stood up here and told you this morning. This is one of my very favorite Bible stories, and I find the ways in which people have interpreted this story throughout history to be fascinating. I could have taken us on a huge deep dive about the Enlightenment and rationalism and about how philosophy and theology intersect. I could have led us down a rabbit hole about miracles, and we could have spent some time trying to figure out what to do with miracles—especially when so many of us need miracles and don’t receive them. We could have had a very interesting Sunday morning.

But throughout the week, I continued to come back to God’s ability and tendency to make mountains out of molehills, but in a good way, and I suppose that it is because of this hope thing. Our world desperately needs some hope. We desperately need some good news. We desperately need some joy to come in and to disarm our distrust and suspicion and bitterness. And when the world is desperately in need of something, that’s usually a pretty good sign that God is asking us to pay attention to that something. That’s how the Holy Spirit usually speaks to me, anyway.

So, I guess that what I want you all to know and to be reassured of today is that we are surrounded by grace. Except for maybe your paycheck, there is nothing on this earth that exists because you earned it, or because you made it happen. God created this world. God created you, and God is in charge. Everything that is only is because of God. Despite what our pride tells us, we are not God. And because all of this is true, it is also true that there is no mess too big for God. There is nothing that God can’t make right. There is nothing that God can’t reverse. There is nothing that God can’t make beautiful. We are not doomed like so many people feel and say that we are. Actually, in a post-Easter world, every day is Easter, so every day is another tiny resurrection. Every day is another opportunity to see the new life that God has given us and to live into it.

And since this is who God is—a God of goodness and reconstruction and creation and redemption and generosity—and since we are being invited into a new sort of world that looks like God, we are not stuck. We are not condemned to just continue living the same way and doing the same things. We are not held captive to our own fear and negativity. Nor are we to just sit on our hands and wait for Jesus to come back—all the while doing nothing to share the love of Jesus with a broken and aching world. God is different, so we can be different. God repairs, so we can be tools. God heals and creates goodness and fills the world with the love, so we can be healers and lovers and do-gooders and all of those sorts of things.

Hope is real, and it is here. We can taste it on our tongues and feel it with our hands. This is not all that there is. This is beautiful—don’t get me wrong—but there is even more beauty out there. The God who took five loaves of bread and two fish and fed five thousand people with it is at work. The God who died on a cross and who came back from the dead and who lives in both our hearts and in Heaven is on the move. The God who has promised that someday, there will be a new heaven and a new earth and that all will be loved back to life and set free from the sins that bind them is here. It hasn’t all gone to hell in a handbasket. There isn’t “simply no use”. Even when we feel as if we are living in the shadows, we are also living in the Light. God is so, so good, and has given us so, so much. And we aren’t in danger of the grace running out. God gives and restores and makes something out of nothing over and over again, as much as we need for Him to.

There is always more than enough. God is always saving us. God is always making detours where we only see closed roads. God is always sharing, always loving, always building, and always creating. God is always opening up a way where there is no way. God is always making the ugly and broken things lovely and whole. God is always redeeming. So, let’s not be fooled. Let’s not be people who think that it is all over and that there is no way out or nothing more to do. Let’s not give in to cynicism. Let’s always have our eyes looking for God. And may His grace captivate our hearts and change our lives. May the loaves and fishes fill us. May the possibility of resurrection and the swapping out of God’s power for our lack deliver us and free us again and again.          

Amen.