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᛭ INI ᛭

Oh give thanks unto the LORD for He is good. And His mercy endureth forever. (Ps 136:1) Familiar words. They are the song of faith after receiving the LORD’s gifts. The LORD’s people have been singing these words from the days of King David (some 3,000 years)—seems he wrote ‘em first.

We rightly sing these words here at Church and especially receiving the fruits of Christ’s Passion, His body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness for sins. In fact, these words have been sung, and even sung responsively (Ezra 3:11), in God’s temple since David as 1 Chronicles 16 tells us.

But you also know these words from somewhere else. They’re used not only by the Lord’s people as we “go to the altar of God, to God [our] exceeding joy.” You also use these words to give thanks for your daily bread. This is from Luther’s Small Catechism. In the Small Catechism, Luther brings the Altar into the home. The Invocation, the Lord’s Prayer, along with the Apostles’ Creed are to echo in our homes several times a day. That’s literally what Luther’s Small Catechism says. But after meals this Word of God, along with other Psalm verses, are used to give thanks: Oh, give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, and His {mercy} endureth forever (Ps 136:1)

There’s a unity that exists between the Church Altar and the Home Altar. The same LORD supplies both daily bread and the “bread of immortality” There’s bread that strengthens us for this life, and there’s other bread that strengthens us for the life to come, for that second Bread, “is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ?” The first bread, daily bread, is clear as day in our Gospel, the Second Bread is echoed in our text as well, and both breads are for you and for me in our various vocations. Your vocations are the stations or places in life that God has specifically put you, which has everything to do with the “breads” that He gives.

(Bread of Mortality)

Oh give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, [and] His {mercy} endures forever. (Ps 136:1) The LORD give you everything for body and life. That literally includes the bread you use to make your sandwiches for dinner, but “daily bread [also] includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body…” (SC III, IV) The LORD “has given [you your] body and soul, eyes, ears, and all [your] members, [your] reason and all [your] senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives [you] clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all [you] have. He richly and daily provides [you] with all that [you] need to support this body and life.” (SC II, I) So it was that the LORD Jesus had “compassion on the multitude, because they [had] continued with [Him] three days and [had] nothing to eat.” “He took seven loaves and a few small fish, there were seven baskets of leftover fragments, and those who had eaten were about 4,000.”

But it’s not just you, and not just me‚ not just people, as the Psalmist says, “The eyes of all look to You, [O LORD,] and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. (Ps 145:15–16)” [He] gives food to every creature. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call… (Ps 147:9–10) (More of God’s Word used in the Small Catechism Daily Prayers.)

(Transition)

The LORD sends the springs into the valleys; They flow among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field… He waters the hills from His upper chambers… He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the service of man, That he may bring forth food from the earth. (Ps 104:10–11a, 13a) The LORDS gives “bread which strengthens man’s heart, wine that makes his heart glad…” (Ps 104:14–15)

He doesn’t just give bread that grows stale and moldy, or possessions that please for only a little while, He gives the Bread that strengthen’s man’s heart to life everlasting, the Wine that gives eternal joy and gladness—the Supper where the bread is the LORD’s body and the wine is His blood. A treasure “that moth and rust cannot destroy.” A payment that “thieves cannot break in and steal.” The bread of immortality.

(Bread of Imortality)

Oh give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, [and] His {mercy} endures forever. (Ps 136:1) So, the Lord gives the most valuable thing, the most priceless thing in the entire universe, the most precious thing in all eternity—His own body and blood. For “you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold…but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without [spot and blemish.]” (1 Pet 1) This blood given in “the cup of blessing that we bless.” (1 Cor 10)

And the Lord instituting Communion is clearly heard echoed in our text. The Holy Spirit inspired Mark’s account. The Words are the Spirit’s words. Let’s listen again: Jesus “took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples.” In fact it would completely permissible to translate it all this way: He “took the seven breads, when He had given thanks, He broke them and gave them to the disciples…”

The Feeding Miracles, both the 5,000 and the 4,000, serve as a hinge between Old and New Testaments, between Moses and the Prophet like Moses. In the Old Testament the LORD supplied manna for His people Israel, and in the New He supplies it for His “new” Israel, those who have faith in Jesus the Son of God. The Gospel of Jesus’ salvation is “first for the Jew and then for the Gentile” (Rom 1:16). So also the 5,000 were Jews, and the 4,000 were from the region of the Decapolis, 10 Greek Cities south east of Galilee.

(Transition)

Jew and Gentile are all one, not only in their daily bread, as even the service of the seven associate pastors in Acts 6 shows, but also in the Bread and Wine that they also distributed, the Bread that truly makes us one with them and with each other. For “now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Eph 2) “The cup of blessing which we bless, isn’t it the communion of the blood of Christ? “The bread which we break, isn’t it the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.” (1 Cor 10)

(Vocations)

Oh give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, [and] His {mercy} endures forever. (Ps 136:1) This also has everything to do with where God has placed you in life. Daily bread includes being a spouse or parent or child or worker or citizen or civil servant, for “daily bread [also] includes…a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, [and] devout and faithful rulers…” (SC III, IV) We also see this dynamic play out in our reading as well. Jesus “gave [the bread] to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude. They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.” Jesus used His disciples to supply bread to the multitude.

That’s how the Lord does things. It’s that way obviously with the true Bread from Heaven, the body of Jesus. From Christ’s mouth and hands, taking up the minister’s mouth and hands as His own, and you receive His Supper. But this is also how it goes with daily bread. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each in His own way, supplies daily bread to you. Babies are not only knit together by the Father, but He uses their mother’s bodies to nurse them. He uses parents to give care to their children—in due season children to their parents. You farmers, He’s using you to cultivate and harvest His land and crops. We’re His instruments and tools. His using us results in thanksgiving from other Christians. “We do good to all especially of the household of faith.” (Gal 6) One of the reasons you give your offerings! Paul lays it out this way:

Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. For the administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God, while … they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal sharing with them and all men, and by their prayer for you, who long for you because of the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! (2 Cor 9:10–15)

Oh give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, [and] His {mercy} endureth forever. (Ps 136:1)

᛭ INI ᛭