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Where is the "Law" in the "Feeding of the Five Thousand?" The Law is found in the fact that they have to be fed; that you hunger. It was one of the key conditions which caused the Children of Israel to constantly grumble in the wilderness. In Paradise before the "fall" our first parents ate and drank for pleasure and enjoyment, not out of necessity. Now, your hunger pains are "signs" that not all is well with the body of death you are draped in. In Eden Adam and Eve were in perfect "communion" with the Lord and did not question Him, doubt Him, or express apprehension. But now, with "Old Adams" embedded to the core, now even His closest followers, such as the "12," such as you, have doubts, qualms and questions. The Law is felt in each and every one of you, as it was of the crowd, in the need to see and experience miracles and signs. You have faith but at times of stress and testing your faith many times proves weak. Lord, help this little flock.

In this dangerous time in which you live in; a time rife with Muslim advances, atheist victories, rampant state idolatry, and seeming success and glory for every other sect, denomination and parish which employs glitter, smoke and mirrors, your own flesh too yearns for glory; some glory anyway. It’s just so much easier to follow a God Who gives out, at least from time to time, "signs."

What kind of "signs" would make you think that the Lord was really with you? Would perfect health, total faith commitments of all your family, friends and loved ones, numerical growth of the parish, vibrancy and insight in all Bible Classes, a new Cathedral truly worthy of the Church of the Augsburg Confession; or maybe just all the bread you want when you’re hungry, and all the diseases healed when you’re sick.

Christ Jesus is the Bread King, but He’s not the kind of King they (or your fallen nature) had in mind; He gives bread but not the kind of mammon they (or your fallen nature) had in mind. Jesus is the King of three Kingdoms (very Trinitarian); the Kingdom of Power, the Kingdom of Glory (i.e. heavenly eternity at the end of time) and the Kingdom of Grace (His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church here and now which He inhabits with His real bodily presence to give Himself to you). But He is a King Who does not guarantee that you will always have a full belly (socially, politically, domestically, or physically); He does not promise you a life free from disease and pain. He tells you just the opposite: "take up your cross and follow Me; loose your life for My sake; drown your "old Adam.’" But, He pledges to you that He will keep you and feed you on the Bread of Heaven; Himself; and that He will never leave you.

The Passover of the Jews, the greatest Feast celebrating the greatest deliverance in the Old Testament was near. They were all near the top of a mountain. It would be on the tiny mount of Golgotha that this same Shepherd King would show His true capacity to give, heal and feed His sheep; He would show them the true "Green Pastures" in which to lie down in. Suspended on the Cross Jesus would give His Body (the true Bread of Life) and shed His Blood (the true drink which quenches all longing). Even as the Lord was a humble gentle Man Who would give His own Flesh to feed His followers, and not a flamboyant, charismatic, dynamic "Leader," so too on that day, on that mount, it would be a young boy, a "little one" who would provide five loaves and two fish. Jesus would indeed take the Five Books of the Law; the Two Tablets of God’s uncompromising demands into His own hands and very Body, and satisfy them at the Cross. On that mount, recounted in Saint John’s Gospel, the Lord fed them all bread and fish, even as He continues to feed the entire world with food, clothing and shelter. But, the very "end-act" of the ingathering of 12 baskets full of fragments, prophecies to the creation of His New Testament People, and is, in fact, the true miracle of this event.

On the night in which He was betrayed, the same Jesus who fed the multitudes with the food that fades fed His own 12 Disciples the Bread of Life which endures forever. Eating His Body and Drinking His Blood, and thus taking into the soul both His Two Natures (God and Man) all 12 of His Disciples, (and that now means all of you, all His New Israel) become His little fish, swimming in the clear crystal waters, not of the Sea of Tiberias, but of the Sea of Baptismal regeneration + and incorporation.

To this very day, this very morning, The Lord remains, is actually present among you, and feeds you the same Angel’s Food, that manna which is Himself. He is given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. You are to take Eat and take drink; all of it; for you.

He is not meant to be paraded about, as some do in processions, but likewise He is not to be tossed into wastebaskets, His precious blood still clinging to plastic jiggers. No; He is to be eaten and drunk for remission of trespasses. Even here at this foretaste of an even greater Feast to come, all the fragments at the altar are gathered up at the end so that we might do what He wants us to do in His own testament: eat and drink; so that no one is lost. And thus, all of the fragments of His Body, His Church, are likewise gathered together in Him, now and forever.

In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost