“THE WORD MADE FLESH MIRACLE”
Saint John 6: 1-15
Laetare: 31 March Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
“A great company come unto Him…” The crowd had been on the hillside area for quite some time hearing The Nazarene teach. “The Kingdom of God is at hand” no doubt was preached by the Rabbi. Now again they, and you, will see and hear what that “Kingdom” is!
Ostensibly this pericope, their mountain event, was all about the multiplication of fishes and loaves—the feeding of the 5,000.
Does Saint John, who was there, after all—an eye witness, mean to illustrate and proclaim that Jesus is a miracle worker Who can perform supra-natural signs of nature-bending power? No. Elias and Elisha were given to do acts of equal mystery. Is the point of the story to show that the Galilean’s authority over created things, fish and bread, is such that He should be followed, obeyed, listened to, and…made an “earthly” king…by force if necessary? No. And yes. In that it is true that Jesus exercised His Divinity, His exposing in a brief “flash” of exalted Godhood, Who He was/is. And it true that the crowds “followed Him, initially, because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased.” Thus, the way of Satan and his three temptations to seek mammon, power and riches, and the false worship of self. In a word, Glory. Adam fell to this alluring falsehood. So did Cain, Abraham, even Moses, David, Jonah, Elias, James & John, Peter, and many others? ALL others.
Making this text, in ANY way, shape, or form, about you and your acts, works, good-deeds, or even proper worship and praise of Jesus, is most certainly NOT TRUE.
It’s actually far simpler and direct. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh. Yes, The Word of The Trinity Who has given you the Holy Scriptures. But if the Bible only contains truths and propositional certitude and wisdom—then to hell with it. The Bible as verity doesn’t mean a thing when one is living under a bridge, hungry, cold, and alone. A pastor making all sorts of brilliant exegetical and historical connections in his long 6-month preaching series on Exodus & Leviticus does not comfort the parents at the grave side of their little child, or the spouse at the ICU bedside of a dying life-long mate.
And knowing, understanding, and believing The Law is true, fully feeling the weight of the 10 commandments, when you’ve committed adultery, theft, gossip, hatred, and putting God in a little 1 hour and 45 minute “box” to be opened a tad only on Sundays…is not assuaged, or taken off your conscience by re-reading the Decalogue. Now, it may, and hopefully is, wiped away, when you read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest those portions of Holy Scripture that flow forth with the pure Gospel in the forgiveness of sins, for Christ’s sake. But why? Is it just a subjective difference between hopeful and restorative “words” versus sharp and condemnatory “words?” No, The Scripture are more than that. Jesus IS THE WORD made flesh. He is certainly THE WORD that has bound Himself to paper and ink. The Bible testifies to Christ because Christ is The Bible—He tabernacles in it so that He can tabernacle in your ears and souls.
John 6 is sacramental. All of Scripture is sacramental to be sure, but in John’s sixth chapter Christ preaches Himself into you by way of your mouths, as well as your ears. It’s all about the Word.
The Word IS the very Body and Blood of The God/Man. It comes from His vocal chords. When He speaks gently with all the authority of God of God, there is light, firmament, the seas, all of creation, from nothing, by His Word. And yet there are those who purport to follow Him who don’t believe His Word when speaks over the very last Passover feast on Holy Thursday. Why? Why can someone claim to believe His Word spoken by Moses to Pharaoh could do what it did in those incredible and impossible plagues not also effect a sacramental union, a change, in other earthly elements on a table top? He can raise Jairus’ daughter with a word; He can still the Sea of Galilee with a word; but He change water into wine by simply BEING THERE, as The Word, but He can’t give you His actual bodily, Body and Blood? Pray for your sectarian relatives and friends who don’t believe Jesus. Pray the Holy Ghost would liberate them from the prison house lecture halls and auditorium seating grand theaters of Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley, Finney, Moody, and all the others, so that they might receive the gifts That The God/Man speaks to them. Pray also for yourselves. Turn from your own weak faith and hold tightly to Him and His Words of Institution. And as you believe you will act. The reality of He Who IS, for you, will norm your reverence, gestures, hearts, and tongues.
Is all of the Bible about The Sacrament of The Altar? Yes! Because all of the Bible, and today, the multiplication of fishes & loaves, is about Jesus The Christ. And since Jesus The Christ, The God/Man, Immanuel, is no longer visible in a locally present way, as He was from 3 B.C. to 30 A.D. one receives Him as He has taught and as He has promised in His Words in Scripture. “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there Am I [I AM] in the midst of them.” “Make Disciples of all nations, Baptizing them…and lo I AM with you until the end of the age.” “Do This…in remembrance of Me,” for “THIS IS MY BODY,” “THIS IS MY BLOOD of th New Testament.”
Justification by Grace through Faith in Christ may well be the article of doctrine upon which The Church either stands or falls. But that very Church is born by The Body and Blood of its founder, creator, and Holy Groom. And the two shall be one—doctrine? No. The two shall be one Flesh. The Church lives and breathes and has its life and peace and comfort and healing by The Supper of Jesus.
I hope, and pray, you are hungry. The Prophet God Who is in The World He made, is about to come into your own bodies’ world in a most miraculous way…
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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