Komm, Herr Jesu, Come Lord Jesus
Pentecost 10; August 5, 2007
Rev. Steven D. Spencer
Matthew 14:13-21
13 Now when Jesus heard it, He withdrew from there in a boat, to a lonely place by Himself; and when the multitudes heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities. 14 And when He went ashore, He saw a great multitude, and felt compassion for them, and healed their sick. 15 And when it was evening, the disciples came to Him, saying, "The place is desolate, and the time is already past; so send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." 16 But Jesus said to them, "They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!" 17 And they said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish." 18 And He said, "Bring them here to Me." 19 And ordering the multitudes to recline on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes, 20 and they all ate, and were satisfied. And they picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. 21 And there were about five thousand men who ate, aside from women and children.
Dear Fellow Redeemed,
The common table prayer used among Lutherans for years is: "Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest. And let thy gifts to us be blessed." This is the English translation of Luther’s common table prayer, a prayer that some of you may have learned in German as children: "Komm, Herr Jesu, sei unsere Gast. Und segne was du uns bescheret hast." It translates literally, Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest. And bless what You have prepared for us. These simple prayers have been used for generations by families because they were easy to remember and easy to teach to children.
Both versions of this prayer have this important feature, that they give glory to Jesus the Savior as the one who provides our daily bread. In the common table prayer we call Jesus LORD and attribute to Him the power to give us food and bless it so that it provides for us the nourishment that we need for bodily life and health. Today's text shows that we are right to ascribe to Jesus this power. In the feeding of the five thousand Jesus shows that He is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Triune God. He is God incarnate, able to supply us with daily bread and everything that we need. He is the God of grace who gives generously and freely to us sinners, who are undeserving. He is compassionate, seeing our great needs and opening His hand to supply them. He is loving, giving the highest and best gifts and satisfying our deepest and most pressing needs.
JESUS, GOD'S SON, IS THE SUPPLIER OF EVERY NEED
-He is moved with compassion at the sight of our need.
The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, like every miracle of Jesus, shows His compassion. Jesus never worked a single miracle to satisfy a need of His own or to provide for His own comfort or safety. His miracles were in every case a response to the needs of others. In His first miracle He made water into wine for a couple who were being married, so that they would have enough for their guests. He stilled a storm that threatened the lives of His disciples. He healed countless poor people who were sick or afflicted with blindness or paralysis. He cast demons out of many who were brutally tormented. The miracles of Jesus were never an empty show put on to impress spectators but were always a genuine response to those in need of help. Here also Jesus fed the multitude because He was moved with compassion. Here all these people had followed Him to the desolate place where He had gone after hearing of the martyrdom of John the Baptist. It was getting late in the day and all these people were out there in this deserted place where there was no food to be had. They were getting hungry; they needed to eat. Jesus felt for them and treated them as if they were guests of Him and His disciples. He would not dismiss them to go fend for themselves, as the disciples had suggested. He said to His disciples, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." And of course He then saw to it that they were fed.
Jesus' compassion for the multitudes teaches us that He is compassionate toward us, also. He isn’t indifferent to us in our needs. He isn’t unmoved when He sees us in need. It is true what we sing about Jesus in one of our hymns: All my wants to Him are known, All my sorrows are His own (LSB 611:4). He knows the pain that you suffer. He knows the heartaches and cares that you bear in your life. He knows that you and your family are in need of food, clothing, and shelter. And He’s moved with compassion at your needs, just as when He saw the multitudes in our text who came out to meet Him in that deserted place. Take your needs to Him in prayer and be confident that He will hear and answer you, just as He fed those who were hungry in our text.
---He gives generously, according to our needs.
The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand also shows how generously the Savior gives. He had over five thousand guests that needed to be fed and that didn’t include the women and children present. The number of them was so great that His disciples couldn't even imagine feeding all of them. There were so many people and so little food; crowds of people and only five loaves of bread and two fish to give them. But was Jesus worried? No. Was Jesus perplexed by this situation? Not at all. He had the multitude sit down on the grass to prepare themselves to be served a meal. Then He took the five loaves and two fish, blessed them and broke them and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the multitude. Reading this again, we are struck by the apparent futility of what Jesus did. We can imagine what must have been going through the minds of His disciples. Did Jesus imagine that they were going to pass around this little bit of food? But they did. And it did go around. "They all ate and were filled." Not only did everyone get a little, they all got plenty. And, if this were not enough, after all had eaten as much as they wanted, there was enough left over to fill twelve baskets, much more than the meager amount they had started with.
Notice that what mattered was not how much they had to serve but the fact that it was blessed by the Son of God. In this there is great lesson that should keep in mind at all times: it isn't how much we have that counts--how much money in the bank, how much food in the refrigerator--it is having the blessing of Jesus resting on us.
This generosity especially reveals Jesus as the Son of God. It shows that He is the Creator of all things, including fish and wheat. It shows that it is true of Jesus, as we read in the Scriptures, that "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:3). He is able to multiply fish and bread just as He causes fish to reproduce and multiply in the sea and just as He causes wheat seed to sprout, grow, and multiply, so that millions may have bread. The Lord does this all the time so that there is enough food for the people of the world, regardless of how many there are. Where famines occur, they occur because of the sins and failures of mankind.
The generosity of Jesus also shows Him to be God who is good and gracious. He gave food in abundance, in this case without anyone laboring for it or earning it. Ordinarily we have to work for our daily bread, but even then it is still a gift from Him. Which is why it is right that we should thank Him for our food when we sit down to eat, as even Jesus Himself did?
So this miracle of the feeding of the five thousand teaches us that Jesus is the Son of God who is both able to supply our needs and most willing to do so. But remember that Jesus is most concerned about your greatest needs. Jesus sees us as we truly are, and so He knows what we need most. He sees that we are sinners who daily need to repent and be forgiven, who are constantly in need of His Word in law and gospel to lead us to repentance and assure us of forgiveness. This greatest need He has already filled. The Savior had compassion on us and helped us by dying on the cross, by offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for us to cleanse us of our sins and free us from death. He helped us when no one else could. That's why we accept and value this help above everything else and rejoice and give thanks for it. For Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let thy gifts to us be blessed. For all we have is truly a gift from God, and greatest gift God gives us is His Son. So, Komm Herr Jesu, be our guest, so that our lives may be blessed, In Jesus Name, Amen!