↓ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Grants Pass, OR
↓ Faith Lutheran Church, Medford OR
Mark 8:1-9 “WAGES VS. GIFTS”
Come, Lord JESUS, be our Guest and let these GIFTS to us be blessed. Give us grace, dear Heavenly Father. Give us the gifts that we do not deserve. Thank you, merciful God, for not giving us the wages that we do deserve, Amen. UNNATURAL DEATH “The wages of sin is death.” I think most understand that passage of Scripture to be referring to literal, physical
death. “Because of our sin, we must die; our bodies are destined to wear out and pass away.” And that is true. Were it not for mankind’s rebellion against God beginning in the Garden of Eden, there would be no such thing as death. God did NOT create us to die but to live in His presence forever, in the flesh. In the beginning, animals did not eat one another; Adam and
Eve did not eat the animals. Food was provided freely by God to all living things from the fruit of the trees and the various plants He had created. All creatures were thoroughly satisfied with God’s provision. But then through sin, death entered into the world. Creation fell under the curse of man’s rebellion. Life becomes only temporary. The ground now produced weeds and thistles. Man would have to toil and sweat for His food. Work would no
longer be a pleasurable activity but burdensome labor. God’s final sentence was “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
DID GOD[‘S JUDGMENT] FAIL? And yet it might appear to some that what God said would happen didn’t. The LORD had said, “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” But Adam and Eve were still alive and kicking for many years and decades after they ate, even if life had become much more difficult. So what’s going on here? Did God’s judgment fail? ETERNAL DEATH Of course, NO. Death from the eternal perspective has to do with a lot more than just the body giving out the heart stopping and the brain no longer functioning. Death ultimately has to do with being separated from God, being cut off from His presence and His goodness. That’s why hell is rightly called eternal death. Because it
is the place where God and His grace are absent, and there is only ultimate nothingness and evil and pain. Hell is the place for those who think they can live independently from God…and sadly, tragically they will.
SPIRITUAL DEATH So while physical death is indeed the consequence of sin – and there would not have been death had we not fallen into sin – death ultimately is spiritual. And indeed, in the day that they ate, Adam and Eve did die. They were only hollow shells of what they once were, just as all of mankind still is. Ephesians 2 reminds us all people
are by nature dead in sin, the “living dead.”
SIN IS KILLING YOU And I think we know that, at least subconsciously. When the Epistle reading says that “the wages of sin is death,” we know it doesn’t only mean that death is going to be coming to us someday in the future, but that we’re already experiencing it. We
experience it in our bodies in various troubles and sickness and aging. And we experience it in our spirits, too. Every sin is destructive and brings a little bit of death with it. For instance, laziness brings boredom with God’s creation and unhappiness with the blessings God provides, always having to seek out some new pleasure or thrill. Don’t ever think those little
pet sins of yours are no big deal. They’re killing you. They’re emptying you of life and hollowing you out – like the empty stomachs of the 4000 in today’s Gospel, the hunger of the weary multitude in the wilderness. Indeed, the wages of sin is death, even before we die.
THE [ROM.6:23B] GOSPEL, However, that’s only the first half of the verse. The last half trumps the first half when it declares, “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our LORD!” Notice the difference in terminology there. The first half talks about wages, and the second half talks about a gift. The first part talks about what we have earned, and the second part talks about what God has freely given. Our working has led to death, but God’s working leads to life through His Son.
[FEEDING] THE GOSPEL In today’s Gospel we see a wonderful picture of how God worked to save us from death and bring us back into His life. For there we see Jesus in the wilderness with the multitudes. After three days they were feeling the effects of sin’s curse very concretely, being hungry and weary with no food around to refresh or sustain them. Man’s sin had turned the world from the abundance of Paradise into a bleak and
harsh place, and so Jesus entered into that bleakness and harshness as a
true man in order that He might undo the curse and restore humanity and
all of creation. The Son of God took on your human body and soul and put
Himself smack dab into the middle of this fallen, desert world in order
to rescue you and raise you up.
HIS HEART GOES OUT… Jesus said, “I have compassion on the multitudes.” That word, “compassion,” in Greek has to do with the deepest possible empathy and feeling – “My Heart goes out to them.” So fully does Jesus empathize with you and feel for you that He went so far as to make your problems HIS problem. He knows what you’re going through. In His great mercy Jesus came into the world to suffer with you and to suffer for you in order to take your suffering away forever. He made Himself a part of your blood, sweat and tears in order to redeem you and revive the fallen creation in which you live. REVERSE/ING THE CURSE You can begin to see what is taking place
already in this miracle of the feeding of the 4000. The curse on Adam had
been, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” But here the second
Adam, Jesus, reverses the curse and produces bread in abundance apart
from any sweaty or tiring labor. In this moment He restores the bounty of
the Garden of Eden, where food is received in overflowing measure from
the gracious Hand of God. Here you see God the Son beginning to break
the curse of decay and death and overcome the Fall into sin. You see a
small glimpse of how it was in the Beginning and how it will be even
more so in the new creation of the Age to come.
COMPLETE UNDO Jesus would complete His work of undoing
the fall and breaking the power of the curse at the pinnacle of His
ministry, on the Cross. There Jesus turned the curse into a blessing for
you. (Romans 6:23) The WAGES of sin is death; and so Jesus took those
wages you had coming and died your death for you. Sin’s deathly curse
was broken and undone in the Body of Christ the crucified. And therefore,
because of Jesus’ Sacrifice, the gift of life now flows to you and to all who
believe in Him. Because if sin has been undone, the wages of sin are
undone. Death and hell have been taken away from you through the
Cross. All that remains for you now is life, free and full, through the
Resurrection of Jesus.
FEED.4000/COMMUNION Jesus took the seven loaves and gave
thanks, broke them, and gave them to His disciples to set before the
people. In the same way still today, Jesus speaks His Words of thanks and
Consecration and His ministers distribute the blessed Sacrament of the
Altar. The seven loaves were multiplied to feed and fully satisfy 4000
people. In the same way still today, Jesus uses seemingly insufficient
bread to multiply His grace and feed and fully satisfy the Church with His
very life-giving Body. Jesus said, “I am the living Bread which came down
from Heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and the
Bread that I shall give is My Flesh, which I shall give for the life of the
world.” And in wine He gives His cleansing Blood for your forgiveness, that
all those who believe in Him may never thirst.
LEFTOVERS EVEN When all had eaten there was more left over
than when they started. Seven small loaves became seven large baskets.
The LORD’s love and compassion cannot be exhausted; it never runs
out. There is no sin of yours so great that His multiplying mercy cannot
overcome. In fact, Jesus not only overcomes it, He makes it better than
before. The seven loaves stand for the seven days of creation. The seven
large baskets stand for the even greater Creation to come at Christ’s
Return. The place being prepared for us in Heaven surpasses even the
Paradise of Eden. All things are ful/filled and brought to their perfection in
Christ.
GREATER [FRUIT] TREE So now, we who see the signs of death in us
and around us are also given to see the signs of Christ’s life in us and
around us as well. For even as sin has its fruit in death, so forgiveness
has its fruit in life, and in the fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Though man ate of the tree that brought death, now the Tree of Life, the
Cross, from which we eat and never die, never to be separated from God
and His goodness again.
FORETASTE [L.S.] Just as in the feeding of the 4000, so we
also have a glimpse of Paradise here in this place. As you receive the
Bread of Life, you are being given a taste of Heaven. Heaven is where
Christ is; and Christ is here for you. “The poor shall eat and be satisfied. …
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him.”
O give thanks unto the LORD, For His MERCY endures FOREVER, Amen. SD