READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 16:2-21
Galatians 4:21-31
- St. John 6:1-15
Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“He said this to
test him, for He Himself knew what He would do”
And what Jesus would do is feed the 5000 men and teach us
about the work of the Trinity on earth. Jesus never acts alone. He always has
the Father and the Spirit all working together in perfect love to rescue sinful
humanity. What this points us to is that the work of the Trinity continues even
to us, today. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God.
When you look at our Apostles’ Creed, in Luther’s Small
Catechism, separated out into three parts, you notice something. I try to point
this out every time to my catechumens, and that is that the Second Article is
the largest. Almost unfair, we think, that Jesus gets more airtime than the
Father and the Spirit and the Spirit gets the least of all.
This is primarily because the Bible just doesn’t talk about
the Spirit that much. And that’s on purpose, because when we do hear about the
Holy Spirit He is doing spirit things. Invisible things. We know that the
Spirit created all things. If the Father molded and fashioned from clay, then
it was the Spirit that breathed life into creation. And what does breath look
like?
You can see our very first problem when dealing with the
Holy Spirit: He can’t be seen and neither can His actions. There is the
incident at Jesus’s Baptism where He took on the form of a dove, but that’s the
only one?
So, how do you know someone is present without knowing they
are present?
First, God tells us of His Spirit, so we know He’s there. He
was there at the beginning, He searches all things, even the depths of God, and
He is called God. And second, perhaps most important, we are told what the
Spirit will be doing when He is around. This is important because it gives us a
clue as how to find Him.
Maybe an example: if it is your shift to open a restaurant
in the morning and you get there before the chef does, then the kitchen should
be clean and untouched. Everything put away, no smell of food, and no mess.
Your shift ends and its someone else’s job to close the restaurant. They come
in the kitchen after you leave and find a completely different room.
In other words, you may not ever get to see the cook, but
you know when he is in the kitchen and when he is not. Food is served, tools
are used, a presence is felt. On top of not seeing the chef, nobody really
talks to him or seeks him out. You thank your servers for the food. You greet
and chat with the hosts, but when a chef’s job is well done, all you are
thinking about is how satisfied you are. The chef himself does not enter your
mind.
This may put us on the right path to understanding the Holy
Spirit. However, we don’t have to wrack our brains or create false emotions to
reveal the Holy Spirit among us. We are already told what He’s going to be
doing, so when that happens, we say the Holy Spirit is here.
As our catechism teaches, He is going to be calling people
to faith in Christ, gathering them around Christ, enlightening them with the
gifts of Christ, and keeping them with Christ.
What is the Call? We throw that word around a lot. We choose
to use it for our “calling” or what we seem born to do in this life. Though
important to us, it is just a throw-away word when used like that. For, our
hearts can change quickly, our lives change often such that our callings also
can change.
When the Holy Spirit Calls, He uses the ultimate power. The
Power that brought all things into existence: the Word. “Therefore I want
you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is
accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor
12:3).
The Spirit is a preaching spirit. He preaches the Word, but
He chooses to do so in this way, from 2 Thessalonians 2:14, “He called you
through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is St. Paul speaking, so he is saying that the Holy Spirit calls through
the gospel preached by men. Men ritely called and ordained.
Next is the gathering. In one sense, if no one is there to
hear the call, then there is no point. So at the Call of the Holy Spirit, the
Faith He created gathers the believers. He gathers on purpose. Not to make
friends, not to be uplifted, not even to be encouraged. He gathers because the
Lord is coming, “at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come
out to meet him.’” (Mt 25:6)
Then He enlightens all with the epiphany that Jesus Christ
is God. Jesus is God and man and He has sent His Word to Call and gather, and
His gifts to enlighten. “our gospel came to you not only in word”, says
St. Paul, “but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full
conviction” (1 Thess 1:5). In this The Spirit also sanctifies and keeps us,
that is by Him we are “sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30).
Sealed means baptized. At that Word, we can finally return
to our Gospel reading and the feeding of the 5000 and begin to see the Holy
Spirit working there. At first, there is just Jesus, the 2nd Person of the
Trinity. Then there is Jesus giving thanks to the Father as He breaks the
bread.
But look at the whole picture: Jesus was preaching the
Gospel. People were gathering to hear Him and to get a miracle. He was speaking
and teaching of His oneness with the Father and keeping them close to Him with
His words and His good deeds. Though Jesus was doing this directly, the Holy
Spirit was there, Calling, gathering, enlightening, and keeping.
Now, if we simply look at the Feeding of the 5000 in a
natural way, then there is no need to accept the Spirit, indeed we cannot. Only
those of the Spirit can interpret spiritual truths (1 Cor 2:14). So what is so
spiritual about feeding 5000 people?
How could Jesus possibly feed every Christian alive if his
body only weighs at most a buck-45? You know the Flesh and Blood of Our Lord
are not at all like the food and the feeding of the 5000 where Jesus took a
finite amount of fish and bread and moved it beyond its physical limitations in
a miracle that was a rather obvious foreshadowing of the Lord's Supper.
Also, Jesus could walk out of a sealed tomb and walk through
locked doors, so it should be obvious that He can be in more than one location
at one time.
What is the demonstration and proof that the Holy Spirit is
working among us? Our own feeding of course! Our own presence when Jesus is
giving thanks to the Father on our behalf! Our own ears hearing the Word being
preached and taught to us. Our own seal, freely given in the waters of Baptism.
Our own given promise to never leave or forsake us.
We quickly mistake the Holy Spirit for a movement in our
guts and though He can move and act in our lives, a pep-talk or an afternoon at
Taco Bell can give you the same results. The Holy Spirit moves and we are
moved, for our whole life. He is not done with us until Jesus’s work is
complete in us. He will move and act until we are safely in our heavenly
mansion.
But notice His movements and actions are still unseen.
Unseen, because we have been talking of Jesus. That is, when the Holy Spirit
acts, we have Jesus. When He speaks or moves or does His work properly, we will
not think of Him, but of Christ. We will be fully satisfied with Christ and
that is His goal, like a good chef.
Like a great chef, the place is prepared, the table is set,
and all things are in order, not for you to receive Him, but to receive that
which He sets out for you: the Body of Christ. Jesus says later in John 6, “It
is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I
have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn 6:63).
And the words that He has spoken which give spirit and life
are gather, be washed, commune, believe. Indeed, the flesh avails nothing; your
flesh. Your flesh cannot be spiritual. It cannot receive nor interpret
spiritual truths. The flesh of Jesus avails everything. It has suffered, died,
and risen from the dead.
And the Body of Christ is what the Spirit uses to bring
spiritual truths to natural man. For in Christ, God and man are united and what
God has can be transferred to us. Your flesh cannot save you, but your flesh
can be saved. It can be brought into the divine by Jesus, given forgiveness,
and granted eternal life.
The Holy Spirit is living, active, and always working. He is
the verb rather than the noun, which is why we have a hard time pinning Him
down. The old self likes to think that you can make a believer out of yourself,
that you're the one who has to make yourself what God wants you to be. It can't
be done. Having created us and come to us in Christ, God sends His Spirit to
grace us.
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