More Jesus, more bread of life. Like the loaves in the wilderness, this text keeps on giving more, pushing things further and deeper. With Jesus, one can never say, “Enough already!” Faith is always hungry, always thirsty for more, and Jesus is the bread that never runs out.
Free food always draws a crowd. It never fails. You want people to come out in droves? Offer free food. They’ll flock to it every time. There is nothing better than bread you don’t work for. No sweat of the brow involved here. All you can eat bread and fish from Jesus. Such a deal! The crowds flocked after Jesus. They even chased after Him in boats. Free food. Who can resist it? We elect politicians on the promise of a chicken in every pot, or at least today’s equivalent. Imagine it. The end to world hunger and welfare. No one goes hungry when Jesus doles out the bread and the fish. They just keep on multiplying endlessly. No more food banks, no more food stamps, no more work. Give us this day our daily bread, and poof! There it is.
The apostles returned to Jesus excited, energized, eager to tell Him all about their little adventures. Demons exorcised, diseases healed, good news preached. It was a smashing success. They were tired and excited at the same time. So many stories to tell. Jesus takes them on a little retreat, off to a wilderness place, far from the clamoring crowds. A chance to recharge and reflect and rest. And so they went away in a boat, off by themselves. But the crowd followed them.
See what happens when you mess around with politics and marriage? You lose your head to Herod. John wasn’t martyred for preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God. He lost his head for criticizing Herod’s shabby morals for shacking up with his brother’s estranged wife Herodias. John calls him out on it and gets in dutch with Herodias, who’s probably more of a political player than anything else. Her daughter does a seductive belly dance for Uncle Herod and his buddies at his birthday party and, in a fit of probably drunken magnanimity, offers the girl up to half his kingdom. She goes off to Mom who seizes the opportunity and asks for John’s head on a platter. So much for John. Exit stage left, down the stairs of moral activism.
Jesus returns home with his growing entourage of disciples. The local boy made good has come to the home congregation to preach to the hometown folks. The place was probably packed. The word had gotten back to Nazareth. He teaches with authority. He heals the diseased, casts out demons. He’s the complete messianic package. And who would have thought it? Jesus, Mary’s kid. The carpenter from Nazareth.
In Nomine Iesu
Today’s Gospel is a story of two daughters. A 12 year-old girl, the daughter of a synagogue ruler named Jairus, and a woman who had suffered from a bleeding for 12 years, whom Jesus strangely calls “daughter.” Their lives are inextricably bound together by sickness, by death, by Jesus, who is Life and Healing, for them and for you too.
In Mark’s version of the Gospel, everything happens “immediately.” In the Greek, euthus. At once. Without hesitation. “And immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” “And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed Him.” Immediately. If all you had was Mark’s version of the Gospel, you’d think it all happened in six months or so. One thing immediately after another.
“Follow me.” That’s today’s word from Jesus for you, in your hearing, and in your Baptism. Those are the words that make you His disciple. Although the word “disciple” does not appear in this morning’s reading from the Gospel according to St. John, the text and theme is about discipleship. Jesus calls His first disciples, who happen to be Philip and Nathaniel. Not the front-running disciples we are used to hearing about - Peter, James, and John, but the somewhat “lesser” (if one can use such a term) and lesser known disciples Philip and Nathaniel. And in the encounter between Jesus with Philip and his brother Nathaniel, we learn a great deal about discipleship, about what it means to be a disciple, and also about the disciple-making mandate of the church.
Baptism is creative and creation is baptismal. That’s the connecting link in our readings this morning. Baptism is creative, a new creation, in which we are united with the death and life of Jesus, die to Sin and rise to life in Christ so that we can now consider ourselves dead to Sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. To be baptized is to be in Christ, and if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.
A joyous and blessed new year to all of you, and a happy 11th day of Christmas as we make our way with the wise men to Epiphany and then the Baptism of our Lord. By now many of you have packed away Christmas, I’m sure. Those nativity scenes with the baby Jesus have been safely wrapped up and put back in the garage or the attic until next year, though hopefully you haven’t done that with the Gospel of Christmas, the good news of the Word become flesh to save you. That remains when everything else is packed up and over.