"Bread Everlasting "
Sermon by the Rev. Matt Kennedy
Lent 4
The Church of the Good Shepherd

John 6:1-13

Have you ever felt like a dry well; like you just don't have enough to give? Maybe the mounds of work you've been given to do where you work or the hours of homework from school combined with the needs of your kids or your husband or your wife or your friends combined with the fact that there are only so many hours in a day and you have only so much time and energy to give and at the end, when you've given it all, there's still more to do and you look at all the demands and pressures on your time and energy and you just throw up your hands and say to yourself, "This is impossible."

I imagine that's how the disciples felt when just as they were sitting down for a nice lunch, some fresh fish and some bread, on a picturesque hillside, they looked up and saw this huge crowd of people, 5000 in fact, heading in their direction. From the other gospels we learn that Jesus and the disciples had been trying to take a break, take a day in the countryside away from the crowds to rest, hang out, spend time with Jesus by themselves. They'd been going at a rapid pace from town to town, preaching, healing, casting out demons, calling the people to repent of their sins because the kingdom of God had arrived in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and now they were just exhausted. In Matthew when the disciples see the crowd coming they tell Jesus, “send them away. Tell them to go home.” We don't have enough to feed them.

Like I said, I think we've all been there. We've all been at the point where we just don't have enough to give. What do you do when that happens? Where do you go? How do you cope? The question is an important one not only for understanding the point of this passage from John, but also for understanding one of the key problems in life and in relationships, and one of the major problems that can effect marriages.

Why do people get married? In the past people got married because their parents arranged it that way. We don't like that idea very much, but it seemed to work for them. Nowadays people mostly marry for love. You meet someone, you feel really good when you're around them. When Anne and I were dating, even when I was exhausted by the rest of my life, when we were together it was electric. After you date for awhile that feeling grows even more intense and you think to yourself, “this person makes me happy. I can see living my whole life this way.” And so you get engaged, you get married, and you live happily ever after right?

Well, not always, fast forward five years down the line: two kids, two jobs, two cars, a home, a mortgage, bills, responsibilities, pressure and anxiety, life is crazy and you look at the woman or the man that you've married and the electricity's gone. There's nothing. That feeling you had may still be there on occasion, but more often than not, it's not. You begin to think, maybe I'm not in love anymore. Now, since my wife is here this morning I should add that I'm describing someone else's experience and that I of course feel an overwhelming amount of passionate love every time I see her. Just wanted to make that clear.

Now at this point, some people look at their husband or wife and they say to themselves, “this person is no longer makes me happy. This person no longer fulfills my needs. When we got married I felt so in love. I felt like no matter what happened we could always make each other happy and I don't feel that anymore so maybe I need a divorce or maybe I need another lover. I need to find someone who will fulfill me as a person.”

Think of two half full glasses of water. One glass is the husband and one is the wife. They both look to each other to be filled. When one spouse begins to run out of water, he or she looks to the other. But what's the problem? Between the two them, there's simply not enough water to fill both. So if they are all they have they'll both eventually run dry. There's not enough. When that happens there's either a divorce or a separation or an affair or they just go on living together sharing the same address but both running on empty.

Here's the problem. The bible teaches that human beings are not designed to fulfill each other. Did you know there's nobody in this world who can make you happy and fulfilled. And in fact what happens when you look for fulfillment in other people, even your husband or wife, is you begin to treat people like soda cans. What do you do when you finish drinking a can of soda? You throw it away and get another. People in your life become commodities valued for how they make you feel and what they can give you rather than who they are. And when they no longer make you feel happy and give you what you need, you throw ‘em away and get another.

Nothing in this world and no one can fulfill us and when we try and make them do that we run dry and we dry them out. We begin to starve and we feed off others until they starve too. That's how people breakdown, that's how marriages and relationships breakdown. But, that's not how God intended us to live and that's not how God designed our hearts.

Turn back to the gospel. The disciples have nothing but five loaves of bread and two fish and 5000 thousand people to feed. They're like 12 half empty glasses of water trying to fill a swimming pool. They don't have enough. If they give everything they have, there'll still be a multitude of hungry people and they‘ll be empty.

But they have Jesus. They have the Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe, the source of all life and all power and all sustenance and all food sitting right there with them. And Jesus says, “Give me what you have.” And so they give him the five loaves and the two fish and Jesus takes it and by his divine power he makes, he creates, enough food not only to feed the five thousand hungry people, but so much that there are twelve baskets of bread left over. The disciples and the people are amazed. They've never seen anything like it anywhere. Jesus has filled his people.

And Jesus is the only one who can fill you. When God designed you and me he designed us so that nothing else on earth, no person, no substance, no idea, no habit, no food, nothing could ever really satisfy our hearts but him. You and I are made and designed to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ first and foremost and through that relationship God fills you up, God gives you what you're lacking and what you need. God takes your half-empty glass of water and makes it overflow with his love and his power and his sustenance and his strength. Nothing else will suffice.

Jesus is the only person who can satisfy you personally and he's the only way to have a lasting and joyful relationship with someone else. If both husband and wife are filled up by Christ, if they seek him first, they'll never run dry. The husband won't need the wife to fulfill his needs and vice versa, Jesus does that. The person who has Jesus in his heart has the infinite power and love and strength of God almighty overflowing, brimming, running over the cup. And because of that he seeks to fill rather than be filled, seeks to please rather than be pleased, seeks to give love and give strength and give joy because his heart is running over. Imagine a marriage where both people have that.

When I look at Fred and Joanne I see it. I see two people who've given themselves to Jesus Christ and are brimming with his love. He's at the center of their life and for that reason their marriage will last. I don't know where you are this morning. I don't know if you're looking for love in all the wrong places and coming up empty and dry and hungry.

I don't know if your marriage is on the rocks or not. But I do know that no matter where you look on this earth or to whom you look, eventually, the food runs out, eventually the cup is empty, eventually, there's not enough.

But with Jesus, there's always enough. His cup runs over. He has all the bread you need and he loves you. He wants to come into your life and fill you up, to come into your marriage and heal it, make it strong again and give you the riches of heaven. All you have to do is let him. Bring him your five loaves and two fish, bring him your half empty cup. Bring him all that you have and all that you are. Lay yourself down at his feet surrender your heart to him and find the bread of life and the living water that will never run dry.

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