The Priming Water to Draw God’s Grace

2020.8.2. Yonsei University Church

Genesis 32:22–31/ Romans 9:1–5/ Matthew 14:13–21

The story of five loaves of bread and two fish is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. There are numerous stories of miracles in the Bible, but the fact that only this appears in all of your gospels makes us realize that this story is very important. I wrote a short article about the story of five loves of bread and two fish in a daily newspaper column last April, and in today's sermon, Let us look at it in a deeper and more complete way.

Most miracles in the Bible serve as tokens. The sign itself is not the key. Rather, pay attention to what the sign points to. There is an chinese expression called Gyeonjimangwol. It's about pointing fingers at the moon, but forgetting the moon and looking only at the fingers. No matter how wonderful, sweet, and interesting miracles are, you can't be fooled by the miracle itself, so you shouldn't miss what the miracle is trying to say.

In fact, the miracle of five loves of bread and two fish is nothing compared to what it points to. The object that a miracle refers to is a wonder that cannot be compared to a miracle. In the Bible, the finger of a miracle points to God. It's the essence of God. More specifically, it is God's grace revealed through Jesus Christ.

Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness just before he began his ministry. And wasn't he then tempted to do miracles that were similar to the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish? Satan appeared to the hungry Jesus and tempted him to turn the stone into bread. Of course, if you had the ability to perform the miracle, making stone out of bread would have been as easy as a piece of cake. However, why did Jesus resist the temptation then?

If he did so, everything would have collapsed. The meaning of everything that Jesus fasted in the wilderness for 40 days could have evaporated. It would have been meaningless that Jesus was incarnated and lived like us on this earth and suffered all kinds of hardships and suffered and died on the cross. If you can perform all kinds of miracles like magic by convenience, what significance would a cross or resurrection have? If so, we humans are living our lives by shedding bloody tears. Isn't that saying that the Almighty God was playing with human suffering and death?

Jesus had defeated Satan's test to perform miracles in front of him, but why would he do miracles here? The answer to that question is in the word "compassion" in verse 14 of today's scripture. It's written in verse 14. "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick." And then he performs the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish.

The word "compassion" is derived from the Greek word "splanknizomai(σπλαγχνίζομαι)." It is actually a medical word for the intestines or the deep insides of our being. In fact, the word can actually be translated “to feel something so deeply that your guts twist and cry out.” There is also a similar expression in Korean about having pain in intestines, which is usually used to express feelings of sadness or pain. However, splanknizomai is used to express feelings of compassion. This means that you feel so compassionate that you feel the same pain as the bowel is cut off.

This word was used 12 times in the New Testament, most of which is used to express the feelings of Jesus just before Jesus healed or performed a miracle. Interestingly, this word is used three times in Jesus' famous parable. Guess what analogy this word will appear in.

The first is the parable of the unforgiving servant. If you look at Matthew 18, you will see the servant who owed 10,000 talents, and the king felt pity and relieved the debt. The second parable is the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. It is said that the Samaritans saw a person who was robbed and helped them with “pity.” The third parable is the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, where he said that he saw the prodigal son return and ran and kissed and hugged. In all three cases, all those who feel compassion are described as being who are unable to count, and who are completely devoted to love, because of the impulse of uncontrollable compassion. And in all three parables, there are characters who do not feel such compassion.

The reason why Jesus performed the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish was also because of this uncontrollable compassion. Jesus refused to use the same miracle as a means to easily fulfill his purpose, but he used it to help the poor. In this figure of Jesus, we see the essence of God.

Miracles serve as a reminder that the Creator who presides over everything cares about and intervenes in the reality of the earth. In fact, it is a natural truth. It means that God is very interested in the reality of the earth. By the way, we sometimes forget it and live our lives. God loved the world until He gave his only Son. The people of the world have already received the greatest blessings. Nothing is more precious than that. There is nothing that God is afraid of giving us.

But why is this world full of injustice and misery? It is not because God has not blessed us enough. This is because we do not realize God's abundant grace toward humanity, and we are greedy to possess more. And because we feel relieved and contented only when we become slaves of desire and occupy more than others. But it turns out that some people have too many, some have too little, and there is suffering in this world.

The fives loaves of bread and two fish is a very small amount of food in itself. But this little food served as a miraculous priming water for thousands of people. This small amount of food has given rise to a abundant miracle, enough to feed more than 5,000 people and leave 12 basketfuls of food.

What would have happened if someone hadn't have five loaves of bread and two fish? Jesus may have fed a hungry crowd in different ways. But even though it was a small sacrifice, Jesus performed an amazing miracle through that beautiful sacrifice. Offering a lunchbox is a small sacrifice, but it has brought the glory of acting as a flint that sparks the amazing miracle of God. Jesus also did not give the bread and fish directly to the crowd, but gave it to the disciples. And the disciples gave it to the crowd. Wouldn't it be possible to feed the crowds in such a way that high-end lunch boxes were suddenly delivered one by one in front of everyone? However, Jesus asked for the participation of his disciples. They had faith and became the hands and feet of Jesus to distribute the bread to the crowd.

In fact, God's grace always flows abundantly in our lives like groundwater. Do you feel it? That is the heart of our faith. God will provide, this is the point of our faith. If someone becomes a welcome and connects us to the groundwater of grace, everyone can enjoy God's grace in abundance.

Those who pump priming water must have faith above all else. Let's imagine. I barely found an oasis in the middle of the desert and stood in front of the well, and there was only one bucket of water. It will take a lot of confidence to fill this last bucket of water with priming water. But if you're sure, you're willing to pump priming water. In fact, this kind of belief is not reckless. It's the wisdom of life. Confidence in principles. It is also a decision based on the same kind of belief that people do not eat the grain stored for sowing in case of famine.

Jesus had an unshakable faith in this miracle or in the crucifixion of his life. What faith was that? It was a belief in God's goodness and omnipotence.

That's exactly what we need right now. At first, we thought the coronavirus did not discriminate between rich and poor, but it's gradually turning out to be not. We know that the damage caused by coronavirus is experienced more heavily by the economically weak. People are very concerned that if a vaccine is developed in the future, the chance to receive treatment after infection, or to benefit from it will be greatly differentiated by the rich and the poor. Through the COVID-19 incident, the pain that the socially disadvantaged, who have already had a hard time in their daily lives, will suffer even more. If the COVID-19 incident makes our society more polarized than ever before, it would be a disaster worse than the coronavirus crisis itself.

In fact, the gap between rich and poor was a major flaw hidden in the fantasy of rosy utopia through the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Through COVID-19 incident, mankind discovered the flaw. Now we need to stop the race that we've been looking forward, look at our neighbors behind us, look at the nature around us, and find a way for the entire global ecosystem to live in good health.

We must not ignore the fact that God is looking after those who suffer with the feelings of “splanknizomai.” If we don't have compassion in our hearts, like a priest or a Levite who moved away ignoring someone who was robbed, and a hateful brother who hated his brother who returned, we would have no relationship with God.

God looks at the naked and hungry in the wilderness of this time and says, "Give your food." What are we holding in our hands? We don't lose it when we give it up. It is to be a priming water for us and all around us to participate in the task of enriching God's grace. When we look at all life with compassion like God, God will use the knowledge and materials of man's possession, and the skills and civilization that man has achieved, like the five loaves of bread and two fish, to guide all mankind to the kingdom of God, where the welfare of all mankind.

Some of you may think that you are like a sick and hungry crowd in the story of five loaves of bread and two fish. Rather than having lunch boxes to offer, some of you may feel abandoned in the wilderness, no one seems to be interested in me, and you feel your body and mind are too weak. There seems to be no way to overcome this adversity. But at that very moment, please believe that God's heart is filled with the compassion of splanknizomai. God certainly does not leave us long in adversity. He saves us with our right hand and saves us from all kinds of harm.

It doesn't matter where we are. We can sometimes be in a poor or abundant state, we may be full, we may be hungry, we may be rich or needy. In any situation, however, there is no problem as long as you believe that the good God loves us and that God is Almighty. If we have that kind of faith, we can do everything with the power of God.

God has amazing blessings for our lives and for humanity. I sincerely hope that you will become brothers and sisters who fulfill the precious mission of bringing this blessing to the world through faith.