Psalm 119:97-120; Neh. 7:73b-8:3,5-18; Rev. 18:21-24; Matt. 15:29-39
The community had to be gathered on the basis of the Law of the Lord. Ezra read, others translated from the Hebrew original to Aramaic so that the people could understand the Word. The reaction of the people to hearing the Word again was what Jesus says is the first action of the Holy Spirit, the conviction of sin. They had to be encouraged to partake of the New Year’s feast, to keep the occasion appropriately. Forgiveness is available for sin, the Law also contains God’s sermon on His own Name that he is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, (Ex 34.6-7) If all anyone knew of God was that He was holy and also lawgiver they could have no hope of blessing or eternal life. The joy of faith in Yahweh is that He declared that He is all those things and in that we find that He is the God that people like us, all of us, need. In Jesus He has shown us for certain that those things are indeed true.
Jesus is the Word of God and here we see that the Word not only convicts of sin, but heals and brings glory to God. The people come to Jesus for healing and He does not disappoint and their reaction is to give glory to the God of Israel. We see in this feeding afterwards that the God who provided miraculously for His people in the desert is the same God who now feeds this multitude. These have been following Jesus for three days now and their food supplies, if they had brought any, would have been gone by now. The disciples had only a small bit remaining but in Jesus’ hands there was more than enough not only for the disciples but also the entire crowd. Do we have faith in God that He can multiply what we have to abundance?
The great city will be no more. As God has created from nothing, so will He ultimately bring all things He has created to nothing. Nothing that is created will last in its current form into eternity. We know this is true because what He spoke into existence exists at His pleasure not ours and He has decreed this end of things. There is a great tension in our lives that should play itself out in the way we see in that first lesson, we should recognize that we are indeed sinners whose sins have caused this good creation to be fallen and yet we have a great God who is loving and wants more for us than we can imagine but it means the destruction of all this. The judgment on Babylon would be welcome news for those who were being persecuted from there. The judgment though is on materialism, hedonism and false religion emanating from this center. Have things changed much in the world of idol worship?
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