Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Today we hear Paul’s strident affirmation that there is no power in heaven or earth that can separate us from the love of God. Christ’s power is total and nothing can stand against it.
Isaiah tells us that anyone can come and eat and drink what the Lord provides. It doesn’t require money, you don’t have to pay for it. Just come and eat and drink.
In the Gospel we get more than just the metaphor of God feeding everyone. Jesus actually does feed everyone who goes out to listen to him.
So that’s it then really – God will feed us. End of story.
But is that really all there is to it? Yes, God’s love is unconditional and he will feed anyone who comes. And Christ’s victory is total, there is nothing that competes with him.
But we do need to come – Isaiah notes that people don’t always come, some spend their resources on useless stuff. We have to show up to get fed. And Paul is surely correct that nothing can separate us from Christ, but we still have to make the choice. No outside force can break that relationship – but we can walk away from it. As Jesus tells us himself, it’s not what’s on the outside we need to worry about, it’s what’s inside. So we have our part to play in this, it’s not just something that happens and we stand passively by.
But the Gospel is clear. Jesus will feed us if we go out and listen to him.
OK, but again is that all there is to it? We sit there like baby birds with our mouths open and he conjures bread and fish out of the air? Well of course not, that’s not a very flattering image! We’re not baby birds just squawking to be fed. Jesus is not some conjurer doing party tricks.
So what was going on? Of course we don’t know the details, CNN wasn’t filming at the time. But the evangelists tell us everything we need to know. Firstly the people weren’t so different from the baby birds – there were certainly following him around looking for the next meal once they realized what was on offer. But what about Jesus, what was he doing?
Many years ago I heard an interpretation of this miracle that has really stuck with me.
Maybe Jesus didn’t set himself up like some food-truck. He took the little food that his companions had, blessed it, and shared it. And then others around him took the food they had brought and started sharing. And those around them, until the edge of the crowd. That’s why there were 12 baskets of left over food. Why would Jesus have overproduced if it was just down to him running a food pantry? And surely any sensible Israelite heading out into the hills would have taken some provisions with them – the disciples did, just not enough to feed a crowd of thousands. We can expect that at least some others would have had similar foresight. So in fact there was plenty of food to go round – it just had to be shared. Either way thousands of people got fed.
But, but, but, … You’ve just destroyed the miracle. Surely this is all about demonstrating Jesus’ power and ability to do anything?
But… Consider this – what demonstrates Jesus’ power better? That he has power over bread and fish to make more as needed, or that he has power to change people’s hearts, their attitudes, their willingness to share when they fear there may not be enough to go round? Which would be the bigger miracle?
We don’t know exactly what happened, we weren’t there. But we do know what Jesus told us about the need to change, the need to believe that God would provide for us, the fact that He wouldn’t abandon us.
That’s why Paul has absolute confidence that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That should be our confidence also – and if we get a free meal out of it as well, then all well and good.