When I was in college my mom gave me the starter mix for cinnamon rolls. I had three other roommates, and it became kind of fun to start with a batch of bread, and with the correct ingredients, the bread could be divided, then cooked, then eaten by the rest of us, but it wasn’t all gone. When I put back part of the bread it would just grow until we were ready to have more! I fattened up my roommates and we ate lots and lots of cinnamon rolls. It was quite fun and I became pretty popular for awhile. The amazing part of this was that even though it looked like we would be finished, the bread kept producing.
Now before you criticize my lack of baking skills (no I would never win the British Baking Contest!) let me just say that the bread somehow multiplied for us, and we ate lots of bread in our college apartment!
As a kid, one of the other Sunday school lessons that I distinctly remember is the story when Jesus fed 5000 people that kind of reminds me of my college days. Many weeks ago, when we started our series in the Book of Mark I remember illustrating to all of us that some of the stories of Jesus in the Gospel accounts there were stories that we acted out as children in our classroom. The feeding of the 5000 is one of those childhood memories that I have. In our kid’s classroom we had two different baskets. One basket had bread. The other basket had some plastic fish in it. We prayed over them, then we passed them around the room and somehow our teacher kept adding to the fish and the bread baskets and there was more and more and more. And we pretended to eat them, but then after we had finished there was even more leftover. It was a miracle and Jesus did it! This story is a classic and is the focus of our study this coming Sunday morning.
Before you come to worship this Sunday I encourage you to read all of Mark chapter 6, but the focus will be on Mark 6:30-44. We are entering into a few of the miracles that Jesus performed that were a display of His power over the natural elements of this world. We’ve studied miracles of healing of diseases and spiritual powers, but now we have this section of scripture that displays how much Jesus had power over nature. The feeding of 5000 is one of those stories of great importance. By understanding this story that is found in all four of the Gospels, who do we find that Jesus is?
See you Sunday! I will NOT have cinnamon rolls for you, but I will have the bread of life for you.
