Bring Them Here to Me

Gospel Reading: Matthew 14:13-21

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

The miracle of Jesus feeding many people, 5,000 plus women and children as Matthew records, is the only miracle story that shows up nearly identically in all four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As we sit here today in the Hall of the Evangelists, named after these Gospel writers, we encounter a story that they each found profoundly important to include in their Gospels about who Jesus was and what he did. It’s a story that encapsulates so much of who Christ was and who he is to people across the ages.

I find it to be hard to pull out just one takeaway from this story! I could draw an infinite number of conclusions about Jesus and the promises he gives to us of life, abundance, much-out-of-nothing, his care for the poor, his ability to feed both physically and spiritually, his deep care and compassion for people to the point where he gives himself up on the cross for all of creation.

When any scripture is so full, like this one, I work hard to get out of its way! To let it preach itself.

Imagine with me entering this story as eyewitnesses, we see Jesus, just receiving news of the gruesome beheading death of John the Baptist - his baptizer, and one he knew well. He’s likely grief stricken and so he wants to go off into a wilderness for some alone time. All of us need rest from time to time. Jesus needed some time away from the crowds with whom he’s been walking, teaching and serving. Yet, he notices in the distance, the masses of people have followed him into this deserted place. They are crowds of people who need healing, prayer and support. Some of them may be desperately searching for a cure or help. Instead of walking faster to slip away, Jesus turns to them and has compassion on them.

His disciples, on the other hand, are tired and they are also ready to take a break away from the crowds. They say, “Oh please Jesus, send these folks back to town. It’s getting near dinner time, and we don’t want to feed them all, we can’t feed them all - we only have 5 loaves and two fish. They need to go away to find their own food.” And then Jesus says, “They need not go away… ‘Bring them here to me.’”

Let’s pause the scene with this phrase that Jesus says about these hungry people, “Bring them here to me.” It strikes me as a very beautiful, and profound saying of Christ’s. “Bring them here to me.”

That verse delivers to us a promise all on its own! Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.” This is God-in-the-flesh, Immanuel, saying, “Bring them here to me.” God wants them. God wants you to come near to him. Emanuel, God-with-us, says, “Come to me.” “Come to me.” No stipulations, no payment, no requirements – Just an invitation. Come to me.

Getting back into the story, once the crowds do come, in verse 19 it says, Jesus “takes the five loaves and the two fish, looks up to heaven, and blesses them, and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.”

Is that verse sounding a bit familiar to you? Do you maybe recall any other time Jesus does this?

Let me pare it down a little and maybe it’ll be more clear: “Then, [Jesus] took the loaves, blessed them, broke them and gave them to the disciples… who gave them to the crowds.”

Did you catch it?

And now this: “In the night in which he was betrayed our Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, take and eat, this is my body given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”

Today’s story, Jesus feeds 5,000 plus people and it takes place 12 chapters before the Last Supper in Matthew’s Gospel, and it is where Jesus practices the motions of the Last Supper. It’s where his Words of Institution first begin to take shape in this Gospel.  

And you know, I think that every Sunday, you and me – We’re all a part of this miracle of the loaves and fishes! Every Sunday we get to participate in Jesus’s miracle taking place right in front of our eyes. For 2,000 years and counting these loaves have been multiplying and now they are multiplying right here on our altar at St. Matthew!

Every week, we are the ones to whom Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.” And we come, one-by-one to the altar and Christ meets us here in bread and wine.

All of this that we do on a Sunday morning goes beyond spiritual or cultural practices – though it is most certainly both of those things.

What we do, is we join the living story of God. 

This book, The Bible, isn’t only filled with things about the past or with suggestions for how to live a good life. This book is alive – God is alive – the Word is alive among us as we join its story - as its story joins our story. It isn’t dead words on a page. We are continuing to live in the story of the Bible.

Jesus says today, “Bring them here to me.” And so, we are brought! The Bible’s story is happening now!

Our liturgy – our worship practices – are an act of us joining the living God in the world.

Earlier today, when we confessed our collective sin and heard that “Jesus said, come to me all you who are weary…” we experienced God’s very alive and overflowing mercy through Christ in an act of forgiveness. When you hear the words of the prayers spoken by Roy, those are our collective voices crying out to God – they are our congregation’s Psalms. When you greet each other with a sign of Christ’s peace, you are participating in what Christ himself did and what he commanded his disciples to do – to go and greet people with a sign of peace. When you hear the words of institution spoken by Pastor Brian, you are hearing the real, living words of Jesus Christ responding to our prayers saying, “They need not go away, bring them here to me. Give them something to eat.”

And then, as Jesus did in the deserted place with the gathered crowds in the story today, and as he did on the night in which he was betrayed, “Jesus took bread, broke it, gave thanks and gave it to his disciples, saying take and eat; this is my body given for you.”

The loaves have multiplied onto our own table, this bread is Christ’s everything, his body, here given to you. Come to Christ and he will give everything all the way to his own body for you. That is how much God loves you. That is how much God wants you to come near to him. That is how much God wants to come near to you.

Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.” And so, here we are, brought. We are here at the foot of Christ’s cross today receiving the blessing and mercy that the Living God gives to us through the Living Word and the Living Bread and Cup of blessing. The miracle of the loaves and fishes continues today, right here at St. Matthew Lutheran Church. We become a part of the story.

God meets you in Christ Jesus. Come, taste and see that the Lord is Good.

Amen.

Rev. Ryan Heckman | Sunday, August 2nd, 2026 | Tenth Sunday after Pentecost