Food is essential to our life. We may be able to go without it for a while but eventually our body needs nourishment or we die. This is a need that God made you to have and it is a need that He daily meets in many and various ways. Most of the time God gives us our food in ordinary ways – He provides us a job so that we have the money to go to the store and buy food for our family. Other times, the provision comes from the mercy of others such as a food pantry or assistance from neighbors when we are in the midst of hardship. And sometimes, though not often, God uses miraculous means to feed His people – manna in the wilderness, ravens sent to bring food to Elijah, the miraculous feeding of thousands with a few loaves of bread and some small fish. But no matter how He gives this food that is meant to nourish our bodies, and no matter how much or little of it we have, this food cannot keep us alive forever. That is because we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Without this word we cannot live either in this life or the next. It is by His word that God gives us His Holy Spirit and enlivens not only our faith but also our love. Jesus, the true bread, is the Word from God that has come down from heaven and raises us to new life by the Gospel. Let us gather together to receive the Word which comes to us in preaching and sacrament that we may have life.
Pastor Ulmer