A Picture of Word and Sacrament

# 488 - Today's Living Word comes from: Mr 8:7 They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them. 8 So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. 9 Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away,

There are some who say that the fish in the miraculous feedings of Jesus are symbolic of the Sacraments. I think we would have a hard time proving such an assumption, however I like the comparison.

I like it because I see the bread of this miracle as the Bread of Life, the Word of God. But it is not only Bread (The Word) that Jesus gave to His disciples to disperse to the hungry masses. He gave them the Sacraments as well to set before the people.

Both Word and Sacrament are means of grace, that is the vehicles which God uses to dispense grace, which is defined as “divine influence on the heart.” The Word of God of course has primacy as a means of grace (as the loaves do in this miracle) but the Sacraments are also a means of grace, they are also able to deliver the needed spiritual nutrition of God's grace.

Isn't it interesting that Christians everywhere, no matter what stripe they are, baptize, observe the Lord's Supper, and encourage their people to be fed by the Words of God?

The “bread and fish” that He set before the 4,000 to satisfy their physical need of hunger, was symbolic of the same bread and fish that we partake of even to this day, namely Word and Sacrament, and they are means to dispense the grace of God to satisfy our spiritual hunger.

I'm Duane Matz and that's Today's Living Word.