"Our Compassionate Creator!" Mark 8:1-9

The Seventh Sunday After Trinity                         23-July-2023
Sermon Text: Mark 8:1-9
Sermon Theme: ‘Our Compassionate Creator!” by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

I.N.R.I. On the sixth 24 hour day of the existence of all matter in the universe the Creator got His hands dirty.   Mankind isn’t an accident of chance random processes beginning billions of years ago. The probability of the four base amino acids arising by chance random processes is 10 to the 130th power. This exceeds the known number of atoms in the universe. The four base amino peptides form the basis of the information for life written by our Creator upon the DNA of all living things. The myth of evolution ignores the hard observational science to follow its mythological tale falsely labeling it “science.” God the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, records the origin and design of life in the written record of the Holy Bible.
      Humanity isn’t accidental. The Lord God carefully molded man from the dust of the ground. As a Master Potter He formed the clay of our bodies and all their structures. There are no “self-made” human beings. Then the Lord God knelt down and He breathed His life into the Adam’s nostrils. We are not “self-sustaining” creatures. Every breath we breathe is from our gracious Creator. Rightly The Church confesses, “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.
      Just as the Lord God carefully formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed him alive, so He formed you within your mother’s womb. Your body isn’t an accident. Your loving Creator wrote your calling to be male or female upon your chromosomes when He created your life through conception. David sings forth the miracle of human life in the 139th Psalm, “Psalms 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. (14) I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (15) My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. (16) Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” As a Master Craftsman, the Lord God knitted you together in your mother’s womb. Biological science in the study of fetal development informs us that our bodily structures are “knit together” out of collagen. From the moment of conception the blue print of our bodies is written by our caring Creator on the DNA of everyone of our cells. Not only has the Lord God created you for this time as a body and soul creature a unified whole. He still takes care of your “body and soul, eyes, ears, and all your members, your reason, and all your senses.”
        Listen and learn to know Christ Jesus - “Our Compassionate Creator!”
 I. He Knows Our Greatest Need. II. He Blesses Us With Daily Bread. III. He Sustains Us For Our Journey.
I. What do you need to live? Air? Water? Food? Clothing? Shelter? We are flooded by advertisements trying to sell us on what we need to really live. Fear motivates people to fill their houses with things they might use for the future. Preppers stock up on freeze dried food to sustain them when society completely collapses. Are you prepared to survive? Are you prepared to live?
      What is man’s greatest survival need? Hope. (Mark 8:1-3) The Gentile crowds heard good news. A man possessed by a legion of evil spirits had been rescued, set free by the word of a Rabbi named Jesus. This man trumpeted the good news that the demons had been cast into a heard of swine by Jesus. He won’t stop telling others in the ten cities or Decapolis that the Lord had compassion on him - a man locked in Satan’s grip. All marvel at the good news of the Lord’s compassion.
      They heard news that this Jewish Rabbi had compassion on a Syrophencian mother whose daughter was severely demon possessed. He had compassion on a deaf mute gentile healing him. He had compassion on the sick, the lost, the hopeless.
        When the Jewish crowds followed Jesus into the Judean wilderness, St. Mark records, Mark 6:34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.” Now the Gentile crowds had followed Jesus into the wilderness to hear Him. Imagine joyfully gathering for a church service in a desert and begging the pastor to preach and teach for three days. Sadly Satan has so distracted us with moving images as the world deceives our fallen flesh and thinking that we grow bored in even hearing God’s Word spoken in our liturgy or confessed and sung in our hymns. Satan snatches the Seed of Christ’s Word from our hearts as the world entertains us to hell while our flesh loves the lie.
      Repent and cry out to your Heavenly Father to feed you the Bread of Heaven. Live by every Word that proceeds from Jesus, Your Compassionate Creator. He is present feeding you through His Word preached. His Word calling you to repent - turn from your false idolatry that you can save yourself. Believe the good news! Pray for Holy Spirit breathed Word given trust in your Savior.
      Fill your children, your spouse, your heart with hope by daily sitting at Jesus’ feet as you read the Holy Bible out loud in your homes. Ponder it. Pray it. Sing it. Turn off the screens and learn to listen to the still small voice of your Creator.
    He has compassion on you. He knows your greatest need - He breathes out upon you His Holy Spirit in your baptism. The fruit of sin only brings death. The fruit of Jesus cross gifted you in Holy Baptism is eternal life.
    The gentile crowds weren’t aware of their dilemma, but Jesus was and knew how He would sustain them. Trust Him. He knows your greatest need is to hear your Father’s Word through Him calling you back from sin to new life by His Holy Spirit. To hear the good news that He has delivered you from all your sins - by His sacrifice on Calvary of His innocent flesh and swallowed up your death forever. The good news trumpeted three days later - He lives. Death is broken. Our grave robbed. Life wins through our Compassionate Creator.
II.   Molding Adam from the clay of the earth breathing Him alive by His Holy Spirit, our caring Creator planted a garden for him. Our Creator loves beauty. He plants trees pleasant to sight. Creation, even after Satan took mankind captive through the lie, still declares our Creator’s love for beauty. The beautiful trees our gracious Gardener plants were also good for food. Daily He provides us with all we need for our body and life.
      Trust Him! (Mark 8:4-5) How could the disciples forget? Only a few weeks earlier Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 men plus their families with five loaves and two small fish in the Judean wilderness. Instead of walking by faith, they revert to sight. It is impossible to satisfy the hunger of this mob of people in the desert with bread. They had forgotten Jesus’ sermon in the synagogue at Capernaum, after the feeding of the 5,000, that He was the Bread of Heaven. Moses didn’t feed the children of Israel in the wilderness - God the Father had through His Son.
      Jesus asked them to see what they have. They only have a meager seven loaves of bread, barely enough for the twelve to sustain themselves for the journey home. It wouldn’t do to give it all away to Jesus? Would it? Jesus teaches the baptized to pray, “Father, give us this day our daily bread.” Do you remember what this means? “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. “ Satan, our fallen flesh, and the world tempt us to live in fear. Fear of what tomorrow might bring. Fear that sells itself into slavery for a piece of free bread from any dictator.
      Faith lives in freedom. Freedom knowing that God is our Father, we are His children redeemed in the blood of Christ Jesus - adopted as His own in Holy Baptism. Daily begin each day repeating His Word and promise of adoption, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Trust that He will provide you day by day your daily bread. With thanksgiving place into Jesus’ hand your seven last loaves to feed the starving multitudes with the Bread of Heaven. Receive your daily bread with thanksgiving to your Heavenly Father through Jesus, the Bread of Heaven, by His Holy Life Sustaining Spirit.
III. In Eden , our Creator planted the Tree of Life. He invited our first father to feast with Him and rejoice in His life. He also planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - and warned our first father not to eat of it. Adam was to trust in His Creator’s Word alone, to trust in His life sustaining fruit from the tree of life. To know God was to know all good. Lusting to know evil was to turn his back on the Creator’s love and life sustaining Word. Sadly we live with Adam and his wife’s choice. They listened to Satan’s lying word and ate of the fruit which only pay the wages of sin, shame, captivity, and death.
        Jesus, the Compassionate Creator, came into our human history that we might have life abundantly in Him. His blessing sustains our life. (Mark 8:6-9) The multitudes are invited to the feast. Sitting on the ground at table. He takes the bread, gives thanks, then distributes this life sustaining food through His disciples. He does the same with the few small fish they had in their supplies. The little becomes a great feast. All eat and are satisfied with bread and fish in the wilderness. They are strengthened and sustained by His blessing for their journey home.
      Day by day our Compassionate Creator sustains our body and soul - our life. He has the Words of eternal life. He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. He cares for you. Do you doubt it? He commands you to be seated - see His salvation. His cross is the Tree of Life - its Fruit is given and shed for you! He invites you to His feast. He speaks His Word and in bread and wine - He gives you His eternal living body and sin destroying life giving blood. He distributes it to you through the men He has called and ordained to speak His Word of Life. Rejoice! He sustains you through His Word and Sacraments for your journey through the wilderness of this dying world - to the resurrection of your body and the life of the world to come. On the seventh day of creation the Compassionate Creator rested from His all His work - His body lifeless in the tomb - given for you. The eighth day came - the third day - the first day of the new creation - our Compassionate Creator lives and is with us always. We confess: “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” Amen.