A reading of the holy gospel. According to Saint Matthew, Our lord went along the Sea Of Galilee. He went up onto the mountainside, sat down there. That was probably on the Eastern Eastern side of the lake. Large crowds of people came to him, bringing with them cripples, the deformed, the blind, the mute, and many others beside.
They laid these invalids at the Christ's feet, and he cured them. The result was great astonishment in the crowds as they beheld the mute speaking, the deformed made whole, cripples walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the god of Israel. And then Jesus called his disciples to him, and he said to them, my heart is moved with pity for the crowd. By now, they have been with me three days and have nothing to eat.
See, and they'd walked all around the northern part of the lake to get on that eastern side. No mean trick. I do not wish to send them away hungry for fear that they may collapse, faint on the way. His disciples said to Jesus, how could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd? The answer was we can't.
But Jesus asked them another question. How many loaves of bread do you have? Seven, they said, and a few small fish. Then Jesus directed the crowd to seat themselves on the ground. He took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks, he broke and gave them to the disciples who, in turn, gave them to the crowds.
Everybody ate all that they wanted. And when they had gathered up the fragments left over, even fragments filled seven hampers. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
As much as I would like to have a few well chosen words on this reading, I have something else in mind. Following up my well chosen remarks of yesterday and Monday. You see, the liturgy talks so much about the second coming of Christ and the general judgment. Of course, I think that's going to happen and all that, but it's in the future. It's not history.
And very frankly, I know very little about it. I'll find out one day and you will do, and then we'll talk about it. But as of the present, I leave that to the learned ones who make their living writing books. Now, there's no doubt at all that Christ is an historical figure. He was born, he lived, he died.
Well, then after that, things get a little fuzzy. I mean, some people say yes, some people say no, all kinds of explanations. But nobody today with a brain half of a brain cell working did in a denies that Christ actually lived. Remember, in my lifetime, I could not have said that when I was in the seminary. Because then we were talking to these great learned scholars of the bible, scriptures, they were telling us how Christ was simply the product of wishful thinking.
Or, well, you know, they had other ways of saying it, but that's what it amounted to. Well, nobody can say that today with at all. So we're dealing here with history. And as I say, while the liturgy of the church seems to be so concentrated on this second coming, the I wanna deal with a fact like a good old Aristotelian with my both my feet on the ground. That doesn't mean they're sealed in cement, but I want them on the terra firma.
I know where I am at least. And as old ave Lincoln said, if you know where you are and if you know where you're going, there's a chance that you'll get there. Got a lot of wisdom, that old guy. Now, we talk about the second coming, a lot of it. People seem to be fascinated with it.
We talk a lot about the incarnation of God, and that we know a lot about. But how often do we think about the in between comings? And to me, this is just as important as that first coming. Remember our blessed lord said that whoever keeps my commandments, I and my father will come and will make our abode with them. And what does that mean?
Does it mean something? Does it mean something in our daily lives from morning until night till the moment we open our eyes and we close them at night. Does that mean something? It's one thing to say historically in perfect past tense, God became man, was born of a virgin, you know, was a good man, taught a lot, died, resurrected, from the dead, set it into heaven. That's history.
Unless we bring it into our daily lives and make it have value, have importance, to have it make a difference. That's the point. To have it make a difference in the here and the now. In this very moment, as you're sitting in those pews, that's what that's what counts. If we if it if it if it it doesn't hang over into that, forget it.
Go and read the life of Caesar or Alexander the Great or anybody you want. It'd be all the same. But we don't think enough about this in between, not Singer, but Cummings. We're not people who are looking into the past and remembering a a fact of history. We are not people looking into the future imagining what's gonna happen.
We are dealing with a present reality which is God in the incarnation of his son. And notice I said incarnation. That means with flesh. As a human being and a man of the human race, he wasn't neuter. Some of our dear friends would have us believe half the human race.
Oh, no. Thank goodness it's not half. But anyway, Christ was a human being and a male of the human race. He was incarnated in the flesh, and he comes to us hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second. He comes because we dangle from we are contingent beings.
I wish you'd look that word up in a decent dictionary and see what it mean. It means that we are nothing, separated from the creative power of God almighty. And while Jesus Christ is a son of Mary, flesh incarnate, he is God. He is God. And nobody has brought that out in in more human terms than my late friend Martin Luther, that gentleman you know from Germany, caused a little stir in the sixteenth century.
He has some wonderful things about that, that Jesus Christ was God and truly man. Now don't think you can make sense out of this. Don't try. It's an this is a tremendous thing. We accept it.
But here's what I wanna insist on this in between comings of Christ. He has come to be with us. We are pilgrims. As I said yesterday, a pilgrim is not an aimless wanderer. He's not a college graduate trying to find himself.
A pilgrim knows who he or she is. A pilgrim knows where they are. And above all, a pilgrim knows where they're going. That's why they're pilgrims. They're not wandering footloose and fancy free.
They are travelers with a purpose. They have a definite goal, an ultimate goal. As I saw matter of fact, I stayed in what was had been the hospital in in Spain to the Shrine of Saint James, Capistela. It is now a magnificent five star hotel. But when these pilgrims, after crossing the Pyrenees coming from Northern Europe on foot in all kinds of weather, when they arrived at Campostella, boy, they needed a hospital.
They needed the sip of wine that they all received. Now, this is something that can change our lives. From time to time, I've used that latin phrase quid, odd, eternity. Does this thing, whatever it be that's that's engrossing me, that's making me fearful, that's making me happy, that's carrying me over, that's bringing me to the border of despair. Whatever this thing is, notice that's a pronoun, and it has an antecedent.
And the antecedent is what I'm facing here and now, good or bad, joyful, sad, whatever. Quit on eternity time. What does this matter for my eternity? Now bring in just as soon as that thought strikes you, bring in this, that Christ, the son of god, is with me now. Now.
And just as really as he was in the womb of the blessed mother, just as really as he walked around the Lake Of Galilee, just as really as he appeared before Pilate, just as really as he carried the cross, and just as really as he broke the tomb. He's with me now. Not early this morning, not to not tonight, not on Sunday when I flop into church. He's with me now, right here in this awful moment, in this joyful moment, in this moment of despair or almost despair. He's with me.
And I hear his own voice saying, my god, my god, Why have you abandoned me? Christ didn't mean that that his father had abandoned. He knew better than that, but that's how he felt, and that's how we feel. But just as surely as as as as god, the heavenly father, with was with his son on the cross, so his crucified son is with me on my cross or on my bed of joy or happiness. Life as that young priest wrote over in Muriela, life may be a bowl of cherries and what the hell to use.
That's one way of looking at it. But then you might just as well go out and get yourself a 38 revolver and end it all. On the other hand, that is not the way the Christian life is not a bowl of cherries. That was written by a priest, remember, in a in a guest book, and I'm not making that up. I don't make it.
I don't have to make this stuff up. It's there. And so think about this coming of Christ that's in our daily lives. It's true that he came once. It's true we're going to have the final judgment.
But in between, I live, and I don't live alone. I'm a pilgrim in the company of Jesus Christ. In the here and the now, quid odd eternity, because I'm living for eternity. At this moment, I'm living, but I'm living with Jesus Christ, the son of God. He said, behold, I am with you all times.
That's what Jesus said. Let's take it to and live it. See Christ in your daily life, the good, the bad, the joyful, the happy, the miserable, all this, you know, the whole bit. See Jesus Christ, and you're on your way. In the name of the father and the son and the spirit.
Amen.