Our theme for today’s Lenten sermon is the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Give us this day our daily bread. If you want, you may pause the audio feed and get your small catechism and follow along:
The Fourth Petition
Give us this day our daily bread.
What does this mean? 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.
What is meant by daily bread? Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.
In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Guess what event was scheduled to begin tomorrow? March Madness, otherwise known as the NCAA Basketball Tournament. But that’s not March Madness. What we are going through right now is March Madness and it appears that it will continue as April Madness and beyond. Many of you are concerned about your own health and the health of your immediate family. If you are elderly or have various health issues, you are concerned or others are concerned for you. You are concerned about your job and how you are going to provide for yourself or be provided for. The entire country and most of the world is on edge right now, almost paralyzed by the coronavirus. To all of you I give you the blessing of our Lord from 2 Corinthians 13: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Jesus promises to be with you always, and that includes times of crisis and worldly uncertainty. The Lord has made you His child in your baptism and kept you in the faith through His Word and Sacraments. You are His and He will never leave you or forsake you. And because you are His, you can confidently pray the Lord’s Prayer, including, “give us this day our daily bread.” Before looking at this petition and our catechism’s brilliant expansion on this petition, I want to read to you, dear brothers and sisters of Bethany comforting words of Jesus that He spoke just a few moments after giving us the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6, Jesus said, “25 "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Your Lord will take care of you even more than the lilies of the field or the birds of the air because you are His children. Your heavenly Father knows your need and will hear your prayer. So pray the Lord’s Prayer with confidence, including “give us this day our daily bread.”
This petition is short, but every word carries great meaning. It begins with the word “give”. Life itself is a gift. Remember that punishment for sin is death. God could have killed Adam and Eve for their sin. Instead He gave the promise of Christ and provided for them to continue to live. Remember that you too are a sinner and as you confess in the liturgy, you deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishment. All that you have in this life is from a good and gracious God. All of life is a gift from God. As the catechism says, “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.” And related to this petition, remember the meaning of the first article of the creed from the catechism: After pointing to all that the Father has done to create and preserve our earthly life, Luther says, “All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.” God is good and gracious and since He is, ask Him to give you your daily bread out of His abundant mercy. And remember that Martin Luther, who wrote the catechism, knew great hardships in life. When he wrote the catechism he had already lived through the bubonic plague twice.
We pray, “give us”. The “us” right here refers to us, as in the saved, the Holy Christian Church. You are God’s child, redeemed by Christ and His death on the cross. You are now part of the family of God, the Holy Christian Church. He who gives you eternal life in Christ wants to provide for you His people in this age as well as the next. Since you cannot gather together as God’s people in church for a while, do pray for all your brothers and sisters in Christ. Especially pray for the elderly, the infirm, and those in the medical field in our congregation.
The prayer continues: give us this day. In this petition you are praying for “everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body”. And as the petition tells you, that includes a lot. It includes the obvious such as food, drink, clothing, shoes. But it also includes such things as good government and you being able to provide for your family. As you are discovering day by day now, there are many things that you need for daily life.
But notice the petition does not say, “give us this day an ample supply of everything and enough money in the bank to never have to worry about anything, and guarantee me perfect health always.” No the petition says, “give us this day our daily bread.” “Heavenly Father, give me what I need to eat and drink and be protected from the elements and be kept safe for this day.” This petition points you to praying the Lord’s Prayer every day and knowing every day that your life is provided for by His abundant grace and mercy.
When Israel was in the wilderness God provided for them manna every day. When they first received manna, some wanted to store it up for the next day. God caused it to become wormy. God wanted Israel to trust in Him for daily bread. So too, He desires that you trust in Him daily for your daily bread. This coronavirus is causing havoc with your lives. That is true. But trust in the Lord today. Since you have daily bread today, thank Him and then tomorrow pray for your daily bread.
And notice, the prayer is for “daily bread”, not a daily croissant. While I cannot tell you exactly why the Lord has allowed by His will this virus to continue to spread and wreak havoc, I can tell you that you have all things necessary if you have salvation and eternal life in Christ, and also if in this age, you have daily bread. It is easy for all of us who have known such great abundance to now forget that all of life is a gift from God, and your Lord is still providing for you.
Do pray this petition. Do pray that the Lord would preserve you and your family and our community and world from this outbreak. Do pray to the Lord at this time that He would provide you with everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body. And know most of all, that you are His child. He has given you Jesus as Lord and Savior. He is with you. You have peace in Jesus. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.