Awash in bad news about the world around us, we are proclaiming good news – God’s Good News – as our Lenten journey to the Cross moves forward. Here’s what our Sunday Scripture lessons have declared already: God’s good news is so good that it catches us by surprise!
And God’s good news is great love for neighbor! This morning, the good news is that, together with God, the impossible is possible!
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus and his disciples head to a deserted place, perhaps anxious for some peace and quiet, but folks from the surrounding towns tag along. Instead of turning them away, Jesus expresses compassion and launches into some impromptu teaching. As the day goes on, the disciples have logistics in mind and urge Jesus to send the people back into the villages so they can feed themselves.
Instead, Jesus charges his followers with a seemingly impossible task: “You give them something to eat.” Dumbfounded, the disciples fret over the limitations and financial constraints of Jesus’s suggestion. Yet when they “go and see,” their meager provisions multiply, and thousands are fed.
Theirs is a network of collective care that meets people’s immediate needs. Jesus models a way to live in community by coming together and sharing what we have, dispelling myths of perceived impossibilities, revenue shortfalls, and supply-chain shortages. The good news empowers us to believe in the miracles made possible through the power of community.
Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them.
Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”
But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.”
Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves! (Mark 6:31-44)
Much of modern society ingrains in us the idea that we have to fend for ourselves, and tending to the needs of an entire community feels like too overwhelming a task. But compassion is the energy source for collective care. The good news is, the disciples’ limiting beliefs don’t limit what God does. The good news is, everyone is fed.
An award-winning short documentary follows a farmer, Adam Wilson, who was given $500,000
to purchase a farm and use it to feed his neighbors for free. The film explores radical neighboring through the provision of healthier food and how generosity and shared resources can reshape the way communities live together.
I’m reading to you from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians –
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
God doesn’t start with the problem. God starts with what we all have. Please pray with me –
Holy God, we could press our ear to the page, hoping to hear you more clearly. We could silence all the alarms and notifications, hoping to catch a murmur of your voice. We could still our beating hearts, and still we might miss your voice. So today we pray, open up space in our hearts, in our spirits, in our minds, to feel your presence among us. With you, anything is possible. We believe. With your Spirit, help our disbelief.
Amen.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the Third Sunday of Lent, March 8, 2026, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Lisle Gwynn Garrity and Lizzie McManus-Dail inform the message.