The Feeding of the 5000 (Matthew 14: 13-21)

I.             Compassion And Power.

13 When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. 14 And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. 15 When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” 16 But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17 And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” 18 He said, “Bring them here to Me.” 19 Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. 20 So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. 21 Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

(Matthew 14: 13-21)

Galilee must have been a place where it was very difficult to be alone. Galilee was a small country, only 50 miles from north to south and 25 miles from east to west, and Josephus tells us that in his time within that small area there were 204 towns and villages, none with a population of less than 15,000 people, which meant it had a similar population as that region has today. In such a thickly populated area it was not easy to get away from people for any length of time. But it was quiet on the other side of the lake. At its widest point the lake was 8 miles wide. Jesus' friends were fisherfolk; so it was not difficult to embark on one of their boats and seek retirement on the east side of the lake. That is what Jesus was doing when he heard of the death of John.

There were three perfectly simple and natural reasons why Jesus should seek to be alone. In his humanity he needed rest. He never recklessly ran into danger, and it was beginning to withdraw from the opposition he was facing, lest he too also would share the fate of John. And, most of all, with the cross coming nearer and nearer, Jesus knew that he must meet with God before he met with men. So he went seeking rest for his body and strength for his soul in the lonely places. But he was not to find that place of peace. It would be easy to see a boat set sail and to work out where it was going; and the crowds flocked round the top edge of the lake and were waiting for him at the other side when he arrived. So, Jesus healed them and, when the evening came, he fed them before they took the long road home. Few of Jesus' miracles are so revealing as this. 

Firstly, it tells us of the compassion of Jesus. When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion to the depths of his heart. That is a very beautiful thing. Jesus had come to find peace and quiet and loneliness even; instead, he found a vast crowd eagerly demanding what he they believed only he could give to them. He might so easily have resented them for that. What right had they to invade his privacy with their continual demands? Was he to have no rest and quiet, no time to himself at all? But Jesus was not like that. So far from finding them a nuisance, he was moved with compassion for them. "As in the days of old, so today the Christian message to the non-Christian world has to be the same eternally that God cares. If that is so, we too must never be too busy for people, and we must never even seem to find them a trouble and a nuisance. Those enquirers were lost and might never returned again. We must never deal with people with one eye on the clock, and as if we were anxious to be rid of them as soon as we decently can.

There is an account somewhere of how the first Metropolitan Bishop of India failed to meet the late Pandit Iswar Chandar Vidyasagar of Bengal through official formality. The Pandit Chandar had been sent as spokesman of the Hindu community in Calcutta, to establish friendly relations with the Bishop and with the Church. Vidyasagar, who was the founder of a Hindu College in Calcutta and a social reformer, author and educationalist of repute, returned disappointed without being granted an interview, and formed a strong party of educated and wealthy citizens of Calcutta to oppose the Church and the Bishop, and to guard against the spread of Christianity. 

Someone later observed that the bishop had turned a friend into a foe." What an opportunity for Christ was lost because someone's privacy could not be invaded except through official channels. Jesus never found any person a nuisance, even when his whole being was crying out for rest and quiet--and neither must his followers. Also, in this story we see Jesus witnessing that all gifts are from God. He took the food, and he said a blessing. The Jewish grace before meals was very simple: "Blessed art thou, Jehovah our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth." Many believe that would be the grace which Jesus said, for that was the grace which every Jewish family used then. In it we see Jesus showing that it is God's gifts which he brings to men and women. The level of grace of gratitude is rare enough towards men; it is rarer still towards God.

II.            The Place of The Disciple in The Work of Christ

This miracle informs us very clearly of the place of the disciple in the work of Christ. The story tells that Jesus gave to the disciples and the disciples then gave it to the crowd. Jesus worked through his disciples that day, and he still does today. Again and again, we come face to face with this truth which is at the heart of the any true Christian community. It is true that the disciple is helpless without his Lord, but it is also true that the Lord is helpless without his disciple. If Jesus wants something done, he needs us to be willing to do it. If he wants a child taught or a person helped, he has to get a man or woman to do it. He needs people through whom he can act, and through whom he can speak. Jesus Christ needs disciples through whom he can work and through whom his truth and his love can enter into the lives of others. He needs men and woman to whom he can give gifts in order that they can share them with others. Without such people he cannot get things done and it is our task to be such people of God for him. It would be easy to be daunted and discouraged by a task of such magnitude. But there is another thing in this story that may encourage us.

When Jesus told the disciples to feed the crowd, they told him that all they had was five loaves and two fishes; and yet with what they brought to him, Jesus was able to bring the required task to fruition Jesus brought this about by a miracle. Jesus sets every one of us the tremendous tasks of communicating himself to men; but he does not demand from us abilities that we do not possess. He says to us, "Come to me as you are, however ill-equipped you feel you are; bring to me what you have, however small it is, and I will use it greatly in my service." Even a little thing is always enough to fulfil Gods will in the service of Christ. 

At the end of the miracle there is that strange little touch that I think provides a teachable moment in our modern times of environmental waste and mismanagement. Did you notice the fragments were all gathered up. Even when a miracle could feed people generously, there was no waste. There is something to note here. God gives to people all they might need to abundance, but wasteful extravagance is never right. God's generous giving and our wise use of those things he has given us stewardship of must always go hand in hand.

III.           The Making of a Miracle

There are some Christians who read the miracles of Jesus and feel no need to explain them. They accept them at face value and remain undisturbed in the  simplicity of their faith, which is a wonderful thing. There are other believers who read such things and their minds question and they feel they must understand. God understand that and in truth steps forward to meet the questing mind. But in whatever way we approach the miracles of Jesus, one thing is certain. We must never be content to regard them as something which happened in history; we must always regard them as something which happens today, and every day. They are not isolated events in history; they are demonstrations of the eternal operative and available power of Jesus Christ.  There are several ways in which we can choose look at this particular miracle, all of them miraculous in their own way.

(i) We may look at it as a simple multiplication of loaves and fishes. Something which happened once on that day to meet the need of those people, a miracle non the less but never repeated itself for it was an event born out of the need of the crowd that day. If we view it that way and are content we should not be critical or condemnatory of anyone who believes that because we feel we must compel them to see it another way.

(ii) However, many people see in this miracle as a sacrament. They have felt that those who were present received only the smallest morsel of food, and yet with that were strengthened for their day and their journey by it and were content.  They have felt that this was not just a meal with which people fulfilled their physical appetite; but a meal where they ate the spiritual food of Christ. If that is the view you reach then this is the true first time a miracle is performed which is re-enacted every time we sit at the Lord’s table. At the communion service Christians believe there comes to us the spiritual food which sends us out to walk the path that God has laid out before us strengthened with firmer feet and greater power to walk the way of life which leads to God.Of course, both these perspectives are not mutually exclusive. However, one thing is sure, when Christ is amongst us the weary find rest and the searching hungry soul is fed.