MARK 6:35-44
PROVIDING PROVISIONS PRODUCES PLEASURE
I. THE POVERTY: Mark 6:35-38
A. The Place 6:35
B. The Plea 6:36
C. The Pious 6:37
II. THE PROVIDING: Mark 6:38-41
A. The Possessions 6:38
B. The Plan. 6:39, 40
C. The Prayer. 6:41
III. THE PROVISIONS: Mark 6:42-44
A. The Peasantry. 6:42
B. The Prodigiousness. 6:43
C. The Prototype. 6:44
The day is now gone and the sun is beginning to set in the Western sky and yet the people stayed. Christ has been teaching them, “many things” in verse 34 and still the people stay, mesmerized by His teachings. Christ was aware of the situation and yet He continued to teach. Finally the disciples could not hold their anxiety about the situation any longer and approached Christ about the people and their need for food. Evidently, Christ was waiting for a chance to do a miracle and He allowed the turn of events to get to this place so He could prove just who He really was. It is important to remember the previous verses about the beheading of John. Some thought that John was the Messiah, yet he was gone and now here is Christ and He is preparing to do a miracle to prove that He was the true Messiah. He knew that word would circulate back to Herod and with the news that this Man fed such a motley group, Herod would indeed begin to worry as to just what was going on in his realm. He, Herod, had just silenced a popular preacher and soon word would circulate that a greater than John the Baptist was alive and working miracles. Herod would have to worry as to the real identity of this Man and also contemplate that he murdered a prophet of God.
I see three things here in this passage before me. The first thing I note is that there was great POVERTY in connection with the feeding of the five thousand. Next, I see the great PROVIDING that Christ did for the people as He preformed a miralce in front of their eyes. Lastly, I see the PROVISIONS that He made as He fed the multitude.
* THE PROVERTY: I notice where this miracle took place and the situations surrounding it. It was out in the open and there were many people involved. This lends itself well to the Poverty setting of this miracle.
The Place where the feeding took place was in a barren, open place. Mark, at first, calls this place a “desert place.” Later, he mentions that there was green grass growing. The bottom line is that it was in the open, with no stores, no food and nothing to provide sustenance to the people-a barren stretch of land. This typifies the world today in relation to the Church and to the Gospel. We are in a barren land even as we live on this earth-it is the domain of Satan and we are pilgrims passing through his territory. There is nothing here to give us sustenance and nourishment for our souls. This was what sparked the disciples remark to Jesus for help for the people.
I then notice the Plea. These disciples had the idea that the best way to handle hungry people was to “send them away.” I wonder how often the Church of Jesus Christ has did exactly this very thing to many who came to hear the Master, who grew hungry and who hung on His words only to be sent away, still hungry? We are the Church in a wilderness and the only answer some of us can give to the hungry person is to, “go away and fend for yourself!” However, that was not the plan of Jesus. He asked them what they had and what they had was not very much.
The last part of this Poverty topic has to do with the Pious ones-the disciples and their idea of helping the mass of people who were listening to Jesus preach and teach. Their first inclination was to send the multitude away and let them fend for themselves in the markets nearby. Instead of trying to see what they could do for these hungry people, the disciples’ plan was to dismiss them-even though they were all hungry-and let them make their own way for their salvation-the satisfying of their hunger, by themselves. How many times have the pious ones of the Church of Jesus Christ sent the many away to go and fend for themselves in the markets of the world?
** THE PROVIDING: I notice that Jesus was not deterred in His wishes to help the hungry multitude.
The first thing I note is that there was someone or a few who were there who had a Possession-albeit small, yet it was all that Jesus would need to feed the people. When Jesus asked them what they had, the answer came back that they had very little.
Somewhere, someone did some quick inquiring and found that there were five loaves of bread and two fishes, “when they knew.” Even the disciples did not have any food with them as far as we can see. We do not know who had these edibles, but someone did or maybe these items were a total of a combination of different lunches. What ever the reason for these two items being present at this time represented someone’s or a group of people’s future meal. The question arose as to how would such little provisions help in this hour of need? Ah, but they failed to account for the power of the Master.
He took the little they had and fed the multitude. Sometimes we forget that what little we have is used by God on a grand scale. Sometimes we tend to think that our little offerings, our weak attendance, our feeble prayers, our small contributions to the Kingdom of God do not really matter, but it does to God. There, in the barrenness of the landscape, the little that they had was turned into something great. We tend to forget that our littleness, given into the hand of Christ, equals miracles.
I then notice the Plan that Jesus had in mind before He began to do the impossible. For some odd reason-odd to everyone there, no doubt-Jesus told the disciples to have everyone sit down by “companies” in verse 39. According to Vincent, these “companies” were following the Roman way of seating large crows at a banquet. In the Roman world of entertaining, there were three oblong tables set close to the three walls of a large banquet room. The center was open for the servants to enter and serve the meals to the three tables. This phrase is only used here in Mark’s gospel and it is another sign that he wrote to catch the Roman’s eyes.
In the next verse, 40, Mark used another descriptive word, “ranks.” This literally means “like beds in a garden.” Mark is telling us something when we combine the words he used: ‘companies,” “ranks” and all sitting on “green grass.” With the many varied colors that these people must have been wearing, Mark is saying that the multitude looked like a flower bed setting together in groups of hundreds and fifties on a backdrop of beautiful green grass. It must have been a sight to see. The pleasantness of the setting was conducive to that which was to follow. The Plan of Jesus was now beginning to unfold as the mass of people separated themselves into these various groups. There is also something else at play here. Jesus knew that by reducing the large crowd into much smaller units, there would be less chance of a mob reaction unfolding as the hungry people would begin to see the food being distributed to some and others having to wait. There was a miracle of the feeding: there was also a miracle of crowd control.
As the group began to sit, Jesus began His miracle. With all eyes on Him, He looked up to heaven and He blessed the food-He Prayed. Somewhere, from the time that Jesus blessed the food to the time of the people eating it, a miracle was occurring. The Greek states that in His breaking the bread, it occurred once while the giving of that bread was an ongoing venture; likewise the fish. I wonder what the people thought as they watched this first hand! He Prayed, He blessed, He broke and He kept giving out of His Hands to the disciples as they took what He gave, put it in baskets (verse 43) and then took the elements to the waiting people. What a miracle!
*** THE PROVISIONS: I cannot help but be amazed even over this later part of these verses as I see where Christ was in charge and provided Provisions to the multitude.
First of all, I see where the Peasantry, the people, received the blessings of this miracle. Far off in the luxurious palace of Herod, with all of his sumptuous meals, nothing was comparable to this feast. Here, the hungry ate with the King of kings and Lord of lords. Here, looking like a giant flower bed spread out in the open, the multitude dinned on food that had been blessed by the Master. The poor were indeed fed and blessed. Just as today, the Master blesses and feeds His Church, so did He feed the many that day. I note that there was no offering taken; everything was free. So is the salvation and the spiritual meals that Christ gives to His church today.
Next, I see where there was a Prodigiousness of the bread and the fishes. Everyone was fed and there was still much left over. Likewise, so are the blessings of the Lord in His Church today. There was more than enough to fill every appetite back then and still more was given. One cannot out give our Lord. Regardless of the spiritual hunger of the people today there is still an ample supply of His blessings in store for those who still want more. The supply of His blessings has never been exhausted since He arrived on the scene. Scores, millions, multitudes, down through the ages have sat at His table and been blessed over and over again and again, and still there are more blessing coming. Mankind can never exhaust His store of blessings.
This serves as a Prototype of what is in store for His Church in the future at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Someday, when this world is ended in a ball of flame; someday when we are called up to Heaven; someday over there in Glory Land, we will sit and be fed through out eternity. Then, we will have a miracle all the time as we sit and feed at the Master’s table where it will be all free, we will all have on our robes of righteousness and we will eat spiritual food and there will never be a limit to the amount we consume nor the restriction of time when we must cease and go our way.
This miracle of feeding the five thousand is just a preview of that which awaits we Christians.
