“More than a Miracle”
A Reflection on Jesus’ Feeding of the 5000
Matthew 14:13-22
Introduction:
The story is told of the late Pope John Paul II... Who was due to visit a local hospital on one of his international trips, but was running a little late – of course everyone had been waiting in anticipation of his arrival, so when they saw the clock ticking by and he still didn’t arrive they began to lose heart a little. One of the doctors on duty decided to take a break and plonked down into a nearby wheel-chair... By the time Pope John Paul arrived most of those present were caught unawares (and he was a little embarrassed himself, it must be said). The Pope walked in and immediately blessed the Dr by making the sign of the Cross; and at that the doctor sprang up out of the wheel-chair and suddenly the whole entourage started applauding... It’s a miracle! It’s a miracle!
According to a survey done by Princeton University’s Religion Research Centre, 82% of all adults either agree fully or mostly with the following statement: “Even today, miracles are performed by the Power of God.”... Strange, that in world apparently seduced by rationality and science and all things National Geographic, we still have 82% of all adults that believe in the miraculous – Personally, I think that bears testimony to humanity’s desperate need for faith and God’s undeniable presence in the world, but be that as it may.
Miracles are funny things, aren’t they? We all have different opinions regarding the so-called miraculous – whether it be that such events are acts of God and should be accepted and believed at surface level, or that they should rather be investigated with a touch of scepticism in order to discern the truth of it, or that such events should simply be branded accidents of nature that would have perfectly reasonable explanations if we understood them rightly. Whatever our opinion of the miraculous might be, there can be no doubt that such events, and stories of such events, tend to evoke all manner of responses from us.
Now, especially as far as the various accounts of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels are concerned, we must all come to terms with our response to these stories...
[Might I add as an aside at this point that I am thoroughly convinced that our response to miracles depends very heavily on our perspective regarding God’s involvement in everyday life; I heard of an alcoholic who became a believer and was asked by a sceptic how he could possibly believe all the nonsense in the Bible about miracles. “You don't believe that Jesus changed water into wine do you?” “I sure do,” he replied “because in our house Jesus changed the whiskey into furniture.” This man’s response to the miracles we read of in Scripture was formed by his perspective on what God had done in his life, it is the same with all of us... but that’s perhaps a matter for a different sermon...]
In our text for this morning we read of that well known event of Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 – a story repeated in all four gospels, and one that each of us here have heard a million times, I’m sure. Either in Sunday school classes, or at Bible study, or perhaps even from the pulpit. And, no doubt, on all these occasions different aspects of this story would have been highlighted and different contours of the story would have been explored in order to come to a fresh understanding of it.
By the way, people often wonder how an ancient book can speak to us today, but this is precisely the beauty of Scripture, that there are different layers, different contours to each story that we can explore in order to understand it more fully. And it’s only when we hold these different contours in perspective that we are able to see a fuller picture of what the author and the text is trying to portray.
So today we are going to do just that... We are going to reflect on this passage by looking at three different contours of this story, in order to see a fuller image of what Matthew was trying to communicate: firstly, we’ll consider the ‘behind-the-scenes’ contour by exploring what the text has to say about Jesus as the One who wrought this miracle, the One who stood behind it all, as it were; then, we’ll consider one of the “surface-level” contours by taking a closer look at the role of the disciples in this miracle (and, by implication, our own roles in the work that Jesus continues to do); and then, finally, we will consider a slightly “deeper” contour of this story by reflecting on the hunger of the crowd and what that might actually illustrate for us?
Now we’ve spent some time already pointing out that all of us respond differently to stories of the miraculous, whether it be an account of Jesus’ miracles, or hearing about some modern day supernatural event. But that beings said we must also realize that our text for today is about more than a miracle (In fact, so much so that I’ve even entitled my sermon, “More than a Miracle”).
You might ask; how I can say this when the story is so clearly centred on a very deliberate miracle? Well, I’d like to draw your attention to a very interesting literary feature that Matthew employs... Throughout the Gospels, whenever Jesus performs a miracle, there is a very real response from those who witnessed it; either wonder, or gratitude, or praise, or even anger and in some cases fear – as we see in the disciples in the very next section of Matthew 14 when Jesus walks on the water... But note what happens in this text, Jesus uses only two fish and fives loaves of bread to feed 5000 people (excluding the women and children, which would have probably meant that there were actually more than 9000 people!) and then once everyone was satisfied and fed... nothing. No response at all, the disciples are told to go ahead in the boat and the crowds are simply dismissed. Now why would Matthew not mention any sort of response after this miracle, when he does so on every other occasion? Was this miracle not impressive enough? No, certainly not, it may well be that he does so because this particular miracle is about more than just the miracle – and we will come to see more of this as we explore the different contours of our text.
Message:
1. The One who wrought this miracle...
The most natural, and in fact only right, place to begin an exploration of any passage from the gospels is to ask what that text tells us about Jesus. It was the late Professor Thomas Torrance (a Presbyterian Minister, by the way) who said that the Gospels are forever pressing us to ask one question: “Who?” Who does this passage say that Jesus is? What sort of person do we encounter Jesus to be in this text or that?
We may learn a million things from each new reading of the gospels, but if we do not first of all learn something about Jesus then we have completely missed the point. So let us then follow Prof Torrance’s advice and ask the question first of all, and plainly; “What does this text tell us about Jesus?”
Well, I believe it sketches a beautiful image of Jesus as the One who has unlimited patience with overbearing people, incredible insight into our most desperate needs and an ability to look beyond himself and his own situation and to reach out to us in true compassion – in this miracle we see the One who knows that only he can truly satisfy our deepest need. And would not hesitate a moment to do so – even at a tremendous cost to himself. This is the Jesus we see in this text.
Imagine having just heard that your cousin and close friend – who spent his entire life working tirelessly for your cause – has been cruelly murdered by a local ruler. You’re completely powerless in this situation and, as much as you would like to storm in there and bring about justice, you know that there is nothing you can do about it. You’re absolutely devastated by the news and all you want to do is find a quiet place to mourn and gather your thoughts, perhaps even pray silently to God and ask him all those question that threaten to burst forth from the depths of our souls whenever a desperate crisis arises... What would you do if in that instance you suddenly find an insufferable group of people who never leave you alone but only want more and more of your attention, they’re so drawn by you that they hardly spare a thought for you and seem to think that you owe them all your time and energy. And now, in the midst of your most difficult personal struggle, they barge into your quiet place and expect a pleasant meeting... What would you do? Would you tell them to go away you just want have a quiet moment to yourself? Would you launch into a verbal assault on them for their selfish, inconsiderate demands? Would you turn your back on them and ignore them, hoping that they will just leave you alone?
This was Jesus; struggling to deal with the news of his cousin, John the Baptist’s, cruel death (which he learnt of just moments before); retreating to a quiet desolate place to be by himself to pray; when he gets there he finds a crowd ready to greet him and imploring him to teach them some more – to give him a little more of his time and energy. And what does he do? The text tells us in verse 14: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them...”
Now I think that we all too often overlook this word “compassion” because we tend to confuse it with notions of sympathy or empathy or even a shared concern; but if we truly understood the depth of meaning contained in this word and the reality that it expressed about Jesus’ attitude to the crowd, it would strike a deep cord with each one of us.
The Greek word used originally in this text is, “Splanchnizomai” and means, literally, to be moved to one’s inward parts. In other words to be so touched by the plight of someone that it stirs something deep within us, something almost gut-wrenching that leaves us aching in our inmost being. Our English word compassion is derived from the Latin words “cum”, meaning together with, and “patio”, meaning to suffer. So even in the English language the word compassion means something far deeper and more real than mere sympathy or understanding; it means “to suffer with someone, by virtue of a shared experience”.
Now these semantic facts might prove helpful to some, but perhaps the concept of compassion is best understood by anecdotal illustration... There was once a man who put up a sign in his yard that read: “Puppies for Sale.” Among those who came to ask about the puppies was a young boy. “Please, Sir,” he said, “I'd like to buy one of your puppies if they don't cost too much.” “Well, son, they're R100 each.” The boy looked devastated. “I've only got twenty rand and a few cents, sir.” He hesitated for a while and then asked, “Could I see them anyway?” “Of course,” said the man, “maybe we can work something out.” The lad's eyes danced with joy at the sight of those little balls of fur. “I heard that one of them has a bad leg,” he said. “Yes,” answered the man, “she was the runt of the litter and I'm afraid she'll be crippled for life.” “Well, that's the puppy I want sir. Is it ok if I pay for her a little at a time?” Now the man was willing to let the boy pay in time, but he hesitated to sell him the cripple puppy, “She'll always have a limp son” he warned “she won’t be able to run and play with you. Why don’t you rather choose another puppy and you can pay me the same way?” Then, smiling bravely at the man, the boy pulled up one leg of his trousers, revealing a brace, for he had been born slightly disabled himself, and said: “See sir, I don't walk too well either. I guess she'll need a lot of love and help. It's not easy being crippled. I know, and I think I would like to help her...”
Of course the man simply just gave the puppy to the boy for free, because he knew that here was a young boy who would care for her because he understood and felt her pain – this boy had compassion on that puppy.
See friends, when Jesus looked out over the crowd and saw the plights on all their faces he didn’t simply feel sorry for them; he was moved to his inmost being – it was as though he could feel and taste their own suffering because he was experiencing it with them. This is the compassion that Jesus had for the crowd, this is the compassionate Jesus that we see in this text, and this is the same compassion that Jesus has for each one of us – regardless of who we are or where we come from or how desperate our plight might be.
The Jesus we see in the contour behind this text, the one whom we come to see when we ask the question that Prof Torrance urges us to ask; “Whom is this Jesus that we see here?” This is the compassionate One that knows our most desperate need because he feels it himself.
2. The role of the Disciples...
The second contour of this text that we will consider is a more ‘surface-level’ one and deals with the role that the disciples played in this text...
It is interesting to note that it was the disciples who came to Jesus and urged him to send the crowd home before it was too late for them to buy or make some food for the evening. Now at first glance it may appear that the disciples were simply being considerate, trying to look out for these poor and desperate people... but consider their own situation;
They themselves would have been fairly hungry and tired by now, and they only had five loaves of bread and two fish, which was hardly enough to feed 13 grown men let alone a crowd of at least 5000! Suddenly a potentially different motivation for the disciples’ concern becomes possible... maybe they weren’t primarily concerned about the crowd, but rather about themselves – they were hungry and didn’t think they had enough all so came to Jesus and asked him to send them home so they could eat what little food they had in quiet. (Do you see, already, the difference between the disciples’ response to this overbearing crowd and Jesus’ response to them?)
So the disciples come to Jesus with their slightly self-interested, albeit cloaked in apparent concern for the multitudes, request and Jesus responds by saying to them in verse 16: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
What?! The disciples are startled, and naturally so (let’s not be too hasty to condemn them for their self-interest, I suspect that I would have had the same concerns, and maybe you would have too) – how do you feed 5000 people with the little food they had? It’s almost absurd and surely they must be thinking that Jesus is being a little ridiculous here... But no, Jesus remains insistent even after the disciples’ very valid comments that they didn’t have enough by saying to them in verse 18 that whatever they had they simply had to bring to him and, presumably, it would be enough.
So, perhaps thinking to themselves that this is silly and it will never work, the disciples do as they are told... they bring the little food they had to Jesus, walk amongst the crowd and tell them to take a seat. Then something even more dramatic happens – Jesus call the disciples over to him and gives the food to them to take to the people.
In verse 19 we are told that Jesus looked up to heaven, gave thanks and broke the loaves. “Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.” And we must not glance too quickly at this verse, wanting to skip ahead to the part that says everyone was satisfied and well-fed; no, here in these few words we find a remarkable dynamic at play and one that we would do well to take note of... Jesus does the miracle, but it is the responsibility of the disciples to share, deliver and administer that miracle. They were the ones handing out the bread, they may not have been the ones behind the multiplying thereof, but they were the ones that brought it to the people – this was the role they played, and it is a role that still needs to be played by each one of us as Jesus’ faithful disciples in the world today... he will do the multiplying, but we have to do the sharing, delivering and administering.
But this is an almost frightening responsibility, isn’t it? I mean, first of all, when we look at our lives most of us would hard pressed to find anything worth multiplying, let alone five loaves and two fish. We might feel that we don’t have enough to offer, or that we’re not worthy to be participating in Jesus’ ministry... well the disciples were no different, they too felt they didn’t have enough to offer, they too felt incapable of doing what the Lord expected, but when they stepped out in obedience and (perhaps even begrudgingly) did as the Lord commanded, the miracle that took place was nothing short of staggering.
It could and should be the same with us, if we would let God use the little that we have and be willing to share that with others the miracles in our lives too could be staggering. And this is a wonderful thought, that God would use us in such ways.
It was the famous Christian writer, C.S. Lewis once wrote; “God seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye.”
This compassionate One whom we came to meet in the first contour of our text is the same one who wants to works through you and I, as we see in this second contour – and that is a marvellous thought and awesome responsibility.
3. The Bread of Life...
But there remains one more contour for us to explore, a deeper contour that will hopefully reveal to us more about what the hunger of the crowd should serve to illustrate. And I must warn you that it’s at this point that our exploration takes on a slightly more speculative and perhaps more creative tone.
I want to remind you of the fact that Matthew records no response to this miracle, and in the beginning we said that he does this because this miracle is about more than the miracle itself. What we meant by this was that this miracle was about Jesus, the One who stood behind it all, and not about the people or their hunger or the bread they ate.
We should pay careful attention to this strange final verse in our reading, this apparent non-response to the miracle that was just performed. In verse 22 we read, “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.” Now in preparations during the week this verse struck me as odd, not only because it fails to record a response, but also because Jesus is said to have “dismissed the crowd”... what was this dismissal? Was it a simple wave goodbye? Was it a prayer for their safe travel home? Or was it a final word that was meant to teach the crowd the meaning of this miracle and draw their minds to a higher interpretation of it?
I think it may well be the latter. And I think what Jesus may have been teaching the crowd in this dismissal could have been something along the lines of; “You were hungry today, and naturally so, because it was a long and hard day. But your hunger should serve to remind you of a more desperate need you have – that being for true life. Not the sort of life that needs to be sustained by the regular consumption food, but the sort of life that will never leave you hungry. Life in me, life eternal that only I can give you.”
Now before you brand me presumptuous, at best, and heretical, at worst, for inserting these words into the mouth of Jesus when, according to Matthew, he said no such thing. Let me remind you also that in the beginning we said that this same miracle is recorded for us in each of the four gospels – it is in John’s Gospel, chapter six that we hear Jesus speaking very similar words to what I’ve just imagined he might have. In verse 26 & 27 of John 6, shortly after performing this miracle and being searched out by certain people in the crowd, Jesus says the following words: “I tell you the truth; you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which [I] will give you...”
Could it be that Matthew’s dismissal is the speech given in John? Perhaps, it is likely... and if it is then we would do well to heed these words and realize that at a deeper level this miracle is not so much about satisfying a crowd’s temporal hunger as it is about revealing the true hunger that gnaws away at each one of us on a more permanent scale – the hunger for life, full, true and eternal life and that, dear friends, is a life that only Jesus, the Compassionate one that stands behind this miracle can give, and what a wonderful life it is that we will find in Christ if we would only let him satisfy our true hunger for it.
Have you ever imagined such life? W. B. Hinson, a great preacher of a previous generation reflected on the fullness and wonder of life in God, when he spoke from his own experience shortly before his death. He said, “I remember a year ago when a doctor told me, ‘You have an illness from which you won't recover.’ I walked out to where I live 5 miles from Portland, Oregon, and I looked across at the mountain that I love. I looked at the river in which I rejoice, and I looked at the stately trees that are always God’s own poetry to my soul. Then in the evening I looked up into the great sky where God was lighting His lamps, and I said, ‘I may not see you many more times, but Mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone; and River, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea; and Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your [places in the heavens]!’” For this is the life we find in Jesus, a life that outstrips any earthly hunger and satisfaction.
Conclusion:
Dear friends, in conclusion, may I leave you with a short thought... Behind every true miracle stands Jesus, who looks upon us with compassion, who longs to use us in doing miracles for others and urges us to see in our daily and earthly hunger the true hunger that burns forever in our souls – the hunger for life, which only he, the Bread of Life, can satisfy. AMEN
