A GREAT MULTITUDE FED.
Matthew 14:13-21.
MATTHEW 14:13. Jesus had tried to withdraw from the throng in Galilee by boat, and sought some rest and relaxation in the Golan Heights: but the crowds followed Him on foot.
MATTHEW 14:14. Jesus was moved with compassion towards the multitude which followed Him, and healed their sick. They were, after all, like sheep without a shepherd!
MATTHEW 14:15. As the day wore on, “in the evening,” when the day was now far spent, the disciples made the reasonable suggestion that Jesus should dismiss the crowd so they could go and buy something to eat.
MATTHEW 14:16. “They need not depart,” countered Jesus. In effect, ‘You give them something to eat!’ Sometimes Jesus makes us face up to the magnitude of our problems in order to demonstrate our total dependence upon Him. It is a comfort to know that He already knows what He is going to do.
MATTHEW 14:17. His disciples “had here but five loaves and two fishes” to feed this great multitude of people. Our gifts and offerings seem so small, a drop in the ocean: but as Mother Theresa of Calcutta once said, each drop goes toward filling the ocean.
MATTHEW 14:18. Jesus pointed them towards what they had, rather than what they had not: “Bring them hither to me,” He said.
MATTHEW 14:19. Just this one time in the year the grass is green, and no doubt lambs skipped in the fields as the Good Shepherd arranged His own flock in an orderly manner for the distribution. Jesus takes our little, “and looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake,” and transformed it into plenty. Jesus delegated the distribution to the disciples, and they gave to the people.
MATTHEW 14:20. They were all fed to the full by Jesus, and there was still a sufficiency in reserve when they had finished. There were twelve baskets full of leftover fragments, the same number as the tribes of Israel, symbolising God’s sufficient provision for all of His people.
MATTHEW 14:21. Jesus’ compassion reached out indiscriminately to the whole crowd, 5000 men plus women and children; and He fed them with but five loaves and two fishes. ‘His compassions (they) fail not’ (cf. Lamentations 3:22).
