Feeding the 5,000
Jesus’ miracles are commonly understood to prove his divinity. And without a doubt many of the miracles that Jesus performed were signs intended to validate his identity and his mission. We can think, for example, of the first miracles recorded in Mark’s gospel. They were clearly designed to draw attention to the identity and mission of Jesus. One in particular – Jesus’ healing of the leper at the end of Mark chapter one – was intended by Jesus as a sign to the Temple authorities, for he told the cleansed leper to go to the Temple and to offer the sacrifice Moses commanded, as a testimony to the priests there.
But, other miracles Jesus performed had a much smaller audience. Sometimes, it would appear that the miracles were intended only for his inner circle of disciples. The Twelve. And this would appear to be the point of Mark’s record of the feeding of the 5,000.
Let’s first look at the challenge facing the disciples, a challenge that set the stage for the feeding of the 5,000.
Earlier in this fourth chapter of Mark’s gospel, he recorded that Jesus had sent out his disciples in pairs to preach the gospel. In verse 12 Mark wrote “12 So they went out and preached that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them.”
Now, when Jesus had done these very things in the first chapter of Mark, he had created quite a stir. He began to attract large crowds. Most of them were sick or friends and family of those who were sick, or demon possessed. Many others were hoping Jesus was the Messiah who was going to throw off the Roman yoke. And, so when Jesus disciples go out into the villages and hamlets of Judea, it is no big surprise that they too generate a lot of interest.
The gospel lesson for today begins at the moment they return from their preaching and teaching ministry.
30 Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.
I don’t know anyone who has ever waded into Christian ministry in any serious way that does not recognize this scene. It was abundantly displayed just a week ago here when at the Men at Worship conference. Many coming and going, particularly those who were making the conference proceed smoothly, and “they did not even have time to eat” points to the essence of the trial for those who serve as Jesus’ ministers. The Lord Himself is sympathetic to the stresses and strains, and he offers them a source of relief which he resorted to a number of times during his own ministry – to go off to a deserted place.
But, things don’t quite work out as Jesus and the disciples expected. “33 But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him.” Mark doesn’t tell us how the crowds knew where they were headed, but it Jesus and the disciples were landing where there was some kind of harbor, or landing for boats, then it wouldn’t have been rocket science to anticipate where they might be heading. And, if guess work were involved, it was a guess that proved accurate. For when the boat with Jesus and the disciples lands, and Jesus steps off the boat, he “saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.”
That phrase "like sheep without a shepherd" comes from the Old Testament. When Moses was dying he commissioned his protégé Joshua to lead Israel, and Numbers 27:17 says that he did this so the people of Israel wouldn’t be like sheep without a shepherd. In 1 Kings 22:17, an obscure prophet named Micaiah says, "I saw all Israel scatted on the hills like sheep without a shepherd." The prophet Ezekiel speaks of Israel being scattered "because there was no shepherd" (Ezek 34:4). In Jesus’ day, that’s what the crowd was looking for: A leader who could mobilize them to rid themselves of Roman tyranny. But Jesus sees the crowd as needy and aimless, without direction or guidance.
So, what does Jesus do? He does two things: he teaches them. “So He began to teach them many things,” Mark writes. And, then it was getting late, and his disciples remind Jesus of an uncomfortable fact. “This is a deserted place,” they remind him. And, now a new problem arises – there is no provision for them to eat. And, so Jesus performs the miracle, taking five loaves and two fish and multiplying them until everyone has eaten. And there is an abundance of leftovers after everyone has had their fill.
Now, here’s an interesting thing. This is the one miracle of Jesus that is recorded in every gospel. There is no question that it is a miracle. That eyewash you’ve heard about a boy sharing his lunch and shaming everyone into sharing theirs is just that – eyewash.
Here’s another interesting thing: Mark does not call this a miracle or a sign. The Apostle John does. But, in Mark’s account this particular assessment is not made. There are, possibly, two reasons for this. First of all, at the time Jesus is performing the miracle, I’m not sure that anyone could actually see it taking place. As fast as Jesus breaks up the bread and fish he gives it to his disciples and sends them out into a crowd of 5,000 men. There are even more there, for the gospel accounts tell us that there were women and children IN ADDITION to the 5,000 men.
Within 12 hours Mark records that the disciples see another miracle – Jesus walking on the water – and Mark makes this note: And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled. 52 For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened. And, the very next encounter that Jesus has with this very same crowd, the very next day, he says to them – “you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” (John 6:26).
So, what is the point of this miracle from the perspective Mark is providing? I suggest that this is a miracle primarily for Jesus’ disciples, to teach them how they are to go forward in their service to him in the future. They have already been sent out, they have returned, and everything in Mark’s account seems aimed at address the challenge to Jesus’ disciples that arises from their ministry – a lot of attention from a lot of people who need a lot of things, things which the disciples do not have.
Jesus solution at that time is, I think, the very same one he would offer today. “Oh yeah?” Where is bread being multiplied as it was in for that multitude?
I would answer with the following considerations:
First of all, the miracle Jesus performed here is probably the most common miracles Jesus routinely performs today: to take resources available to his disciples and to multiply them – in ways that his own disciples do not understand and mostly never observe – so that what they need at that moment is available to them after all. The pattern is this: Jesus’ disciples face a need, what resources they have are not adequate, it appears to the disciples that they’re in a ministerial cul-de-sac with no way out, and then Jesus multiplies what they have until there is an abundance left over after the need is met.
Note that we, as Jesus’ disciples, most often want things to work this way: we acquire an abundance of resources – far beyond what we need to do the ministry – and in the strength of that abundance, we go out and minister. This is EXACTLY NOT what the Apostles faced here. In fact, that seems to be the point of the previous preaching mission Jesus had sent them on. At that time, he told them, “He commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bag, no bread, no copper in your money belts— 9 but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics.” He sent them out with next to nothing; but they made it just fine and had a lot to report when they returned. The feeding of the 5,000 is simply the same song, sung very loudly by Jesus, but no different than what he had asked his own disciples to do just a week before.
Let me say it again: the most common miracle that Jesus performs is this one: to take what his disciples have, particularly when what they have is NOT enough to accomplish the ministry they seek to do, and to multiply those resources until they not only do the ministry they seek to do, but have an abundance on the backside. If you want to seet his miracle, then go forward with what you have, not with what you wish you had.
Secondly, I would point to another perspective on Jesus’ miracle here: the feeding that Jesus did was intended by him to point to a more miraculous feeding. This miracle was the setup to Jesus teaching on the Bread of Life, the Bread come down from Heaven, a discourse he delivered the next day to this very same crowd. “You ate the loaves and were filled,” he told this very same crowd of people. And, then he gave that discourse that drove them all away, when he was telling them that HE was the bread which men should eat.
Did you notice what Jesus did for these people: he taught them and he fed them. That, my friends, is what Jesus is doing here today, at this very hour: he is teaching us through his Word, and he is feeding us as he taught that crowd of people who ate earthly bread. Except it is not earthly bread but heavenly bread which we eat. “This is my body which is given for you. “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” He teaches and he feeds. And his Apostles did the same. And their descendants did the same, and Christians for generation after generation have received the same from his hand.
If a miracle is the direct operation of God in our ordinary lives, we observe one every Sunday, when God’s spirit ministers God’s word to us by our reading it, singing it, and hearing it preached. We receive the bread of heaven that Jesus promised, that Jesus taught us to eat, in the Holy Eucharist. He is with us in that sacrament every bit as much as he was with those disciples on the Emmaus Road. That is how and why his promise is kept – that He would be with us until the end of the age, when he shall return to the earth – not as bread and wine of the Eucharist, but as the conquering King of Kings, to judge the living and the dead.
May the Spirit of Jesus who indwells each of us give us grace to see our Lord’s hand of blessing, his miracles of multiplying our paltry assets, until his work is accomplished. Most of those present at the feeding of the 5,000 didn’t understand what was happening. Even Jesus disciples who saw it close up were confused and blind to what Jesus was doing. God grant that we should have eyes that see. And, may we also receive this day to our eternal benefit the bread of heaven that came down from heaven, that we may dwell in Him and He in us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
