The Loaves and the Fishes

“And when it was evening His disciples came to Him saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.  But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.”  Matthew 14:15-16

Jesus had just heard about the beheading of John the Baptist by Herod, the ruler over Galilee, because John had called Herod into account for his adultery.  Therefore, because Herod was in a very hostile mood, Jesus decided to remove Himself from Herod’s jurisdiction, not that He was afraid of Herod, but rather that His sacrificial death would be in accordance with His Father’s timetable.  He and His disciples sailed across the Sea of Galilee to find a place where they could rest.  Jesus, being God, but also being human, became weary at all the traveling, speaking, miracles, and harassment by the religious leaders.  Everyone needs a break, now and then.  However, word always traveled fast concerning this Miracle Worker, and thus crowds were already gathering on the other shore by the time Jesus and His disciples arrived.

When Jesus saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion toward them and began to heal those who were ill.  His was a true compassion which expresses itself in a genuine way to render aid to the one who suffers.  Pity says something like, “Oh, you poor thing, but you know you brought this upon yourself.”  Sympathy says, “I am so sorry for your loss.  I can’t imagine what you are going through.  I will pray for you.”  However, compassion says, “I am deeply moved by your situation.  What can I do to help you?”  True compassion attempts to put oneself in the place of the one who is troubled so that he or she can understand, as much as possible, the depths of another’s suffering.  True compassion doesn’t offer help and then walk away forgetting his or her promise.  I am reminded of what James wrote in James 1:23-24:  “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”  True compassion follows through.

Before long everyone became hungry.  The disciples wanted Jesus to send the people away to the local villages to buy themselves something to eat.  But Jesus said to the twelve, “You feed them.”  The disciples must have been stunned at the possibility of feeding such a large crowd of people.  John 6:5 states that Jesus asked Phillip where they could go to buy bread for the folks.  Jesus already knew what He was going to do to feed these people, but He was giving Phillip an opportunity to exercise his faith in Jesus.  Phillip told Jesus that they had some money but not nearly enough to buy a sufficient amount of food for so many people.

Andrew, Peter’s brother, spoke up and told Jesus that there was a small boy there who had brought his own lunch, five barley loaves and two fishes.  I suspect that these loaves were not like the loaves of bread that we buy at the grocery store, but were much smaller, maybe more like biscuits.  Jesus told His disciples to have everyone sit down on the grass.  Jesus took the little boy’s lunch, gave thanks to the Father, and then gave the food to the disciples.  The food began to multiply as the disciples handed it out to each family something like the oil of the poor widow, in the time of the prophet Elisha, which began to flow like water in order for her to sell the oil and pay her creditors (II Kings 4:1-7).  Everyone had plenty to eat, and when they were finished, the leftovers that were gathered filled twelve baskets.  There were 5,000 men that were fed that day along with their wives and children, likely close to 20,000 people in all.

The disciples had already witnessed miracle after miracle for probably two years or more.  They had seen the blind restored to sight, had seen demons cast out of tormented people who were restored to a right mind, and multitudes healed of diseases and afflictions.  However, before we criticize the disciples for their lack of faith, we must examine our own doubts.  We did not personally witness any of these miracles that Jesus did as recorded in the New Testament.  However, we have seen God’s wonder-working power in our own lives, maybe not as dramatic as a miraculous healing from disease or as the raising of one who had died, but there have been situations resolved in our lives that we can only attribute to the mighty hand of God.  We also have the eye-witness accounts of all that Jesus said and did, a true testimony as verified by the Apostle John in John 21:24-25.  By this time, one would wonder why the disciples, instead of fretting and worrying about how all of these folks were going to be fed, just didn’t step back and say, “Let’s watch what Jesus is about to do.”  Why don’t we do that as well?  Why do we struggle so worrying about everything when Jesus already knows what He is going to do to solve our dilemma?  He has the situation well under control.  It is interesting to note that the disciples started out that day with mostly nothing and each ended up with a basket full of loaves and fishes to sustain them for a while.  Surely the miracle of this day made a deep and lasting impression upon Jesus’ disciples.