Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
30The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."
32So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. "This is a remote place," they said, "and it's already very late. 36Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat."
37But he answered, "You give them something to eat."
They said to him, "That would take eight months of a man's wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"
38"How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see."
When they found out, they said, "Five—and two fish."
39Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42They all ate and were satisfied, 43and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
BACKGROUND READING:
Numbers 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17; Ezekiel 34:5; Zechariah 10:2
Matthew 14:13-21
Luke 9:10-17
Dig Deeper
To really appreciate this passage we must compare it to the previous account. It is no mistake that Mark has placed these accounts side-by-side, even though at first glance they don’t appear to be related at all. So how are these two passages related?
Mark has just finished with the fine mess of Herod’s court. He has taken his brother’s wife for his own. There are tales of having the girl who was his step-daughter and niece dancing seductively for him and his guests. He has a popular prophet beheaded. And this is the man who would claim to be the true King of the Jews? Is this the kind of Godly leadership that the people of God have been waiting for to institute God’s great restoration project?
Now contrast that mess with what we read in this passage. Jesus has been pressed by crowds to the point of exhaustion. They make an attempt to get away and get a brief moment of rest, but the when they arrive they find that the crowds have beaten them to the punch. Rather than finding another spot or sending the crowds away, Jesus has compassion on them? Why? Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. This was a common biblical way of describing the people of Israel when they had no leader, no true king (see background reading for references). While everything Herod Antipas did was about himself, his own pleasure and his own agenda. Mark draws a clear distinction here. Everything Jesus did was about the crowds. They needed a king, a leader. The rest of the story stresses the fact that Jesus was the true leader of the crowds but in a very different way than anyone would have expected. He met their needs because he was their leader. Herod wanted to be leader so the crowds could meet his needs.
Mark draws our attention to a few other details (we always have to ask why little details are included; there are no mistaken details in the Bible). He tells us that the grass is green. In Galilee, this means the story is set in the springtime, which would make it right around Passover. Mark would have been acutely aware of this, and the words he uses are clearly chosen to draw connections to what the early church did in ‘breaking bread’, the new Passover meal: he took it, blessed it, broke it, and gave it.
Many would suppose this account to have been a fabrication of the early church, yet that criticism doesn’t really hold water. The early church would not have made up such a fantastic story within the lifetime of many who were there if it did not happen. It could have been easily refuted as fantasy if it were not true.
But what was the point of this particular miracle? Why was Jesus doing this? This wasn’t just a bit of magic meant to wow the crowds and pull them in to hear the real message. This was a sign of the new creation. The powerful force of God was breaking into the world in a new way, with new revelation, and this was another miracle pointing to that reality. We should make the connection between Jesus’ compassion for the crowds and his miracle with the bread and fish. God’s kingdom is not simply about impressive power, it includes overflowing, compassionate love. The two must go together in the kingdom of God.
I have personally known people who have struggled with one point of this story. If Jesus could feed five thousand men (and probably a similar number of women and even more children) why didn’t he feed all of the hungry people of his day? Why doesn’t he feed all of the starving children around the world today? Surely he has the power to do that? This is a good question, but it demonstrates a misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus’ miracles. They were not at all about mighty supernatural acts meant to demonstrate how powerful Jesus was. They were not about showing that he, if he so chose, could solve all of the world’s problems with a wave of his hand. They weren’t that sort of thing at all. They were signs pointing to the fact that the kingdom of God was breaking into the present age. This breaking in was a complex event that would culminate in Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. From there, the power of the new creation would go into all the earth, but still has to face the resistant forces of evil.
Feeding the hungry, helping the poor, and rescuing the oppressed are all signs that point to the kingdom and the age to come. They cannot be the point of what we are to do, they are merely the signs. If they become the point, then we lose what the kingdom of God is really about in the first place.
Devotional Thought
What efforts have you made lately to demonstrate that the kingdom of God has broken into the present age? What can you do for other people in this present age that would point to the power of the age to come?
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