My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
for they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
I do not want to send them away hungry,
for fear they may collapse on the way.
We might think that after three days of healing Jesus would have insisted on some time for himself. But instead his heart was moved with pity for the crowd who had received his teachings and his healing miracles. He had given himself to them and now they were gathered around him glorifying the God of Israel. He was himself becoming the focal point of a people united in right praise. He was a shepherd and in the crowd were many lost sheep that had been found at last. He could not bring himself to send them away hungry especially because he didn't want them to lose this new center they found in him, because the opportunity to gather them again was not a given. It had always been God's heart as a shepherd to give his people repose in green pastures rather than send them away to fend for themselves.
The disciples said to him,
"Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place
to satisfy such a crowd?
Compared to the needs of the crowd the deserted place itself could never yield enough to satisfy. Even to sate the purely natural physical hunger of the crowd was going to take supernatural and miraculous means. Yet Jesus did not eschew the merely physical and insist that the crowd somehow sustain themselves on spiritual sentiment. Rather he miraculously intervened to sate their natural hunger, but precisely in such a way as to call their attention to higher spiritual truths.
On this mountain the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
A feast of rich food and choice wines,
juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
God had promised to provide a feast on his holy mountain. Jesus, on a mountain, set a feast for his followers. It was an invitation for them to see that in Jesus the ancient promises were being fulfilled. That invitation looked forward to a still greater fulfillment in the Eucharist, the true heavenly bread. And even our Eucharistic celebration looks forward to a final consummation in the marriage feast of the lamb in heaven. It in some sense already participates in that celebration, though in a hidden way. But in the end the veil will be completely removed, when death is destroyed, and God himself wipes away the tears from all faces.
We often see apparent conflict between asking God to meet our natural needs and those that are more spiritual. But as long as Jesus is the center point of our lives there are ways in which he does desire to help us with both. If we are seeking first the Kingdom, it may lead to a cross, but Jesus will make certain we don't collapse along the way. And the provisions with which he sustains us will point beyond those crosses to the abundant excesses of blessings that await us.
They all ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.
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