(Audio)
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
He was planning some personal time for recovery from the physical and emotional demands of ministry. Many of us tend to become aggressive when our downtime is threatened. But not Jesus. He recognized the desperation that drove them to pursue him even in that deserted place. As with other times, his heart was moved with pity for them. In an earlier encounter he had described the crowds as sheep without a shepherd. Now that they had found in Jesus a truly Good Shepherd they were unwilling to let him slip away. And Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, was absolutely unwilling that they should need to do so. He always responded to the needs of his sheep, even when he might have preferred to do otherwise on a personal level. He was thus the opposite of most the leaders known in the history of Israel, who were meant to be shepherds, but mostly sought to feed themselves rather than the sheep. Thus Jesus fulfilled a promise of God made through Ezekiel.
Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them (see Ezekiel 34:10).
The sheep were in need, so he cured their sick. When it grew late and they grew hungry he refused to send away those who had made such an effort to be near him. This surprised his disciples, who assumed that there was no other option but to send them away. After all, they neither had enough for the crowds nor the means to acquire it. The disciples demonstrated normal human limitations. On their own they could not create the conditions in which the sheep could remain with the shepherd. They were not self-serving in the way that the previous corrupt leaders of Israel had been. But they believed had to content themselves to do the least harm in conditions where they could not themselves tend the sheep. As such, the sought to acquit themselves of responsibility for something that seemed beyond their power, nevermind the fact that it would force the sheep to a world that had taken advantage of them and could not satisfy their deepest needs. But from the perspective of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, his disciples needed to understand what to do with sheep who needed more than they had to give. He needed his disciples to understand this because, spiritually speaking, it would always be the case. They never possessed that for which the crowds spiritually hungered. Which is not to say they had nothing to contribute, or even that such a pittance as they did have to give was not required in the plan of Jesus.
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
He was planning some personal time for recovery from the physical and emotional demands of ministry. Many of us tend to become aggressive when our downtime is threatened. But not Jesus. He recognized the desperation that drove them to pursue him even in that deserted place. As with other times, his heart was moved with pity for them. In an earlier encounter he had described the crowds as sheep without a shepherd. Now that they had found in Jesus a truly Good Shepherd they were unwilling to let him slip away. And Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, was absolutely unwilling that they should need to do so. He always responded to the needs of his sheep, even when he might have preferred to do otherwise on a personal level. He was thus the opposite of most the leaders known in the history of Israel, who were meant to be shepherds, but mostly sought to feed themselves rather than the sheep. Thus Jesus fulfilled a promise of God made through Ezekiel.
Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them (see Ezekiel 34:10).
The sheep were in need, so he cured their sick. When it grew late and they grew hungry he refused to send away those who had made such an effort to be near him. This surprised his disciples, who assumed that there was no other option but to send them away. After all, they neither had enough for the crowds nor the means to acquire it. The disciples demonstrated normal human limitations. On their own they could not create the conditions in which the sheep could remain with the shepherd. They were not self-serving in the way that the previous corrupt leaders of Israel had been. But they believed had to content themselves to do the least harm in conditions where they could not themselves tend the sheep. As such, the sought to acquit themselves of responsibility for something that seemed beyond their power, nevermind the fact that it would force the sheep to a world that had taken advantage of them and could not satisfy their deepest needs. But from the perspective of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, his disciples needed to understand what to do with sheep who needed more than they had to give. He needed his disciples to understand this because, spiritually speaking, it would always be the case. They never possessed that for which the crowds spiritually hungered. Which is not to say they had nothing to contribute, or even that such a pittance as they did have to give was not required in the plan of Jesus.
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Could Jesus have started from zero and still fed the crowds? Absolutely. But instead he chose to involve the boy who had these scant resources and the disciples who found him. He could have multiplied the food and then distributed it himself. But he clearly preferred to involve the gifts, talents, and treasures which he himself had sown in the natural order of creation. They were not enough on their own. But when people learned to bring what they did have to Jesus, however insufficient it might have seemed, they would discover an abundance to meet any task to which he called them.
One problem of the Church is that even when we manage to identify the loaves and fishes we tend to try to make up for their insufficiency through strategy. Perhaps we attempt to make the portions sufficiently small that everyone can have some microscopic amount. But trying to make do with the merely human is always going to end in situations where it can't be said of the crowds that they "all ate and were satisfied".
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
As much as the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves provided a model for his disciples to follow in their later ministry it said still more about the heart of Jesus himself. His ultimate concern was not so much the hunger of the crowds but rather that they not need to depart from his presence. Thus the miracle pointed toward the greater miracle yet to come in which he would multiply his own precious Body and Blood in order to give the world, not merely as nourishment, but as his very abiding presence within them. People who ate the manna in the desert at the time of Moses still died. And people who ate the bread Jesus multiplied in that deserted place would still die. But people who fed upon the bread of life, Jesus himself, would live forever (see John 6:41-51). In a small way, even the multiplication of the loaves of physical bread was the result of a sacrificial self-gift on the part of Jesus. But the bread of the Eucharist was given precisely through the gift of his flesh for the life of the world. It is to those thus joined to Christ that the words of Paul to the Romans apply.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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