I take two lessons, and two only, out of it. I see in it, first, a
revelation of Christ, as continually through all the ages sustaining
men's physical life. And I see in it, second, a symbol of Christ as
Himself the Bread of Life.
As to the first, there is here, I believe, a revelation of the law of
the universe, of Christ as being through all the ages the Sustainer of
the physical life of men. What was done then once, with the suppression
of certain links in the chain, is done always, with the introduction of
those links. The miraculous moment in the narrative is not described to
us. We do not know where or when there came in the supernatural power
which multiplied the loaves—probably as they passed from the hand of
the Master. But be that as it may, it was Christ's will that made the
provision which fed all these five thousand. And I believe that the
teaching of Scripture is in accordance with the deepest philosophy,
that the one cause of all physical phenomena is the will of a present
God; howsoever that may usually conform to the ordinary method of
working which people generalise and call laws. The reason why anything
is, and the reason why all things change, is the energy there and then
of the indwelling God who is in all His works, and who is the only Will
and Power in the physical world.
And I believe, further, that Scripture teaches us that that continuous
will, which is the cause of all phenomena and the underlying
subsistence on which all things repose, is all managed and mediated by
Him who from of old was named the Word; 'in whom was life, and without
whom was not anything made that was made.' Our Christ is Creator, our
Christ is Sustainer, our Christ moves the stars and feeds the sparrows.
He was 'before all things, and in Him all things consist.' He opens His
hand—and there is the print of a nail in it—and 'satisfies the desire
of every living thing.'
So learn how to think of second causes, and see in this story a
transient manifestation, in unusual form, of an eternal and permanent
fact. Jesus took the loaves and distributed to them that were set down.
And so, secondly, the miracle is a _sign_—a symbol of Him as the true
Bread and Food of the world. That is the explanation and commentary
which He Himself appends to it in the subsequent part of the chapter,
in the great discourse which is founded upon this miracle.
'I am the Bread of Life.' There is a triple statement by our Lord upon
this subject in the remaining portion of the chapter. He says, 'I am
the Bread of Life.' My personality is that which not only sustains life
when it is given, but gives life to them that feed upon it. But more
than that, 'the bread which I will give,' pointing to some future
'giving' beyond the present moment, and therefore something more than
His life and example, 'is My flesh, which'—in some as yet unexplained
way—'I give for the life of the world.' And that there may be no
misunderstanding, there is a third, deeper, more mysterious statement
still: 'My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.'
Repulsive and paradoxical, but in its very offensiveness and paradox,
proclaiming that it covers a mighty truth, and the truth, brother, is
this, the one Food that gives life to will, affections, conscience,
understanding, to the whole spirit of a man, is that great Sacrifice of
the Incarnate Lord who gave upon the Cross His flesh, and on the Cross
shed His blood, for the life of the world that was 'dead in trespasses
and sins.' Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us, and we feed on
the sacrifice. Let your conscience, your heart, your desires, your
anticipations, your understanding, your will, your whole being feed on
Him. He will be cleansing, He will be love, He will be fruition, He
will be hope, He will be truth, He will be righteousness, He will be
all. Feed upon Him by that faith which is the true eating of the true
Bread, and your souls shall live.
And notice finally here, the result of this miracle as transferred to
the region of symbol. 'They did all eat and were filled'; men, women,
children, both sexes, all ages, all classes, found the food that they
needed in the bread that came from Christ's hands. If any man wants
dainties that will tickle the palates of Epicureans, let him go
somewhere else. But if he wants bread, to keep the life in and to stay
his hunger, let him go to this Christ who is 'human nature's daily
food.'
The world has scoffed for nineteen centuries at the barley bread that
the Gospel provides; coarse by the side of its confectionery, but it is
enough to give life to all who eat it. It goes straight to the primal
necessities of human nature. It does not coddle a class, or pander to
unwholesome, diseased, or fastidious appetites. It is the food of the
world, and not of a section. All men can relish it, all men need it. It
is offered to them all.
And more than that; notice the inexhaustible abundance. 'They did all
eat, and were filled.' And then they took up—not 'of the fragments,' as
our Bible gives it, conveying the idea of the crumbs that littered the
grass after the repast was over, but of the 'broken pieces'—the
portions that came from Christ's hands—twelve baskets full, an
immensely greater quantity than they had to start with. 'The gift doth
stretch itself as 'tis received.' Other goods and other possessions
perish with the using, but this increases with use. The more one eats,
the more there is for him to eat. And all the world may live upon it
for ever, and there will be more at the end than there was at the
beginning.
Brethren, why do ye 'spend your money for that which is not bread'?
There is no answer worthy of a rational soul, no answer that will stand
either the light of conscience or the clearer light of the Day of
Judgment. I come to you now, and although my poor words may be but like
the barley bread and the two fishes—nothing amongst all this gathered
audience—I come with Christ in my hands, and I say to you, 'Eat, and
your souls shall live.' He will spread a table for you in the
wilderness, and take you to sit at last at His table in His Kingdom.
'FRAGMENTS' OR 'BROKEN PIECES'
'When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, Gather up the
fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.'—JOHN vi. 12.
The Revised Version correctly makes a very slight, but a very
significant change in the words of this verse. Instead of 'fragments'
it reads 'broken pieces.' The change seems very small, but the effect
of it is considerable. It helps our picture of the scene by correcting
a very common misapprehension as to what it was which the Apostles are
bid to gather up. The general notion, I suppose, is that the
'fragments' are the crumbs that fell from each man's hands, as he ate,
and the picture before the imagination of the ordinary reader is that
of the Apostles' carefully collecting the _debris_ of the meal from the
grass where it had dropped. But the true notion is that the 'broken
pieces which remain over' are the unused portions into which our Lord's
miracle-working hand had broken the bread, and the true picture is that
of the Apostles carefully putting away in store for future use the
abundant provision which their Lord had made, beyond the needs of the
hungry thousands. And that conception of the command teaches far more
beautiful and deeper lessons than the other.
For if the common translation and notion be correct, all that is taught
us, or at least what is principally taught us, is the duty of thrift
and careful economy; whereas the other shows more clearly that what is
taught us is that Jesus Christ always gets ready for His people
something over and above the exact limits of their bare need at the
moment, that He prepares for His poor and hungry dependants in royal
fashion, leaving ever a wide margin of difference between what would be
just enough to keep the life in them, and His liberal housekeeping.
Further, we are taught a lesson of wise husbandry and economy in the
use of that overplus of grace which Christ ministers, and are
instructed that the laws of prudent thrift have as honoured a place in
the management of spiritual as of temporal wealth. 'Gather up,' says
our Lord, 'the pieces which I broke, the large provision which I made
for possible wants. My gifts are in excess of the requirements of the
moment. Take care of them till you need them.' That is a worthier
interpretation of His command than one which merely sees in it an
exhortation to thrifty taking care of the crumbs that fell from the
lips of the hungry eaters.
Looking at this command, then, with this slight alteration of
rendering, and consequent widening of scope, we may briefly try to
gather up the lessons which it obviously suggests.
I. We have that thought, to which I have already referred, as more
strikingly brought out by the slight alteration of translation, which,
by the use of '_broken_ pieces,' suggests the connection with Christ's
_breaking_ the loaves and fishes. We are taught to think of the large
surplus in Christ's gifts over and above our need. Our Lord has Himself
given us a commentary upon this miracle. All Christ's miracles are
parables, for all teach us, on the level of natural and outward things,
lessons that are true in regard to the spiritual world; but this one is
especially symbolical, as indeed are all these recorded in John's
Gospel. And here we have Christ, on the day after the miracle,
commenting upon it in His long and profound discourse upon the Bread of
Life, which plainly intimates that He meant His office of feeding the
hungry crowds, with bread supernaturally increased by the touch of His
hand, to be but a picture and a guide which might lead to the
apprehension of the higher view of Himself as the 'bread of God which
came down from heaven,' feeding and 'giving life to the world' by His
broken body and shed blood.
So that we are not inventing a fanciful interpretation of an incident
not meant to have any meaning deeper than shows on the surface, when we
say that the abundance far beyond what the eaters could make use of at
the moment really represented the large surplus of inexhaustible
resources and unused grace which is treasured for us all in Christ
Jesus. Whom He feeds He feasts. His gifts answer our need, and
over-answer it, for He is 'able to do exceeding abundantly above that
which we ask or think,' and neither our conceptions, nor our petitions,
nor our present powers of receiving, are the real limits of the
illimitable grace that is laid up for us in Christ, and which,
potentially, we have each of us in our hands whenever we lay our hands
on Him.
Oh, dear friends! what you and I have ever had and felt of Christ's
power, sweetness, preciousness, and love is as nothing compared with
the infinite depths of all those which lie in Him. The sea fills the
little creeks along its shore, but it rolls in unfathomed depths,
boundless to the horizon away out there in the mid-Atlantic. And all
the present experience of all Christian people, of what Christ is, is
like the experience of the first settlers in some great undiscovered
continent; who timidly plant a little fringe of population round its
edge and grow their scanty crops there, whilst the great prairies of
miles and miles, with all their wealth and fertility, are lying
untrodden and unknown in the heart of the untraversed continent. The
most powerful telescope leaves nebulae unresolved, which, though they
seem but a dim dust of light, are all ablaze with mighty suns. The
'goodness' which He has 'wrought before the sons of men for them that
fear' Him is, as the Psalmist adoringly exclaims, wondrously 'great,'
but still greater is that which the same verse of the Psalm
celebrates—the goodness which He has 'laid up for them that fear Him.'
The gold which is actually coined and passing from hand to hand, is but
a fraction, a mere scale, as it were, off the surface of the great
uncoined mass of bullion that lies stored in the vaults there. Christ
is a great deal more than any man, or than all men, have yet found Him
to be. 'Gather up the broken pieces'; and see that nothing of that
infinite preciousness of His be lost by us.
II. Then there is another very simple lesson which I draw. This command
suggests for us Christ's thrift (if I may use the word) in the
employment of His miraculous power.
Surely they might have said: 'If thou canst multiply five loaves into
all this abundance, why should we be trudging about, each with a basket
on his back full of bread, when we have with us He whose word can make
it for us at any moment?' Yes, but a law which characterises all the
miraculous, in both the Old and the New Testament, and which broadly
distinguishes Christ's miracles from all the false miracles of false
religions is this, that the miraculous is pared down to the smallest
possible amount, that not one hairsbreadth beyond the necessity shall
be done by miracle; that whatever men can do they shall do; that their
work shall stop as late, and begin again as soon as possible. Thus,
though Christ was going to raise Lazarus, men's hands had to roll away
the stone; and when Christ had raised Lazarus, men's hands had to loose
the napkins from his face. And though Christ was able to say to the
daughter of Jairus, '_Talitha cumi!_' (damsel, arise!) His next word
was: 'Give her something to eat.' Where the miraculous was needed it
was used, and not a hairsbreadth beyond absolute necessity did it
extend.
And so here Christ multiplies the bread, and yet each of the Apostles
has to take a basket, probably some kind of woven wicker-work article
which they would carry for holding their little necessaries in their
peregrinations; each Apostle has to take his basket, and perhaps
emptying it of some of his humble apparel, to fill it with these bits
of bread; for Christ was not going to work miracles where men's thrift
and prudence could be employed.
Nor does He do so now. We live by faith, and our dependence on Him can
never be too absolute. Only laziness sometimes dresses itself in the
garb and speaks with the tongue of faith, and pretends to be truthful
when it is only slothful. 'Why criest thou unto Me?' said God to Moses,
'speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.' True faith
sets us to work. It is not to be perverted into idle and false
depending upon Him to work for us, when by the use of our own ten
fingers and our own brains, guided and strengthened by His working in
us, we can do the work that is set before us.
III. Still further, there is another lesson here. Not only does the
injunction show us Christ's thrift in the employment of the
supernatural, but it teaches us our duty of thrift and care in the use
of the spiritual grace bestowed upon us.
These men had given to them this miraculously made bread; but they had
to exercise ordinary thrift in the preservation of the supernatural
gift. Christ has been given to you by the most stupendous miracle that
ever was or can be wrought, and if you are Christian people, you have
the Spirit of Christ given to you, to dwell in your hearts, to make you
wise and fair, gentle and strong, and altogether Christlike. But you
have to take care of these gifts. You have to exercise the common
virtues of economy and thrift in your use of the divine gifts as in
your use of the common things of daily life. You have to use wisely and
not waste the Bread of God that came down from heaven, or that Bread of
God will not feed you. You have to provide the basket in which to carry
the unexhausted residue of the divine gift, or you may stand hungry in
the very midst of plenty, and whilst within arm's length of you there
is bread enough and to spare to feed the whole world.
The lesson of my text, which is most eminently brought out if we adopt
the translation which I have referred to at the beginning of these
remarks, is, then, just this: Christian men, be watchful stewards of
that great gift of a living Christ, the food of your souls, that has
been by miracle bestowed upon you. Such gathering together for future
need of the unused residue of grace may be accomplished by three ways.
First, there must be a diligent use of the grace given. See that you
use to the very full, in the measure of your present power of absorbing
and your present need, the gift bestowed upon you. Be sure that you
take in as much of Christ as you can contain before you begin to think
of what to do with the overplus. If we are not careful to take what we
can, and to use what we need, of Christ, there is little chance of our
being faithful stewards of the surplus. The water in a mill-stream runs
over the trough in great abundance when the wheel is not working, and
one reason why so many Christians seem to have so much more given to
them in Christ than they need is because they are doing no work to use
up the gift.
A second essential to such stewardship is the careful guarding of the
grace given from whatever would injure it. Let not worldliness,
business, cares of the world, the sorrows of life, its joys, duties,
anxieties or pleasures—let not these so come into your hearts that they
will elbow Christ out of your hearts, and dull your appetite for the
true Bread that came down from heaven.
And lastly, not only by use and by careful guarding, but also by
earnest desire for larger gifts of the Christ who is large beyond all
measure, shall we receive more and more of His sweetness and His
preciousness into our hearts, and of His beauty and glory into our
transfigured characters. The basket that we carry, this recipient heart
of ours, is elastic. It can stretch to hold any amount that you like to
put into it. The desire for more of Christ's grace will stretch its
capacity, and as its capacity increases the inflowing gift greatens,
and a larger Christ fills the larger room of my poor heart.
So the lesson is taught us of our prudence in the care and use of the
grace bestowed on us, and we are bidden to cherish a happy confidence
in the inexhaustible resources of Christ, and the continual gift in the
future of even larger measures of grace, which are all ours already,
given to us at the first reception of Him into our hearts, and only
needing our faithfulness to be growingly ours in experience as they are
ours from the first in germ.
IV. Finally, a solemn warning is implied in this command, and its
reason 'that nothing be lost.'
Then there is a possibility of losing the gift that is freely given to
us. We may waste the bread, and so, sometime or other when we are
hungry, awake to the consciousness that it has dropped out of our slack
hands. The abundance of Christ's grace may, so far as you are profited
or enriched by it, be like the unclaimed millions of money which nobody
asks for and that is of use to no living soul. You may be paupers while
all God's riches in glory are at your disposal, and starving while
baskets full of bread broken for us by Christ lie unused at our sides.
Some of us have never tasted the sweetness or been fed by the
nutritiousness of that Bread of God which came down from heaven. And
more marvellous still, there may be some of us, who having come to
Christ hungry and been fed by Him, have ceased to care for the pure
nourishment and taste for the manna, and are turning again with gross
appetite to the husks in the swine's trough. Negligent Christians!
worldly Christians! you who care more for money and other dainties and
delights which perish with the using—backsliding Christians, who once
hungered and thirsted for more of Christ, and now have no longing for
Him—awake to the danger in which you stand of letting all your
spiritual wealth slip through your fingers; behold the treasures, yet
unreached, within your grasp, and seek to garner and realise them.
Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, lest everything be lost.