'He gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples
to the multitude. 20. And they did all eat, and were
filled; and they took up of the fragments that remained
twelve baskets full.'--MATT. xiv. 19, 20.
The miracles of Scripture are not merely wonders, but signs. It is
one of their most striking characteristics that they are not, like
the pretended portents of false faiths, mere mighty deeds standing
in no sort of intellectual relation to the message of which they
claim to be the attestation, but that they have themselves a
doctrinal significance. Our Lord's miracles have been called 'the
great bell before the sermon,' but they are more than that. They are
themselves no unimportant part of the sermon. In fact, it would not
be difficult to construct from them a revelation of His nature,
person, and work, scarcely less full and explicit than that
contained in His words, or even than that more systematic and
developed one which we receive in the writings of His apostles.
This miracle, for instance, of the feeding of the five thousand with
five barley loaves and two small fishes, is one of the few which the
Apostle John relates in his Gospel, and his reason for selecting it
seems to be the commentary with which our Lord followed it, and
which John alone has preserved. That commentary is all the wonderful
discourse about Christ as the bread of life, and eating His flesh as
our means of receiving His life into ourselves. We are warranted,
then, in regarding this miracle as a symbolic revelation of Christ
as supplying all the wants of this hungry world. If so, we may
perhaps venture to take one more step, and regard the manner in
which He dispenses His gifts as also significant. His agents are His
disciples, or as would appear probable from the twelve baskets full
of fragments, the twelve apostles, the nucleus and representatives
of His Church. Thus we come to the point from which we wish to
regard this narrative now. There are three stages in the words of
our text--the distribution, the meal, and the gathering up of the
abundance that was left. These three stages may guide us to some
thoughts regarding the work to which Christ calls His Church, the
success which attends it, and the results to the distributors
themselves.