'He gave the loaves to the disciples, and the _disciples_ to
the multitude.' One very striking feature in all our Lord's miracles
is economy of power. The miraculous element being admitted for some
good and sufficient reason, it is kept down to the lowest possible
point. Precisely so much of it as is needed is permitted, and not
one hairsbreadth more. It does not begin to make its appearance at
any point in the process where ordinary human agency can be used. It
does not produce a result beyond the actual necessity. It does not
last one instant longer than is required. It inosculates closely
with the natural order of things.
Take an illustration from the beginning of miracles where Jesus
manifested forth His glory, at the marriage in Cana of Galilee--that
great miracle in which our Lord hallowed the ties of human
affection, and consecrated the joy of united hearts. The necessity
is felt before He supplies it. The servants fill the waterpots. The
water is used as the material on which the miraculous power
operates. Only so much as is drawn for present use becomes wine. The
servants are used as the agents for the distribution, and all is
done so unostentatiously, though it be the manifesting of His glory,
that no man knows but they.
Take another illustration from the other great contrasted miracle at
the grave of Lazarus, where our Lord hallowed the breaking of
earthly bonds by death, and sanctified the sorrows of parted love.
He does not work His wonder from the other side Jordan, but comes.
He does not avert the death which He will conquer, nor prevent the
grief which He shares. He goes to the side of the grave--true human
tears are wet upon His cheek. They have to roll away the stone.
Then, there is flung into the darkness of the tomb the mighty word,
'Lazarus! come forth.' The inconceivable miraculous act is done, and
life stirs in the sheeted dead. But there the miraculous ceases. The
man with his restored life has himself to come out of the grave, and
human hands have tremblingly to lift the napkin from the veiled face
(how they must have thrilled as they did it, wondering what nameless
horror they might see in the eyes that had looked on the inner
chamber of death), and human help has to unfold the grave-clothes
from the tightly swathed and stumbling limbs, 'Loose him, and let
him go.'
This marked characteristic of all our Lord's miracles is full of
instruction, which it would lead us too far from our present purpose to
indicate at any length. But we may just observe in passing, that it
brings these into striking parallel with the divine creative act, where
there is ever the same precise adaptation of power employed to result
contemplated, the same background of veiled omnipotence, the same
emergence of proportioned, adequate, but not superfluous force, so
that, in fact, economy of power may be said to be the very signature
and broad arrow of divinity stamped on all His works. Again, it
presents a broad contrast to the wild, reckless miracle-mongering of
false faiths, and is at once a test of the genuineness of all 'lying
signs and wonders,' and an indication of the self-restraint of the
Worker, and of the fine sanity and truthfulness of the narrators, of
these Gospel miracles. And yet, again, it is one phase of the
disciplinary character of the whole revelation of God in Christ--not
obtrusive, though obvious, capable of being overlooked if men will.
There was the hiding of His power. 'If any man wills to be ignorant,
let him be ignorant.'
But coming more immediately to the narrative before us, we find this
same characteristic in full prominence in it. The people are allowed
to hunger. The disciples are permitted to feel themselves at their
wits' end. They are bid to bring their poor resources to Christ. The
lad who had come with his little store, perhaps a fisherman's boy
from some of the lake villages who hoped to sell his loaves and
fishes in the crowd, supplies the material on which Christ wills to
exercise His miraculous power. The disciples' agency is pressed into
the service. Each man separately receives his portion, and when all
are supplied, the fragments are carefully preserved for the use of
those who had been fed by miracle, and of Him who had fed them!
Besides the general lessons already referred to, as naturally
arising from this feature of the miracle, there is that one which
belongs to it especially, namely, that Christ feeds the famishing
world by means of His Church.
Precisely as in the miracles in general, so in the work of Christ as a
whole, the field of supernatural intervention is rigidly confined, and
fits in with the established order of things. The Incarnation and
Sacrifice of our Lord are the purely supernatural work of the divine
Power and Mercy. He comes, enters into our human conditions, assumes
our humanity, dies the death for us all. 'I have trodden the wine-press
alone.' There is no question of any human agency co-operating there,
any more than there is in the word 'Lazarus, come forth,' or in the
multiplication of the loaves. There, by Christ alone, is brought to
us and is finished for us an eternal redemption, with which the whole
race of man have nothing to do but to receive it, to eat and be filled.
But this having been done by the solitary work of Jesus Christ, this
new power having been introduced into the world, human agency is
henceforth called into operation to diffuse it, just as the servants
at Cana had to draw the wine which He had made, just as the disciples
at the Sea of Tiberias have to give to the multitude the bread which
was blessed and broken by His hands.
The supernaturally given Bread of Life is to be carried over the
world in accordance with the ordinary laws by which all other truth
is diffused and all other gifts that belong to one man are held by
him in stewardship for all his fellows. True, there is ever in and
with that word of life a divine Spirit, which is the real cause of
its progress, which guards it from destruction though all men were
faithless, and keeps it alive though all Israel bowed the knee to
Baal. But, however easy it may be for us to confuse ourselves with
metaphysical puzzles about the relation between the natural and the
supernatural elements--the human agency and the divine energiser--in
the successful discharge of the Church's work, practically the
matter is very plain.
The truth that it behoves us all to lay to heart is just this--that
Christian people are Christ's instruments for effecting the
realisation of the purposes of His death. Not without them shall He
see of the travail of His soul. Not without them shall the preaching
be fully known. Not without the people willing in the day of His
power, and clothed in priestly beauty, shall the Priest King set His
feet upon His enemies. Not without the armies of heaven following
Him, shall the 'Word of God' ride forth to victory. Neither the
divine decree, nor the expansive power of the Truth, nor the crowned
expectancy of the waiting Lord, nor the mighty working of the
Comforter, are the complete means for the accomplishment of the
divine promise that all nations shall be blessed in Him. Could all
these be conceived of as existing without the service and energies
of God's Church proclaiming the name of Christ, they were not
enough. He has willed that to us, less than the least of all saints,
should this grace be given, that we should make known the
unsearchable riches of Christ. God reveals His truth, that men who
believe it may impart it. God gives the word, that, caught up by
those who receive it into an honest and good heart, it may be poured
forth, in mighty chorus from the lips of the 'great company of them
that publish it.' 'He gave the loaves to the disciples, and the
_disciples_ to the multitude.'
Christian men! learn your high vocation, and your solemn
responsibilities. 'What! came the word of God out from you, or came
it _unto_ you only?' For what did you receive it? For the same
reason for which you have received everything else which you
possess--that you might share it with your brethren. How did you
receive it? As a gift, unmerited, the result of a miracle of divine
mercy, that you might feel bound to give as ye have received, and
spread the free divine gift by cheerful human work of distribution.
From whom did you receive it? From Christ, who in the very act of
giving binds you to live for Him and not for yourselves, and to
mould your lives after the pattern of His. What a multitude of
motives converge on the solemn duty of work for Christ, if we read
in the light of this deeper meaning the simple words of our text,
'He gave the loaves to the disciples!' What manner of servant is he
who can bear to have no part in the blessed work that follows--'and
the disciples to the multitude'?
It is further noticeable how these apostles were prepared for the
work which they had to do. The first lesson which they had to learn
was the almost ludicrous disproportion between the resources at
their command and the necessities of the crowd. 'How many loaves
have ye? go and see.' And this is the first lesson that we have to
learn in all our work for Christ and for our brethren, that in
ourselves we have nothing fit for the task before us. Think of what
that task is as measured by the necessities and sorrows of men.
Think of all the sighs that go up at every moment from burdened
hearts, of the tears that run down so many blanched and anxious
cheeks. Think of '_all_ the misery that is done under the sun!'
If it could be made visible, what a dark pall would swathe the
world, an atmosphere of sorrow rolling ever with it through space.
The sight is too sad to be seen by any but by Him who cures it all,
and it wrung from His heart the sigh with which ere He cured one
poor sufferer--a drop in the ocean--He looked up to heaven, as in
mute appeal against all these heaped miseries of suffering man.
And we, what can we do in ourselves? On what comparison of our
resources do we not feel utterly inadequate to the work? If we think
of the proportion in numbers, we have to say, like the narrator of
the wars in Israel, 'The children of Israel pitched before them like
two little flocks of kids, but the Syrians filled the country.' If
we think of the strength that we ourselves possess and look at our
own tremulous faith, at our own feeble love, at the uncertain hold
which we ourselves have on the Gospel that we profess, at the mists
and darkness which cover so much of God's revelation from our own
understandings, at the sins and faults of our own lives, must we not
cry out, Send whom Thou wilt send, O Lord, but take not me, so
sinful, so little influenced by Thy grace, to be the messenger of
Thy grace? 'Who is sufficient for these things?'
And such contemplations, when they drive home to our hearts the
wholesome lesson of our own weakness, are the beginning, and the only
possible beginning, of divine strength. The only temper in which we
can serve God and bless man is that of lowliest self-abasement. God
works with bruised reeds, and out of them makes polished shafts,
pillars in His house. Only when we are low on our faces before God,
crying out,' Unclean, unclean,' does the purifying coal touch our
lips and the prophet strength flow into our souls.
Be humble and self-distrustful, and then learn the further lesson of
this narrative, and carry your poor inadequate resources to Christ.
'Bring them hither to Me.' In His hands they become sufficient. He
multiplies them. He gives wisdom, strength, and all that fits for
the task to which He calls us. Bring your little faith to Him and He
will increase it. Bring your feeble love to Him, and ask Him to
kindle it from the pure flame of His own, and He will make your
heart burn within you. Bring your partial understanding of His will
and way to Him, and He will be to you wisdom. Bring all the poverty
of your natures, all the insufficiency of your religious character,
all the inadequacy of your poor work, to your Lord. Feel it all. Let
the conviction of your nothingness sink into your soul. Then wait
before Him in simple faith, in lowly obedience, and power will come
to you equal to your desire and to your duties, and He will put His
spirit upon you, and will anoint you to proclaim liberty to the
captives and to give bread to all the hungry. 'Who is sufficient for
these things?' must ever precede, and will ever be followed by, 'our
sufficiency is of God.'
Mark again that the disciples seem themselves to have partaken of
the bread before they parted it among the multitudes. That is our
true preparation for the work of feeding the hungry. The Church
which feeds the world is able to do so, only because, and in
proportion as, it has found in Christ its own sustenance and life.
It is only they who can say 'we have tasted and felt and handled of
the word of life' who can declare it to others. Personal participation
in the bread of life makes any man able to offer it to some fainting
spirit. Nothing else makes him able. Ability involves responsibility.
'Power to its last particle is duty.' You, dear friends, who have
'tasted that the Lord is gracious,' have thereby come under weighty
obligations. Your own personal experience of that precious bread has
fitted you to do something in offering it to others. The manner in
which you do so must be determined by your character and circumstances.
Every one has his proper walk; but something you can do. To some lips
you can commend the food for all the world. Somewhere your word is
a power. See that you do what you can do. Remember that Christ feeds
the world by His Church, and that every man who has himself eaten of
the bread of life is thereby consecrated to carry it to those who yet
are perishing in the far-off hunger-ridden land, and trying to fill
their bellies with the husks that the swine eat.