'And the apostles, when they were returned, told Him
all that they had done. And He took them, and went
aside privately into a desert place belonging to the
city, called Bethsaida. 11. And the people, when they
knew it, followed Him; and He received them, and spake
unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that
had need of healing. 12. And when the day began to
wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto Him,
Send the multitude away, that they may go into the
towns and country round about, and lodge, and get
victuals; for we are here in a desert place. 13. But He
said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We
have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we
should go and buy meat for all this people. 14. (For
they were about five thousand men.) And He said to His
disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company.
15. And they did so, and made them all sit down.
16. Then He took the five loaves, and the two fishes;
and, looking up to heaven, He blessed them, and brake,
and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude.
17. And they did eat, and were all filled: and there
was taken up of fragments that remained to them twelve
baskets.'--LUKE ix. 10-17.
The Apostles needed rest after their trial trip as evangelists. John
the Baptist's death had just been told to Christ. The Passover was
at hand, and many pilgrims were on the march. Prudence and care for
His followers as well as Himself suggested a brief retirement, and
our Lord sought it at the Eastern Bethsaida, a couple of miles up
the Jordan from its point of entrance to the lake. Matthew and Mark
tell us that He went by boat, which Luke does not seem to have
known. Mark adds that the curious crowd, which followed on foot,
reached the place of landing before Him, and so effectually
destroyed all hope of retirement. It was a short walk round the
north-western part of the head of the lake, and the boat would be in
sight all the way, so that there was no escape for its passengers.
Luke records the self-oblivious cordiality of Christ's reception of
the intrusive crowd. Without a sigh or sign of impatience, He
'welcomed them'--a difficult thing to do, and one which few of us
could have achieved. The motives of most of them can have been
nothing higher than what leads vulgar people of all ranks and
countries to buzz about distinguished men, utterly regardless of
delicacy or considerateness. They want to see the notoriety, no
matter what it costs him. But Jesus received them patiently,
because, as Mark touchingly tells, He was 'moved with pity,' and saw
in their rude crowding round Him the token of their lack of guides
and teachers. They seemed to Him, not merely a mob of intrusive
sight-seers, but like a huddled mass of unshepherded sheep.
Christ's heart felt more lovingly than ours because His eye saw
deeper, and His eye saw deeper because His heart felt more lovingly.
If we would live nearer Him, we should see, as He did, enough in
every man to draw our pity and help, even though he may jostle and
interfere with us.
The short journey to Bethsaida would be in the early morning, and a
long day of toil followed instead of the hoped-for quiet. Note that
singular expression, 'Them that had need of healing He healed.' Why
not simply 'them that were sick'? Probably to bring out the thought
that misery made unfailing appeal to Him, and that for Him to see
need was to supply it. His swift compassion, His all-sufficient
power to heal, and the conditions of receiving His healing, are all
wrapped up in the words. Coming to the miracle itself, we may throw
the narrative into three parts--the preliminaries, the miracle, and
the abundant overplus.
I. Our Lord leads up to the miracle by forcing home on the minds of
the disciples the extent of the need and the utter inadequacy of
their resources to meet it, and by calling on them and the crowd for
an act of obedience which must have seemed to many of them
ludicrous. John shows us that He had begun to prepare them, at the
moment of meeting the multitude, by His question to Philip. That had
been simmering in the disciples' minds all day, while they leisurely
watched Him toiling in word and work, and now they come with their
solution of the difficulty. Their suggestion was a very sensible one
in the circumstances, and they are not to be blamed for not
anticipating a miracle as the way out. However many miracles they
saw, they never seem to have expected another. That has been thought
to be unnatural, but surely it is true to nature. They moved in a
confusing mixture of the miraculous and the natural which baffled
calculation as to which element would rule at any given moment.
Their faith was feeble, and Christ rebuked them for their slowness
to learn the lesson of this very miracle and its twin feeding of the
four thousand. They were our true brothers in their failure to grasp
the full meaning of the past, and to trust His power.
The strange suggestion that the disciples should feed the crowd must
have appeared to them absurd, but it was meant to bring out the
clear recognition of the smallness of their supply. Therein lie
great lessons. Commands are given and apparent duties laid on us, in
order that we may find out how impotent we are to do them. It can
never be our duty to do what we cannot do, but it is often our duty
to attempt tasks to which we are conspicuously inadequate, in the
confidence that He who gives them has laid them on us to drive us to
Himself, and there to find sufficiency. The best preparation of His
servants for their work in the world is the discovery that their own
stores are small. Those who have learned that it is their task to
feed the multitude, and who have said 'We have no more than such and
such scanty resources,' are prepared to be the distributors of His
all-sufficient supply.
What a strange scene that must have been as the hundred groups of
fifty each arranged themselves on the green grass, in the setting
sunlight, waiting for a meal of which there were no signs! It took a
good deal of faith to seat the crowd, and some faith for the crowd
to sit. How expectant they would be! How they would wonder what was
to be done next! How some of them would laugh, and some sneer, and
all watch the event! We, too, have to put ourselves in the attitude
to receive gifts of which sense sees no sign; and if, in obedience
to Christ's word, we sit down expecting Him to find the food, we
shall not be disappointed, though the table be spread in the
wilderness, and neither storehouse nor kitchen be in sight.
II. The miracle itself has some singular features. Like that of the
draught of fishes, it was not called forth by the cry of suffering,
nor was the need which it met one beyond the reach of ordinary
means. It was certainly one of the miracles most plainly meant to
strike the popular mind, and the enthusiasm excited by it, according
to John's account, was foreseen by Christ. Why did He evoke
enthusiasm which He did not mean to gratify? For the very purpose of
bringing the carnal expectations of the crowd to a head, that they
might be the more conclusively disappointed. The miracle and its
sequel sifted and sent away many 'disciples,' and were meant to do
so.
All the accounts tell of Christ's 'blessing.' Matthew and Mark do
not say what He blessed, and perhaps the best supplement is 'God,'
but Luke says that He blessed the food. What He blesses is blessed;
for His words are deeds, and communicate the blessing which they
speak. The point at which the miraculous multiplication of the food
came in is left undetermined, but perhaps the difference in the
tenses of the verbs hints at it. 'Blessed' and 'brake' are in the
tense which describes a single act; 'gave' is in that which
describes a continuous repeated action. The pieces grew under His
touch, and the disciples always found His hands full when they came
back with their own empty. But wherever the miraculous element
appeared, creative power was exercised by Jesus; and none the less
was it creative, because there was the 'substratum' of the loaves
and fishes. Too much stress has been laid on their being used, and
some commentators have spoken as if without them the miracle could
not have been wrought. But surely the distinction between pure
creation and multiplication of a thing already existing vanishes
when a loaf is 'multiplied' so as to feed a thousand men.
The symbolical aspect of the miracle is set forth in the great
discourse which follows it in John's Gospel. Jesus is the 'Bread of
God which came down from heaven.' That Bread is broken for us. Not
in His Incarnation alone, but in His Death, is He the food of the
world; and we have not only to 'eat His flesh,' but to 'drink His
blood,' if we would live. Nor can we lose sight of the symbol of His
servants' task. They are the distributors of the heaven-sent bread.
If they will but take their poor stores to Jesus, with the
acknowledgment of their insufficiency, He will turn them into
inexhaustible supplies, and they will find that 'there is that
scattereth, and yet increaseth.' What Christ blesses is always
enough.
III. The abundance left over is significant. Twelve baskets, such as
poor travellers carried their belongings in, were filled; that is to
say, each Apostle who had helped to feed the hungry had a basketful
to bring off for future wants. The 'broken pieces' were not crumbs
that littered the grass, but the portions that came from Christ's
hands.
His provision is more than enough for a hungry world, and they who
share it out among their fellows have their own possession of it
increased. There is no surer way to receive the full sweetness and
blessing of the Gospel than to carry it to some hungry soul. These
full baskets teach us, too, that In Christ's gift of Himself as the
Bread of Life there is ever more than at any given moment we can
appropriate. The Christian's spiritual experiences have ever an
element of infinity in them; and we feel that if we were able to
take in more, there would be more for us to take. Other food cloys
and does not satisfy, and leaves us starving. Christ satisfies and
does not cloy, and we have always remaining, yet to be enjoyed, the
boundless stores which neither eternity will age nor a universe
feeding on them consume. The Christian's capacity of partaking of
Christ grows with what it feeds on, and he alone is safe in
believing that 'To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more
abundant.'