Feeding the Multitudes

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Last week on Thursday, TCA had their talent show for their students, and we came to watch it because Charlie’s class was going to perform. And they had some things where different classes would get up and perform, and some individual students or groups would get up and perform. And Charlie’s class, they got up and sang, What a Mighty God We Serve, which is his favorite song.

And I didn’t know what they were singing, but he told me on the way here, it was going to be, What a Mighty God We Serve. I said, you said that was your favorite song. He said, yeah, it was even on my board.

When he was student of the month, he put that on his board. And they did good for the, they did well, I should say, for the three or four seconds I got to see of it. Because Jojo thought it was BBS and tried to rush the stage.

And I had to jump up and stop her. And then she was inconsolable and screaming. I had to take her out there anyway.

It was just, it was an ordeal for that. got her a snack, got her calmed down. I know that always calms me down when I’m upset.

Give me a snack. And Charles is just shaking her head because she knows she lived through it too. But we enjoyed watching the different groups and different students get up and perform and sing songs, especially about the Lord.

And some of them even danced. I was impressed by what they could do. Some of them, they just did different things.

And I don’t know, I don’t keep up with the, even before all the controversy, I didn’t keep up with the Disney movies so much anymore. Just I’m past that point in my life. But I don’t know if y’all know what movie it is, but for not talking about Bruno, there sure is a lot of singing about Bruno. Some of you, if you have kids or grandkids that have seen that movie, I don’t know, I hear this song all the time, We Don’t Talk About Bruno. And somebody got up and sang how we don’t talk.

I guess we sing about it. Anyway, it was just fun to watch these kids get up and show their talents, show what they could do. That’s fun when you discover somebody’s got a hidden talent.

And I don’t want to embarrass her, but I’m still in awe of that song Kaylee wrote. It’s just fun to watch when people put on display what they can do. Now, Jesus did something like that.

It wasn’t quite a talent show, but Jesus was often displaying what he could do for those who were watching, for those who were paying attention. Now, Jesus took the concept of displaying his abilities to a whole different level because Jesus displayed things not just to be noticed, not just because he enjoyed it. Jesus put his abilities on display because we needed to see it, Because we needed to see what he could do in order to know him because we needed to know him.

His followers needed to know him. And one of the instances where Jesus put his abilities on display, one of many places that he put his abilities on display, was the feeding of the 5,000. It might even be one of the most important times that he put his abilities on display.

And the reason why I think it might be one of the most important is because there’s not a lot that’s recorded by all four Gospels before you get to about the last 47 days of Jesus’ time on earth. The week leading up to the crucifixion, plus the 40 days after leading to the ascension. And until you get to that point in time, there’s not a lot that’s recorded in all four Gospels except the feeding of the 5,000.

And so I figure if all four of them recorded what happened there, it’s pretty important for us to take notice of. I will also point out that it’s really not the feeding of the 5,000 because Matthew points out, they all say it was about 5,000 men. Matthew points out plus the women and children.

So they didn’t even count the women and children. So kind of my estimate, you know, if you assume that a bunch of the men are married and maybe they had at least two children with them, you know, give or take on average, you know, we may be looking at 20,000 people that Jesus fed. That’s just my estimate.

The Bible doesn’t say that that’s the number, but we’re looking at actually more than 5,000 people got fed on this event. But we’re going to look at what Mark says about it. I’ve also given you a handout if you picked one up on your way in.

To those of you watching online, sorry, I got out of the habit. I’ll try to get it up online for you as well. But you’ve got a handout there where you can see the four gospels and their telling of this event, set next to each other, but we’re in particular going to focus tonight on what Mark says about it.

So if you would stand with me, turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 6, and when you find it, if you would stand with me, please, as we read together from God’s Word. We’re going to start in Mark chapter 6, verse 30, and we’re going to read through verse 44. It says, Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.

And he said to them, come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.

But the multitude saw them departing, and many knew him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.

So he began to teach them many things. When the day was now far spent, his disciples came to him and said, this is a deserted place and already the hour is late. Send them away that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread for they have nothing to eat.

But he answered and said to them, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat? But he said to them, how many loaves do you have?

Go and see. And when they found out, they said five and two fish. That’s five loaves and two fish.

Then he commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in ranks and hundreds and in fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them.

And the two fish he divided among them all. So they all ate and were filled. And they took up the 12 baskets, took up 12 baskets full of fragments and of the fish.

Now those who had eaten the loaves were about 5,000 men. And you may be seated. So we see here in this story, Jesus putting his abilities on display, Him demonstrating His abilities for the people who were there, for the people who were paying attention.

And I want to talk to you tonight about, from this passage, some of the things that Jesus demonstrated for them to see and that are recorded here for us to see. And first of all, Jesus demonstrated His ability to meet overwhelming needs. Jesus is not simply able to meet your small needs.

You and I are limited in what we can do. Sometimes we have people that come to the church and they need help and we can take care of some things like get them some food to get them through the day. We can get them some clothing.

We can meet certain needs, but there come needs that are sometimes bigger than what we can manage. I ran into this at a previous church. We had a lady that that came to us for help.

She was living, well, she didn’t even ask for help, really, to begin with. She was living in an RV, and that was not all that uncommon in that area. She was living in an RV park.

She just started coming to the church. Well, lo and behold, time goes on, and she needs some help. I mean, the RV was old.

It was in bad condition. She couldn’t figure out something with the septic tank. Now that’s, that’s above my pay grade.

I have no clue about that. But we had some people that, that could help. She, she ran into some trouble with her tires.

Okay. We were able to, somebody had one of these industrial strength compressors that would air up the tires. So she, and, and she, she needed help with various things and we were able to help her here and there.

We got concerned about her as she was new in the area and we got concerned about her as wintertime was approaching because her RV was not rated for winter in Oklahoma. And so we started talking to her about other options, and we just got to a point where we realized she needed more help than what we could provide. And we started looking into some other ways to get her help because none of us had the resources to get her housing.

I mean, most people I know are doing well to provide housing for themselves and their family. None of us had just an extra house in our back pocket. None of us could pay rent for her anywhere.

None of us could buy her a new RV. And so we had to go look for help elsewhere, and we had to show her other places to get help. Because we have a level to which we’re able to help.

And maybe you’ve experienced that with people in your life. You’ve started out, you’ve wanted to help them. They’ve had small needs that you’ve been able to help, but eventually the needs just escalate.

They kind of snowball to beyond what you’re capable of doing. there is no need that Jesus is incapable of meeting. Looking at this from a human standpoint, they had a real problem.

Now it says deserted place that they were in. Some translations will say desert place. That’s just an old way of saying deserted.

It doesn’t mean, I mean, yes, Galilee is dry by a lot of standards, but it’s not, they’re not talking like Sahara desert kind of desert place. They’re not even talking about the Negev desert in the, in the Southern part of Israel. They’re just, they’re talking about a wilderness area.

And there’s not a lot of bread just wandering around in the wilderness, right? It doesn’t just grow wild. You can’t go out with your bow and arrow and shoot some bread, right?

It has to be put there by a person. And the disciples were saying, there’s not a lot of bread out here. There’s not a lot of bread to feed these people.

And we’ve got 5,000 men plus all these women and children. From a human standpoint, this was an overwhelming, insurmountable physical need. Not only that, well, I’ll get back to that in just a minute.

I mean, just the scope of it is feeding people is not generally that difficult. It was the scope of it that made it so insurmountable. But that wasn’t the only physical need because Mark, Luke, and John all describe how sick people just flocked to Jesus.

They had a physical need that nobody else could meet. In some circumstances we’ve looked at already in the gospel of Mark, there were people that had long ailments that the doctors couldn’t even treat. They were coming to Jesus because He was their last hope.

He was their last resort. And so these people were coming to Jesus to be healed. It was a big part of why they followed Him.

And Jesus was meeting these physical needs, these infirmities that nobody else could deal with. So He was dealing with the physical needs. He was also dealing with an overwhelming spiritual need.

Have you ever worked in some area of ministry and you’ve just been overwhelmed by the amount of spiritual need around you. Spend much time doing ministry at all. And I don’t mean like pastor ministry.

I just mean any kind of ministry. It’s out there. Sometimes just walking down the street, you can be overwhelmed by the spiritual need.

And Jesus saw that these people were in spiritual need. And it says in verse 34, he taught them God’s truth. And he did that because he saw them in verse 34 says that he looked at them.

He saw them like sheep without a shepherd. Sheep without a shepherd are lost. They are vulnerable. They’re not very good at figuring things out on their own.

And so Jesus looked at this incredible spiritual need that was in front of Him. These people that were wandering around spiritually like lost sheep. And He taught them.

He met that need. He offered them not just like the rabbis would, this human wisdom that was just a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of something somebody else had taught. Jesus preached with his own authority, and he taught them in ways they’d never heard before.

He brought them God’s truth, and he met their spiritual needs. So we’ve talked about this insurmountable need. There’s no need so big that he can’t meet it.

But he also met their daily needs. There’s no need so small that Jesus doesn’t notice. Because when you get right down to the nuts and bolts of it, what was the feeding of the 5,000 about?

People needed to eat. I mean, that happens almost every day in my house, right? Your house too, probably.

As a matter of fact, it’s this fun game that we have going on that Charla and I will get everybody fed and situated at the table, and we will sit down and take our first bite, and then it’s like a race to see who needs something first, so that we have to walk away after one bite. I know some of you are thinking, why are you complaining? You chose to have all these children.

I know. But I wasn’t thinking about meal time. I wasn’t thinking about being hungry and having to put down my taco because somebody already needs seconds, right?

This is just a daily thing. People need to eat. It happens every day.

It’s a pretty mundane need. But Jesus saw the need and resolved to do something about it. The disciples, their plan was to send them away, as we see in verses 35 and 36.

They saw the people needed food? All right, well, let’s send them to go get food then. And by the way, we think of this, or at least I do, maybe you do as well, I tend to think of this as kind of a harsh, uncaring response from the disciples, but I’d probably say the same thing too.

I mean, what am I supposed to do? There’s no food here. I’m not Jesus.

I can’t just make it appear out of nowhere. If you and I were the disciples and had no food, we’d probably say we need to send these people home so they can eat or send them out in the villages or something. But Jesus ensured that they were fed.

So while the disciples were unsure about how to handle the need, you know, they’re asking questions like, should we buy bread in verse 37? Even though any amount we could afford, any amount we could go out and buy is still going to be insufficient. 200 denarii, a denarius is about a day’s wage for a regular laborer.

So 200 days wages, that sounds like a pretty decent amount of money. But keep in mind how many people they’ve got to feed. It’s not going to be enough.

I sat down and did some math this week, trying to figure out different ways of interpreting this and understanding it. I think, now much has happened since I did that and I didn’t write down all those calculations. But I think I figured they could comfortably buy bread for about 600 people.

It was kind of my guess. 600, 800 people. I don’t know.

I’m not an expert on ancient money and ancient bread prices, but that’s about what I came to. Even if they had been able to find that much bread in the villages, it still wasn’t going to be enough. And so they’re asking, should we go try to buy bread knowing that this is not going to work?

And they’re doubting that Jesus could provide with what they had available. They looked at what they had. They looked at what money they had that they could buy.

They looked at the loaves and fishes that eventually they presented to Jesus. And in John chapter six, it says they asked, what are they among so many? Even once Jesus said, go see how much food is actually here.

They looked at Jesus and basically said, what are you going to do with that? The disciples, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to criticize them. We’d be in the same boat too.

They looked at this and said, how are we going to meet this need? But while the disciples were unsure about how to handle the need, Jesus had it all under control. John tells us a lot to inform what’s going on here, or John in particular gives us insights into what Mark is talking about, because John points out that in John 6, 6, how Jesus had a plan.

He’s even asking the disciples questions. As they’re asking questions, he’s asking questions back because he’s testing them, seeing about their faith, seeing what they will say and what they will not say. And John says that Jesus already knew what he was going to do.

He’s just getting the disciples to come out in the open and say what they thought. So what you and I need to understand is that while on paper to the disciples, it looks like there’s no solution here to meet these needs. And to us, I mean, we look back, we want to be super spiritual because we know how the story ends.

Well, of course Jesus had it. I guarantee, and there’s no way to prove me wrong because we don’t have a time machine, but I guarantee that if we were to go back in time and be there with them, every one of us would be in the same boat saying, I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know what’s going to happen because we do that all the time now.

I do that all the time now. Lord, I don’t think this is going to work. So while they were all unsure, Jesus already knew how he was going to meet this need.

And so Jesus met needs that no one else could meet. And he met needs. This is the cool part.

He met needs that nobody else thought he could meet. Jesus comes and demonstrates this ability to meet overwhelming needs, to meet, to notice even mundane everyday needs and be able to meet them even when the scale of them is overwhelming. I mean, you see here from top to bottom, Jesus notices it all and Jesus can handle it all.

And by feeding all these people, he demonstrated there’s no need that he can’t meet. He also demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice. This kind of foreshadows his willingness to sacrifice later.

And this is something we tend to miss because we focus on the miracle of the event, and rightly so. It’s incredible. But let’s come back from that for a moment and look at what the gospel writers tell us about setting the scene because that gives us a picture of an understanding of who Jesus is as well.

Everything, I want you to remember that as we read this story, as we’ve looked at it, everything that Jesus did in this story was an inconvenience to him. Do you ever realize that? Everything that Jesus did in this story, every person he healed, every body he taught, every person he fed, all the putting up with the stupid questions from the disciples, and yes, I would have been one of the stupid questioners, but every bit of that was an inconvenience.

And the reason we know that is not because he acted like it. You know, sometimes people are inconvenienced and you can tell because they act like it. I’m guilty of that sometimes as well.

But think about what was going on here. The people had nothing to eat because they were in the wilderness. Why were they in the wilderness?

They were in the wilderness because Jesus and the disciples had gone to the wilderness and they had followed them. Why had Jesus and the disciples gone to the wilderness? Because they needed a break from the crowd.

They needed a break. It’s 10 minutes into break time and they’re asking Jesus to go check for stuff in the back room. This is an inconvenience.

It’s a tremendous inconvenience. If you look at verse 30, they were fresh back from their ministry trip. It says that the apostles gathered and told Jesus all things.

What’s going on here? They’re reporting back from when Jesus sent them out two by two that we looked at a couple of, I don’t want to say weeks ago because it’s been more than a couple of weeks, but a couple of times ago of us looking at Mark. And then we looked at the, last time we looked at the discussion of the murder of John the Baptist. And that was something of a flashback.

Now it had to have happened pretty quickly, right? But, you know, where Herod had killed John and then shortly after, maybe a day or two after even, heard about Jesus and thought, oh no, he’s back from the dead. So it’s not like it had happened months before, and maybe that was the impression I was under before when I taught on it.

But they tell that story. This is all happening in a very short period of time. So they’ve come back from this preaching and teaching circuit that they’ve made around Galilee.

They’re worn out from that, And they’ve come back and they’ve reported back to Jesus all the things that they had seen and done. They’re fresh back from this ministry trip in verse 30. And Jesus says in verse 31 that they need to go away and they need to rest. Because they had been hard at work.

So Jesus says, go rest. By the way, it’s not always working ourselves to death that is the most spiritual thing to do, right? I think this is why my pastor growing up used to say, sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap. Jesus even rested from time to time.

Jesus told his disciples they needed to all go away and rest. So that they, if you let yourselves get worn out too much, sometimes you’re not going to be any good for the ministry you’re trying to do. And so he said, you need to rest. We need to rest. In verse 31, we see that they had not even had time to eat. Now, I don’t know about you all, but that’s a problem.

That’s a problem. more than once, Jimmy Ann or Kathy has walked in on a Wednesday night and seen me eating fruit out of a can. And there’s no classy way to do that, but they get here early, they see what they see.

And they’ve asked me, is that your supper? And I’ll say, no, this is just a snack so that I’m not hangry trying to teach y’all, right? And try to deal with my children.

I’ll have dinner later, but I’ve got to eat something or I’m going to be no good to anybody. They hadn’t even had time to eat. Kids, am I pleasant when I’m hungry?

Mama is, but I’m not. No. And I’ve even gotten in situations, especially on a Wednesday night, where I get busy on Wednesdays and I don’t eat what I should, when I should, or as much as I should.

And I’ll start getting headaches. I’ll start getting dizzy. I mean, it doesn’t go well.

So Jesus said, you need to stop and eat. They had not even had time to eat. And then they tried to go take some time to rest. The crowd followed them.

When they tried to get away in verse 32, the crowd followed them in verse 33. And some of the crowd were already there when they got to where they were going. I mean, think about that.

You’re trying to get away, have a moment to rest. So you get on the boat, you go across, and the crowd is running down the coast following you. And then you pull up at where you’re going in your boat, and you go to get off. oh good, there’s some more people here waiting for us.

That’s what Jesus encountered. And even then he had compassion on them. Verse 34 says, even in the midst of all of that inconvenience, Jesus looked at them and had compassion on them because he looked at them like sheep without a shepherd.

So they had all these needs and he went out and he served and he taught and he healed. And we see in John 6, 3 that partway through this, after everybody’s been healed and everybody’s been taught, Jesus and his disciples go a little further up the mountain because he still just needs a minute. Can I please just get a minute to myself?

And that’s when he saw that they were hungry and he went to feed them. Do you understand what I mean when I say everything he did in this story was an inconvenience for him? And yet he did it anyway.

Jesus here showed us that he was willing to sacrifice himself for the needs of his people. It’s not as dramatic as the cross, certainly, but already we’re seeing glimpses of the character of the one who was willing to lay down his life for us because he was willing to serve he was willing to heal he was willing to teach he was willing to meet all of these needs even when it wasn’t convenient and sometimes I need that reminder sometimes you probably need that reminder as well ministry is not always convenient it’s just not it wasn’t convenient for jesus and he did it anyway so another thing jesus demonstrated was his identity He put on full display who He was and who He is as the Son of God. So we have this issue of the food distribution.

And just to go back over it very quickly, He has everybody sit down in groups. Mark says 50s and 100s. The others say 50s.

It’s not a discrepancy. It’s not a contradiction. They’re speaking in general terms. He’s got these big groups of about 50, maybe some as big as 100.

It’s one of those things that skeptics will seize on, but it really doesn’t mean anything. All right. Big groups.

He had them sit down, took the five loaves and the two fishes, and he prayed and he began to distribute them, began to tear them in pieces, gave them to the disciples and said, here, go pass these out. One time I was teaching on this story to a bunch of first through third graders and I had them get in a circle and I brought one donut. I said, these people ate until they were full.

So I handed the donut to the first kid. I said, you eat until you’re full and then pass what’s left to the next child. The second child did not get any donut.

I said, you know why that is? Because they were all upset. I said, you know why that is?

Oh, why? Because I’m not Jesus. Next time you should have Jesus come teach children’s search if you all want donuts.

No, I had some backup donuts for him after the lesson. But he began to distribute and they were able to eat until they were full. All of that, and nobody went hungry.

But the even more remarkable thing after that is he sent the disciples around each of them with a basket to collect the leftovers. Think about that, 5,000 plus people with five loaves and two fishes. Not only was everybody full, but there were leftovers to begin with, but there were 12 baskets of fragments left over.

And I feel pretty certain. Now, I’ve not seen the size of these loaves or the size of these fish or the size of these baskets, but I feel pretty certain that they didn’t fill 12 baskets to start out with. I’d be surprised if the five loaves and two fishes, because they’re not big French bread loaves, little things like we had at the Living Lord’s Supper, which I think are delicious, by the way.

Sharon, thank you for making those. I know she’s not here, but maybe she’ll see it later. Little loaves like that and fish.

I’d be surprised if they filled up one basket. So Jesus does this. He prays.

He breaks it. He distributes it. Everybody eats.

Everybody’s full. And he ends up with more leftovers than food that he started out with in the first place. It’s just incredible.

And if it weren’t for the fact that the Bible has such a long track record of accuracy, historical accuracy, archaeological accuracy, documentary evidence that the men who wrote these four Gospels were eyewitnesses or associates of the eyewitnesses. If there weren’t a track record of reliability here, I would have trouble believing this because I just don’t understand how it’s possible. But if you start from the premise of Jesus being God and you believe that God spoke the entire universe into existence, it’s really not that much of a stretch of imagination to think that Jesus somehow made these five loaves and two fishes go as far as they did.

Jesus fed 5,000 men and more women and children than we have numbers for. And it was so miraculous that the way that the food was distributed, the way the leftovers were collected, it was so miraculous that people could not help but take notice. And here again, John sheds some additional light on what’s going on in the situation.

At the very end of this, really, I think the last thing that’s recorded among the four gospels of this story is where John speaks in John 6, 14 and says, then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, and that’s what it was, it was a sign. It’s not a parlor trick. It was a sign deliberately intended to show them who he was.

Those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, this is truly the prophet who has come into the world. Now, don’t misunderstand what they are saying there. They are not just saying Jesus is a great teacher.

They’re not even just saying that Jesus is a prophet. When they say Jesus is the prophet who has come into the world, that is a very specific Old Testament reference that is talking about the Messiah, talking about one that Moses even said would come along who would be greater than he was. And my goodness, you listen to the religious leaders of his day talk, there was nobody greater than Moses.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day talk, there was nobody greater than Moses. But Moses, in Deuteronomy 18. 15, talked about this prophet who would come who would be greater than him.

He said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. He goes on to describe this prophet who would be even greater. And this was something they knew it was something they would have been familiar with because in John 1 21, the people began to ask John the Baptist if he was that prophet.

They were asking him, are you the Messiah? Are you the one Moses spoke of? And John said, no, it’s not me.

There’s another one coming who’s greater than I am. So don’t miss that in John 6 14. They saw this sign and they said, this is truly the prophet who has come into the world.

Not just, oh, he’s a wise teacher. Oh, he’s a prophet. They’re calling him Some of these people are starting to get it.

Now they still misunderstand what the Messiah has come to do, but they are beginning to understand just who Jesus is. This miracle was that powerful. I’ve had some good food in my time.

I’ve been to some potlucks where it stretched further than we thought it should, but none of those cases have ever convinced me that anybody there involved in the potluck was the Messiah. So they clearly saw an incredible sign, something that convinced them that Jesus was who He said He was.