Jesus has just told His disciples to feed the large crowd in the remote place He is ministering in. The disciples are flummoxed, having not had made any advance preparation for excursions beyond town. “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.” They do not even have enough food for themselves, let alone a crowd of people. But Jesus is quite aware of that fact, as John’s Gospel makes clear;
“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?””
In 2Kings 4, we read the story of Elisha’s miracle of the feeding of a hundred. It reads, “A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said. “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’ ” Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.”
Asking five men to share a single loaf of barley bread and a few raw grains is asking them to go hungry. It would seem like they had been given little more than an appetizer. Yet as the prophet Elisha predicted, this large group ate and had some left over. This fact – the fact that the Father had done this before – is more than enough to give Jesus confidence that He can do it again (remember how Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”). Except in Jesus’ case it is not twenty loaves of bread that He will use to feed a hundred men. It is five loaves (or ‘a few’) and a couple of fish that He will use to feed five thousand men, plus their wives and children.
Like Elisha, Jesus starts with what He is given, and as with Elisha, a miraculous multiplication of resources takes place. The increase in order of magnitude is a reflection of the glory Christ brings to the Father compared to the glory Elisha brought. Both did the work of God, but the sinless nature of Christ allows a much greater miracle!
A rabbinic tradition interprets Exodus 14:22 to mean that only after the Israelites had gone into the sea up to their nostrils did the waters divide and expose dry ground (Exod. Rab. 21:10). This interpretation accurately captures what faith is all about. It does not wait to see if the waters will divide and then step out. It steps out, trusting God to do what is needed.
David E. Garland
APPLICATION: Intentionality
Knowing God, listening to God and hearing His voice are of little help unless we act in faith on what He says.