Matthew 14:12-21 “Morsels from the Feeding of the 5,000”
Translation & sermon by
Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 02 Sept 2012
Translation
14:12 Then, after his disciples arrived, they picked up the
carcass and buried him.
Then they went and reported to Jesus.
14:13 Now, after Jesus heard, He retreated from there in a
boat into an uninhabited place by Himself, and, after they heard, the crowds
followed Him by foot away from the city.
14:14 And as He went out, Jesus saw a numerous crowd and was
gut-wrenched over them and healed those who were unhealthy among them.
14:15 After it began to get late, His disciples approached
Him, saying,
“The place is uninhabited and the
dinner-hour has already passed;
send away the crowds so that that
they may go away into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
14:16 But Jesus said to them, “They have no need to go away;
start giving them [food] to eat
yourselves!”
14:17 But as for them, they kept saying to Him, “We don’t
have but five loaves and two fish here!”
14:18 Then He said, “Keep bringing them here to me.”
14:19 And after ordering the crowds to be seated upon the
grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up into the sky
and then said a blessing, and, after breaking the loaves, He gave to the
disciples, and the disciples to the crowds,
14:20 and they all ate and were satisfied, and they picked
up the surplus of the pieces: twelve full baskets,
14:21 yet the men who were eating numbered approximately
five thousand – apart from women and children!
Introduction
I want to begin by making a confession: The person who
delivers sermons here most Sunday mornings is not the real Nate Wilson.
- The real Nate Wilson struggles to prioritize time in God’s
word.
- The real Nate Wilson usually feels too cranky to worship
God.
- And the real Nate Wilson is utterly incapable of speaking
coherently for 45 minutes with only a week’s preparation – just ask my
family.
- Every week I am terrified at the prospect of having to
stand before you and confess that I have nothing to say. That’s the real
me.
So when I studied this passage, I really identified with the
disciples when Jesus told them to feed a crowd of perhaps 25,000 men, women,
and children, when all they had was five loaves of bread and two fish. (Do you
ever feel that way?) “What? Are you crazy, Lord? This is simply not possible!
You’re going to make a fool out of me!”
In this passage, Jesus teaches us how to handle situations
like this. Jesus leads by example and then coaches His disciples to do the exact
opposite of what we would naturally want to do (which is to withdraw and
protect ourselves), instead His way is 1) to let our hearts be moved with
compassion, 2) to offer ourselves to God, and then 3) to act by giving away
what God gives to us.
As I saw this pattern, I
realized that this is so true in my sermon preparation: As I take the time to
let my heart be moved by what I read in the Bible and by what is going on in
the lives of people in our congregation, and as I offer my puny mind and body
to God and start trying to write a sermon despite the impossibility of it,
invariably thoughts begin to flow through me, and God gives me a sermon after a
couple of day of work. In fact, I usually have so much that I have to edit out
a couple of pages from the sermon because I have more than I need! Even though
this has happened about 315 times so far, I still find myself amazed at the end
of the process. So I want to share this with you.
It starts with the context of what we covered last week as
John the Baptizer was beheaded by the command of Herod Antipas, as he was
unjustly influenced by his illegitimate wife Herodias and her daughter. Verse
12 opens with John’s disciples responding to the situation:
Exposition
14:12 Then, after his disciples arrived, they picked up
the carcass and buried him, then they went and reported to Jesus.
και
προσελθοντες
‘οι μαθηται
αυτου ηραν το
πτωμα
και εθαψαν
αυτο[ν]
και ελθοντες
απηγγειλαν τω
Ιησου
- John the Baptizer’s disciples realized that it was time to
stop following John and start following the Messiah to whom John had
pointed them, and so they became the ones to bear the news to Jesus that
John had been martyred.
- Perhaps they knew that Jesus was a cousin and would mourn
for a family member.
- Perhaps they also knew that Jesus hated Herod and would
grieve over the injustice of this faithful man’s death.
- And perhaps they knew that John and Jesus were connected
in their life missions as messengers from God, John to prepare the way for
Jesus, and Jesus to prepare the way to God, and thus they may have felt
the responsibility to warn Jesus that the powers which destroyed John also
threatened Him.
- So John’s disciples make the trek the whole length up the Jordan River from Machareus at the South end to the sea of Galilee at the North end to
find Jesus.
14:13 Now, after Jesus heard, He retreated from there in
a boat into an uninhabited place by Himself, and, after they heard, the crowds
followed him by foot away from the city.
ακουσας
δε
‘ο Ιησους
ανεχωρησεν
εκειθεν εν
πλοιω εις
ερημον τοπον
κατ’ ιδιαν και
ακουσαντες ‘οι
οχλοι ηκολουθησαν
αυτω πεζη απο
των πολεων
- Upon hearing the news of John’s death, Jesus departedKJV/withdrewNAS,NIV/retreated,
probably borrowing one of his disciples’ fishing boats from the beach near
his home in Capernaum at the North side of the lake and charting across
the lake to the East side beyond Bethsaida Julius, where nobody lived.
Mark 6 and Luke 9 tell us that He took the disciples with Him.
- You may remember that Jesus did this exact same thing of
“withdrawing” to a place where He could think and pray without
interruptions, when He first heard that John had been thrown into prison
back in Matt. 4:12.
- The scriptures don’t give us details, but I suspect that
Jesus wanted time to grieve over the death of a family
member He loved, that Jesus wanted to grieve over the evil which
lead to this unjust execution, and that Jesus realized that the death of
John meant His own death would be next, and He needed to prepare
Himself for this.
- This desolateESV/secludedNAS/solitaryNIV/dessertKJV/wilderness
was a fitting place to process the death of John, since the wilderness
had been the place of John’s ministry during his life (3:1, 11:7).
- Grieving is not sinful; it is what men of God do
when it is appropriate.
- If Jesus sought out special times alone with His Father
to pray things through, then we as His followers need to do the same
from time to time. Do you ever make time to get alone for an extended
period of time to pray?
- When Jesus “heard” He went away from the
crowds, but when the crowds “heard,” they followed Jesus into the
wilderness, not allowing Him to be alone.
- It reminds me of the Jew’s forefather, Jacob/Israel, who
kept grabbing the angel and preventing him from leaving, wrestling with
Him and saying, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” (Gen. 32:26)
- It is what any immature child does who loves his mother
or father – He’ll follow you around even when you don’t want him around,
because in his developing mind, if you love someone, you will be with
them 100% of the time!
- What a comfort therefore it is that Jesus assures us,
“Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world!” (28:20b)
- Although there is a place for being considerate of other
people and their limitations, Jesus represented a special opportunity
to see the face of God, and, for many people in the crowd, it was an act
of faith and devotion to Him to follow Jesus into the wilderness, so
they were doing the right thing.
- They followed on foot, around the perimeter
of the lake, to get to Jesus, and the Bible specifically mentions that
this meant leaving the town as they did so.
- Would you follow Jesus if it meant leaving your home,
leaving your source of income, leaving your food-pantry,
and leaving society behind? That’s what these people were doing.
They were risking loss of income; they had no food, and they didn’t know
where they would end up – all they wanted was to be with Jesus.
- Now, there is a balance between spiritual
devotion and physical dominion – part of “lov[ing] the Lord your
God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” is using your mind
and strength to “be fruitful and multiply and fill and earth and subdue
it.”
- But when following Jesus into the wilderness is an act of
devotion and is not an act of disobedience to His
calling, it is not wrong, and He will prove Himself a “rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him.” (Heb. 11:6)
- Now, put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. What if
you were in Jesus’ shoes and had been wanting time alone to process
something, and suddenly a crowd of needy people showed up in your private
place?
- What if you’ve shut the door to your bedroom (or
maybe even had to lock yourself into the bathroom) in order to get a
quiet time, and suddenly two kids are knocking on your door at once,
demanding your attention?
- What if you were in the office or your study
or dorm trying to get something prepared in time for a deadline,
and then the phone rings or a text comes in from somebody who needs a
reponse right away?
- What would Jesus do? What DID Jesus do?
14:14 And as he went out, Jesus saw a numerous crowd and
was gut-wrenched over them, and He healed those who were unhealthy among them.
Και εξελθων
[‘ο Ιησους]
ειδεν πολυν
οχλον και
εσπλαγχνισθη
επ’ αυτοις και
εθεραπευσεν
τους αρρωστους
αυτων
- It is my opinion that the KJV translated this verse more
accurately than the ESV, NAS, and NIV. The Greek text does not
specifically say that Jesus was stepping out of the boat and landing on
the shore, it just says that He “went out.” I believe that “out” is in
contrast to the “into” from the previous verse where He withdrew “into” a
deserted place. So, as I interpret it, Jesus made it off the boat into
His solitary place and now is coming out to engage in ministry with
people again.
- As He steps out of seclusion, the scene meets His eyes of
a whole bunch of needy people who want to be with Him. What is His
response?
- “Oh no! Folks, I’ve had rough week; I’m feeling really
stressed out and emotionally fragile right now, and I just need you to
give me some space! Go away and leave me alone! Can’t a guy have some
peace and quiet?”
- That’s NOT what Jesus said, is it? But if you’re anything
like me, it’s what I’m inclined to say all too often.
- Followers of Jesus, will you follow His example and die
to the meeting of your emotional needs and instead welcome opportunities
to give yourself away to bless others like Jesus did?
- It that a hard calling? How on earth can we follow Jesus
in this self-sacrificing love?
- First, we must allow ourselves to be “moved with
compassion.”
- The Greek word is splagchne, from which we get
the word “spleen” and it could more literally be translated, “He was
gut-wrenched.”
- We saw this word on another occasion back in 9:36, “But
when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for
them, because they were harassed and helpless, as sheep not having a
shepherd.”
- The modern English translations say that Jesus
“felt/had compassion” on them, whereas the KJV says he was “moved with
compassion.” It is debatable whether the verb is passive or deponent,
that is, whether Jesus actively made Himself feel compassion or whether
the outward circumstances together with the work of the Holy Spirit put
a knot in His stomach for Him,
- but both components have to be there for you to be
moved with compassion: you must allow yourself to be open to share the
pain that other people are experiencing, and then when their brokenness
spills out on you and the Holy Spirit is guiding your heart, you will
be able to grieve with those who grieve,
- but it can’t stop there; under the influence of the
Holy Spirit and the power of God, followers of Jesus must move on to
the next step:
- We must use whatever resources God gives us to bring
healing to those who come our way.
- It may include physical healing like Jesus did,
whether you have a natural ability or a trained ability
to notice causes of physical problems and address them, or
whether you are led by God to pray for supernatural
healing.
- (You know that in the book of James chapter 5, it says that if
you’re sick, it is proper to call the elders of the church and have
them pray for you to be healed, and that is something that the elders
of this church do regularly.)
- There may be other needs which God enables you to
address, whether it be providing a sympathetic ear and giving a hug,
- or giving good counsel, speaking the truth in
love, and sharing the good news of God’s grace through Jesus, (The
parallel account in the Gospel of Mark assures us that Jesus taught as
he healed.)
- or doing an act of service like cleaning
up somebody else’s mess, or cooking them a good meal, or doing
manual labor that they aren’t strong enough to do.
- It could even mean providing a safe home for orphans
or refugees,
- whatever God gives you the desire and the
resources to do. Let us follow Jesus’ example and deny ourselves, allow
ourselves to be moved with compassion, and act to bring God’s healing
into a broken world as He leads and provides for us to do so.
14:15 After it began to get late, His disciples
approached Him, saying, “The place is uninhabited, and dinner-time has already
passed; send away the crowds so that that they may go away into the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
Οψιας δε
γενομενης
προσηλθον αυτω
‘οι μαθηται
αυτου-אB λεγοντες Ερημος
εστιν ‘ο τοπος
και ‘η ‘ωρα ηδη
παρηλθεν
απολυσον τους
οχλους ‘ινα
απελθοντες εις
τας κωμας
αγορασωσιν ‘εαυτοις
βρωματα
- To be fair, the thinking of the disciples was very practical.
It was getting dark, and they were out in the middle of nowhere, and
almost nobody had any prospect of eating supper. So this was a very
practical plan: send the crowd back into the suburbs for a dinner break.
- But, for some inexplicable reason, both Jesus and the
crowd seem to be out-of-touch with the disciples’ “good sense.”
- The disciples realize that they’re going to have to talk
Jesus into this, so hey come out with this list of reasons why their plan
is such a good idea.
- Secondly, the crowds themselves have apparently not dispersed
to scare up dinners for themselves; they are sticking around with Jesus
because they have prioritized being with Him over having a full stomach
that evening. Wow!
- The disciples unwittingly hit upon a plan that is the
exact opposite of Jesus’ example! Instead of opening up to compassion
and sharing God’s resources, they say, “Get rid of the needy
people and let everybody take care of their own needs.”
- The command that the disciples used must have acted
upon Jesus like an electric shock; they command the Bridegroom of the
church to “send away” His bride.
- Although there are other meanings to the Greek word
translated “send away,” since the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew,
every time this Greek word apolusw has occurred, it has meant
“divorce:”
- Mat 1:19 Joseph… planned to divorce her
privately….
- 5:32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces
his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit
adultery”
- The disciples were effectively saying, “Jesus, divorce
your church and make them start acting as though they have no husband to
care for them.”
- If Jesus had any question about the best course of action
for the evening, it was clear to Him now what He must do:
- He must not divorce His bride the church;
- He must teach His followers the live like He is their
husband,
- and He must train His disciples to reverse the
antithesis of “disengage and fend for yourself” and instead follow
Him in His thesis of “care and heal.”
- So Jesus replies in such a way as to challenge His disciples
to start reversing their paradigm of ministry with His reply:
14:16 But Jesus said to them, “They have no need to go
away; start giving them [food] to eat yourselves!”
‘Ο δε Ιησους-אD ειπεν αυτοις Ου
χρειαν εχουσιν
απελθειν δοτε
αυτοις ‘υμεις
φαγειν
- “Jesus, what do you mean that they don’t NEED to go away? WE
need them to go away, and THEY need something to eat! Besides, we don’t
have the resources to feed ourselves, much less the
thousands of hungry people standing around here!”
14:17 But as for them, they kept saying to Him, “We don’t have but five
loaves and two fish here!”
‘Οι δε
λεγουσιν αυτω Ουκ
εχομεν ‘ωδε ει
μη πεντε
αρτους και δυο
ιχθυας
- As we see from the parallel gospel accounts, only one kid
in the entire crowd had the sense to pack dinner before going on this wild
goose chase with Jesus, and it is his dinner that the disciples are
referring to.
- Whether it was Andrew’s son (John 6:8), or whether the
disciples took the time to poll the entire crowd, looking for who
had food to share, the disciples were faced with the problem that they had
no food to share, and this kid’s fish and chips were the only
food resources they could get their hands on in this desolate place.
- According to the Gospel of John, the apostle Phillip
estimated that a person could work for 200 days and still not earn enough
wages to pay for a scanty meal for a crowd that size. “We don’t have what
it takes,” was his conclusion.
- Have you ever felt that way?
- “Lord, there is a houseful of children at loose ends,
getting into trouble and making messes; I can’t possibly bring discipline
and order and blessing out of all of this!”
- “Lord, there is a waiting room full of sick patients; how
can I possibly help them all?”
- “There is a classroom full of students with levels of
brokenness I can’t even begin to fathom; how can I possibly begin to
fulfill their longings?”
- “There is a battalion full of soldiers who are acting
like idiots and officers who are out of touch with reality – how can I
possibly lead in this environment?”
- “There is a university full of international students who
are so overwhelmed in this new American experience that they can barely
get themselves to a grocery store or find furniture or understand their
class assignments; how can I possibly begin to address so many needs?”
- Jesus’ reply? “You yourselves, start giving them
something.”
“Let it break your heart, then bring it to me, and let’s do something
about it.” That’s in essence what Jesus says to us. He starts with:
14:18 Then He said, “Keep bringing them here to me.”
‘Ο δε
ειπεν Φερετε μοι
αυτους ‘ωδε
- Jesus’ first command was “Start giving them something”
(The Aorist tense in the Greek command focuses on the start-up of the
action), but how do we do that?
- His second command tells us how to prepare to give
other people something, and that is to bring it to Him first.
- The Present tense of this command indicates continuing
action:
- The disciples had started to bring the boy and his bread
and fish up to Jesus, but were unsure of what to do because it seemed so
inadequate to offer tens of thousands of people a quantity of food which
was only enough for one family.
- Jesus encourages His disciples by saying, “You’re on the
right track, guys, keep bringing what you’ve found to me; finish what you
started there, and bring the boy and his fish right up to me.”
- It takes a step of faith to offer our ridiculously-limited
resources to Jesus as though it could make any kind of dent in the world’s
poverty and crime and disease and ignorance and pain and spiritual
lostness. Yeah, right!
- My tithe doesn’t amount to beans; why bother? “Keep
bringing it here to me.”
- My compassion is so shrivelled I can’t hardly love
my own wife, much less everybody in this church or other people in the
world.”
“Keep bringing what you’ve got of love to me.”
- My time is so limited with all the
responsibilities I carry, I don’t see how the little bit I have is going
to make any difference to anybody!
“Let me see what you’ve got. Bring it here.”
- God, I don’t know what to say. This person is
dealing with brokenness that I don’t know anything about! The little bit
of wisdom and experience I have is so paltry, it feels like I have
nothing to offer.
“Bring it here to me.”
- Will you offer the little bit you’ve got? That’s the
question.
- For crying out loud, Jesus has spent all day making lame
people walk, making blind people see, drying up runny noses and coughs,
healing cancer and the like. Is there any reason to think He can’t do a
miracle in the foodservice department too???
14:19 And after ordering the crowds to be seated upon the
grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up into the sky
and then said a blessing, and, after breaking the loaves, He gave to the
disciples, and the disciples to the crowds,
και κελευσας τους
οχλους
ανακλιθηναι
επι του χορτου λαβων
τους πεντε
αρτους και
τους δυο
ιχθυας αναβλεψας
εις τον
ουρανον
ευλογησεν και
κλασας εδωκεν
τοις μαθηταις
τους αρτους ‘οι
δε μαθηται
τοις οχλοις
- Once the disciples’ resources have been offered to Jesus
and they are willing to do something together to address the needs of the
people, Jesus sets the table for dinner.
- People ate in a sitting or reclining position, so
He has them all take the position for eating a meal, even though it’s
outdoors.
- Parallel accounts in the gospels of Mark and John tell us
that He had the people group into clusters of 50 each, which helped
with the accuracy of the head-count.
- He then asks a blessing which again creates the
anticipation that He is hosting a meal.
- And then the miraculous meal unfolds.
- Remember that before all this, Jesus had told His
disciples to “give” food to the people, and so it is now that the
disciples did indeed “give” the bread and fish to the crowd, but what they
“gave” was given to them first by Jesus.
- This is how to do ministry when you have opened your heart
to participate with God in compassion in the impossible task of bringing
healing to a broken and hurting world:
- Listen to God when He tells you to give
- Give what you have to Jesus,
- Then take what Jesus gives to you,
- And give that to the world.
- Now, what is the significance that Jesus “broke” this
bread? As best I can tell, it was customary for every meal in His culture.
- First off, the bread was considered the most important
part of the meal in Jesus’ day.
- I once roomed with a guy from Kenya, and he occasionally
cooked Kenyan food for the rest of us who were sharing the apartment.
The two meals I remember him making were called “ugali” and “chapatti.”
Ugali was a kind of cornbread, and Chapatti was a kind of flatbread made
of wheat flour. As our Kenyan roommate served Chapatti to me and my
American roommates for the first time, we assumed that “chapatti” was
the name for the stew that he made for us to dip the bread in,
but “No,” he informed us, “Chapati is the bread.” When we asked him what
his word for the stew was, he said that it was just to go with the
bread.
- Whereas in America we often think of bread as a side
dish, in Jesus’ culture it was considered the main dish. So because the
bread was the most important part of the meal, it was the component that
got the breaking ceremony.
- What is significant about breaking it?
- The Bible doesn’t mention any significance to breaking bread at
an everyday meal.
- As best I can tell, breaking bread was simply a way to
divide a large piece of food into meal-sized portions.
- One piece of bread must have been able to feed two or
more people, so, after the bread was cooked, the host would break the
bread into pieces large enough to serve each person at the table. (This
tradition is mentioned in Lev. 2:6; 6:21; Jdg. 19:5; 1Sa. 30:12; and;
Eze. 13:19.)
- Breaking bread then served as a symbol of the kind of
sharing that must go on in order to have community.
- And in the Lord’s Supper, the destruction of the wholeness
of the bread in order to nourish a community of people pictured
the way that Jesus would be crucified in order to save and nurture the
community of the church. But this symbolism would be saved for later in
Jesus’ life. For now…
14:20 and they all ate and were satisfied, and they
picked up the surplus of the pieces: twelve full baskets,
Και εφαγον
παντες και
εχορτασθησαν
και ηραν το
περισσευον των
κλασματων
δωδεκα
κοφινους
πληρεις
14:21 yet the men who were eating numbered approximately
five thousand – apart from women and children!
‘οι δε
εσθιοντες ησαν
ανδρες ‘ωσει
πεντακισχιλιοι
χωρις γυναικων
και παιδιων
- Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness,
And for His wonders to the sons of men! For He has satisfied the thirsty
soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good. (Psalm
107:8-9, NASB)
- And this was not just one hungry soul filled, but
5,000 men, plus who-knows-how-many women and children!
- The 12 baskets of leftovers
are significant. The number 12 often symbolizes fullness in the Bible:
- 12 months make a whole year,
- 12 tribes make up the whole nation of Israel,
- 12 disciples are the leaders of Jesus’ movement,
- And “fullness” is emphasized in that all who were
gathered were “filled/satisfied.”
- Perhaps by this, Jesus was
sending a signal to His disciples that He could provide enough for each
one of them to carry off their own hand-bag full of leftovers.
- There was no reason for them to worry in the first place
over not having enough resources to meet the needs of those Jesus had called
them to minister to. All they needed to do was allow their hearts to be
moved with compassion, take what they had to Jesus, and
then give to the people what Jesus gave them.
Conclusion
Are you willing to put that paradigm into practice?
- Jesus has shown us by His example to be moved with
compassion over people’s needs, to offer His resources up to God, and then
to let God’s blessing flow through Him to minister healing in this world.
- He then coached His disciples to do the same: Care about
the crowd, bring the five loaves and two fish to Jesus, and then give the
crowd something to eat.
- It is now your turn: Will you
allow your heart to be melted with compassion? Will you offer your meager
resources up to God? And will you give to the waiting world what He gives
to you?