to His disciples

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.(Mark 8:1-10, ESV)

Sorry that this is coming a day late. Yesterday was packed, work all day, fellowship all night, by the time I got home, I needed to sleep for work today. But it's all good now. I needed more time to think about this passage anyway.

It only came to me not that long ago that Jesus performed a mass feeding miracle twice. For some reason, I always thought He did that once. Goes to show how little I read the Bible back then. Oops.

Anyway, in this second round of mass feeding, it starts a little different. The first time, it was the disciples that brought up the issue of the crowd being hungry, and it was Jesus telling them  to go feed them themselves, to which they sarcastically asked how. This time, however, Jesus is the one that has compassion on the crowd. Having the crowd be with Him for three days straight is a bit exhausting, after all.

So Jesus does it again, this time with seven loaves and a few fish, as opposed to five loaves and two fish. It's an interesting thing to observe that last time, He fed more people with less food, and has more leftovers. This time, He feeds less people with more food, and has less leftovers. Five vs Seven loaves, two vs "a few" fish (however many that means, I have no idea) and twelve baskets full vs seven baskets full. Why is this the case?

Well, to be honest, I really don't know. What I do know is that both occasions teach that Christ is able to satisfy beyond what we need. So we should always look to Him for that.

What's amazing is the fact that despite Jesus having handled a situation like this before, the disciples STILL don't get that Jesus is Lord, and they STILL lack faith in Jesus being the great provider. They still ask how they're gonna be able to feed them all. It's hard to believe that their hearts with that hardened. It makes me wonder how Jesus put up with them on a daily basis.

Then again, it makes me wonder how Jesus puts up with me. It's not like I don't struggle with sometimes believing whether Christ will come through or not on certain occasions. I'm just as guilty as they are. I still sin, I still stumble and fall, I still doubt. And yet, God puts up with me. Not even begrudgingly puts up with me, like He ACTIVELY pursues me still.

When Jesus gives thanks and breaks the bread, He asks the disciples to set the food before the crowd. This is awesome. The disciples, even in all of their hard-heartedness, are still asked to participate in Jesus' ministry, in His miracles. Jesus still takes those that are seemingly inadequate, and He makes them take part of His work.

God took that which was weak, and used them mightily for His glory. This happens all the time in the Bible. And it happens in my life to this day.

I'm not that strong, I'm not that mighty. But yet, God sees me as something beyond what I am now, and He brings me there. He uses me in my weakness. 

If you haven't seen this clip yet, it basically sums up everything that I would want to say in this post...



And after all of this, Jesus takes His weak-made-strong disciples (and they don't even know yet) and He continues on to their next destination, Dalmanutha.

-simon