August 2, 2020

Our Gospel Lesson for this week is the feeding of the five thousand (plus women and children). It reveals our Lord’s compassion and concern for the great throngs that followed Him. It also presents to us a tremendous commission. It portrays, on the one hand, the desperate needs of the world. The hungry multitude about Christ represented need, and one does not have to look very far beyond one’s own nose to see that the thing most common to all people is need – of one kind or another. There are hundreds of millions throughout our world today who are in need of the most fundamental elements of physical existence – food, clothing, medicine, shelter, security, freedom. There is within all humanity the need for inner assurance and serenity, for meaning and purpose in life.

On the other hand, the miracle in question portrays the mighty, eternally sufficient provision of God. Our Lord’s first action in the face of the oncoming crowd, was to turn to His disciples as if to lay the responsibility of feeding the crowd on them. “We have here only five loaves, and two fish,” they said to Him. “Bring them here to Me,” said Jesus, and taking the loaves and the fish, “He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowd.

Jesus gave these people what they wanted: a miracle to thrill them and bread to fill them. But He who sustained physical life with mere bread was here for the real purpose of giving people eternal life with that Bread which came from heaven, the Son of God Himself. He would have these people and us understand that the provision of God is more than enough to fulfill every need of every man, woman and child, and that He is God himself come to earth to bring that ample, divine provision to needy hearts and lives.

Our Lord has made us a channel of His provision to the needs of people in our world. May He give us the willingness and compassion to meet those needs as best we can through the blessings he gives to us.