Mark 6:30-44: The Most Amazing Miracle

INTRODUCTION

On our door at Village place we have a little poster our daughter made for us. On it is a picture of five little round loaves of bread and two fishes. Written above the picture are these words: “Love is a basket with five loaves and two fish. It is never enough until you start to give it away.”

No one has ever remarked about it. I wonder whether those words make sense to anyone who may read it.

But you will know. It refers to the most spectacular of Jesus’s miracles, The Feeding of the 5000—the only miracle that is included in all four gospels.

Here is the story from Mark 6:30-44:

The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves.

Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them.

As he landed he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.”

But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.”

And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?”

And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.”

And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”

Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass. So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

I. Here is the situation.

A. What happened was an interruption. Someone said, “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.”

But if we think about it, most of our best opportunities to serve God come as interruptions in our daily routine.

Suppose I am relaxing, reading my book when I get a phone call. Someone I know is in the hospital, I need to go and see her, or him.

Or I hear of a friend who has lost a loved one. I need to be with them. I don’t know what to say. It is awkward. But I know I need to be there, if just to hold that person’s hand and pray and let them know I care.

Someone seeks you out for conversation. You would rather watch your TV program, but you turn it off so that you can meet that person’s need for friendship.

Useful people’s lives are full of interruptions. They respond to needs, and they have the satisfaction that their lives count for something.

Jesus’s life was full of interruptions—interruptions that taxed his energy, but interruptions that he welcomed.

This multitude that had followed Jesus was an interruption that—weary as he was—he welcomed.

B. The disciples had just returned from their first mission trip without Jesus. They had many experiences to report and to talk over—interesting experiences, problems, and questions.

Also, they had just received the tragic news of the murder of John the Baptist by the cruel tyrant, King Herod.

John was Jesus’s cousin. He was the one person on earth who probably understood Jesus better than any other. John was the one who introduced Jesus to the nation when Jesus began his public ministry.

But John had fallen afoul of King Herod. Herod had locked him up, and then, during a drunken party, Herod had had him executed.

This news of John’s tragic death must have troubled Jesus. John had paid the ultimate price for his faithfulness. Jesus had to see in John’s fate, a foretaste of the ordeal he would also experience.

C. So, in order to escape the crowd, Jesus and his disciples set out in a boat. They intended to climb up the side of a mountain and find a quiet place to talk things over, pray, and be refreshed.

But it was not to be. The crowd followed, running around the lake, and by the time Jesus arrived in the boat, the fastest runners in the crowd were already there waiting for him.

II. And then we read of Jesus’s reaction to this interruption of his plans: (v34):  “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”

A. The reason Jesus welcomed the crowds—no matter how tired he must have been—no matter how it interrupted his plans—was because they were “like sheep without a shepherd.”

Sheep without a shepherd are helpless creatures. Horses, dogs, goats, and donkeys can survive in the wild, but domesticated sheep are helpless creatures. Wild sheep are resourceful, but humans have bred all of the intelligence and resourcefulness out of domesticated sheep. Domesticated sheep are docile and dependent. They depend on the shepherd to lead them to food and water and to keep them safe.

That is why in the ancient world, kings called themselves “shepherds,” and in the Old Testament, leaderless people were called “sheep without a shepherd.”

B. So Jesus’s response to these lost, leaderless people was compassion.

One woman gave this definition of compassion. She said, “Compassion is feeling the hurt in my sister’s heart.”

I thought that was a good definition, but recently I have come to realize that that definition falls short.

“Feeling the hurt in my sister’s heart”—if that’s as far as it goes is sympathy; it is not compassion. Compassion is to feel the hurt—and to do something about it

Sympathy is five loaves and two fish in a basket. Compassion is giving what we have in acts of helpfulness, kindness, and self-denial.

That is the lesson of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite may have felt sympathy as they passed by the wounded, dying man. But they did nothing. The Samaritan showed compassion. He stopped, poured oil and wine into the man’s wounds, bandaged them, put him on his donkey and took him to the inn and cared for him.

C. Jesus knew that the first thing these harassed and helpless people needed was a word from God.

How we would have loved to hear that message. But I think we can imagine some of the things Jesus may have said.

He may have said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

He may have said, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

He might have told them the story of the Prodigal Son and the Waiting Father.

III. When the hour grew late the disciples made a sensible suggestion. They came to Jesus and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.”

A. I want to call our attention to what this tells us about how eager the people were for the teaching that Jesus was giving them. They were so hungry for God’s Word that they didn’t go home, even though they had been all day without food!

I have wondered how Jesus could have spoken so loudly that more than 5000 people would be able to hear what he said.

I remember that, in the days of my youth, before public address systems were common, preachers developed huge voices.

Here is an interesting bit of information. It is taken from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography:

Benjamin Franklin had read reports that George Whitfield preached to crowds of tens of thousands in England.

So when Whitfield came to America, Franklin went to a revival meeting of Whitfield’s in Philadelphia.

He went to where Whitfield was preaching at the courthouse. He walked away towards his shop in Market Street until he could no longer hear Whitefield distinctly.

When he got to that point he estimated his distance from Whitefield and calculated the area of a semicircle centered on Whitefield. Allowing two square feet per person, he computed that Whitefield could be heard by over thirty thousand people in the open air!

I rather suspect that not all 5000 were hearing everything Jesus said all the time.

Some may have been gathering in little groups to discuss among their friends what they had heard.

And it is interesting that Mark notes only the men. Matthew tells us that there were also women and children in Jesus’s audience. So the total was more than 5000.

B. Isn’t it curious how Jesus answered the disciples’ suggestion that he dismiss the crowd? He said, “You give them something to eat.”

Jesus had decided what he was going to do. Maybe he was teasing them. Maybe he was trying to keep them guessing what might happen next.

Jesus’s disciples were used to surprises. They were also used to doing what Jesus told them to do.

So when Jesus told them to get the people to sit down in groups of 50 and 100, they followed his instructions—even though they must have wondered greatly what Jesus had in mind to do.

I have always wondered how the disciples organized the people into these groups.

But a few years ago a missionary from India showed us pictures of a big gathering of tribes-people in the mountains of north India.

At this gathering—which numbered in the hundreds—the leaders stationed women with rods at the entrances to the area. As the people came through, the women would count them off, and when they got to a certain number, they would drop their rods and send a group of people off to find a place to sit together.

In this way they organized the audience and could know how many were in attendance.

IV. Notice what Jesus did next.

A. After the people had arranged themselves on the green grass, Jesus took the loaves and the fishes and looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves.

As Jesus looked up, he directed their thoughts toward God, who is the giver of all that is good.

I believe he was also holding a loaf up also, just as your pastor or priest may do when you have communion at your church.

B. Then Jesus began breaking the bread and handing it out to his disciples to distribute. We don’t know how the bread was multiplied. We can only imagine. But it proved to be enough for everyone to eat his or her fill.

CONCLUSION

Here are four important lessons this story teaches us.

1. The first lesson: Jesus works through people.

He didn’t make bread out of thin air. He didn’t turn stones into bread.

John tells us that Andrew found a boy in the crowd who had a lunch of five barley loaves (barley was the grain the poor used) and two small fishes. In those days the poor people ate little pickled or salted fish as an appetizer with their bread. These would have been what we call “sardines” or “pickled herring.”

So Jesus used this little lunch, intended for one small boy’s meal to feed the crowd.

Maybe you think you don’t have much. Give what you have to God. He may surprise you what he does with your offering—whether it is money or time, or effort or getting out and taking a chance.

When we get to heaven we will be surprised at what a difference our small gifts have made.

So Jesus used materials supplied by the boy. And he used his disciples to pass out the food.

This is the first lesson: Jesus uses his people to do his work in the world. You and I as Christian believers are partners with God in bringing his love into our world.

Someone saw suffering in the world and cried out to God, “God, why don’t you do something?”

And God said, “I did do something. I made you!”

Sympathy is five loaves and two fishes in your basket.

Compassion is giving what you have in acts of helpfulness, kindness, and self-denial.

The love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay.

Love isn’t love ‘till you give it away.

2. The second lesson: The twelve baskets full of leftovers impress us with the abundance of God’s gifts.

You remember the story of the wedding at Cana, when Jesus turned water into wine.

Jesus didn’t just make enough wine for that feast. He made six jars of wine, and each jar held 20-30 gallons!

That blessed newlywed couple had enough wine to last for months. It was probably their best wedding gift!

That’s Jesus’s specialty: to give us more than we can expect. Jesus said of his followers, “I am come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

I know—some of you aren’t feeling that you are living abundantly right now. Jesus warned us that in the world we would have tribulation. Don’t expect that your life will always be running over with blessings.

But if you are living for Jesus, you will someday look back and see that it was an abundant life. And if Jesus is truly your Lord, you have experienced some of that already.

3. The third lesson: Jesus is the Bread of Life.

Each of Jesus’s miracles is an acted-out parable. That is why John’s gospel calls them always “signs.”

Jesus opens the eyes of the blind, and says, “I am the light of the world.”

He tells a paralyzed man, “Arise and walk.” And shows us that he is the one who frees us from our bondage to sin.

He raises his friend Lazarus from the grave and says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

He casts out demons and shows us his power over the Evil One.

He stills the storm on the lake, and demonstrates that he is with us in the storms of life.

He multiplies a boy’s little lunch to feed more than 5000 people and says, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry.”

4. The fourth lesson: This picnic on the grass in Galilee prefigures the heavenly banquet we will all enjoy in Glory.

Because whatever else heaven will be, it will be a great feast, which we will sit down to with Jesus, our Savior; and our friends; and all God’s children; along with the saints and angels; and it will be like a wonderful banquet.

Now that’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?