Mark 6: 35-44 (NLT)
Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.” But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” Then Jesus told the disciples to gave the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!
It’s the mountain every seeker must scale. The lingering question every soul must inquire. How? How can something come from nothing? Or next-to-nothing? How can we die and still find life? How can we be strongest when we are at our weakest? How does surrendering lead to victory? How can all these divine paradoxes be true?
Here is yet another Jesus story which has been watered down into a fairy tale children’s story. While this culinary episode is far from a mere wives tale, it’s a hump many truth seekers can’t get over. Up to that point, people witnessed many apparently unexplainable things - from the stormy weather subsiding, to healings, to exorcisms. But all that could have possibly been staged. (It wasn’t, of course. I’m only trying to make a point). Imagine, however, the scene at this supper as Jesus takes next-to-nothing and pinches off piece after piece. Except the fish and bread aren’t losing any mass! Its as if it regrows the instant his fingers snag another piece. From this meager meal for one, over five thousand are fed. With twelve doggie bags to spare! How can this be?
Quite simply because we as humans respond the same way the disciples did when Jesus challenged them to solve the problem. We try to fix it materialistically, by purchasing something instead of trusting him with the impossible. We want to win the lost with a great new ministry or fancy gadgets or corporate Christianity, when the whole time Jesus waits to take our “next-to-nothing“ - a message, a verse, a testimony - and feed thousands.
With leftovers to spare!
