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Date |
Theme |
Handout |
Audio |
|
August 3, 2008 |
You give them something to eat!
Matthew 14:13-21 |
No PDF available this week |
|
|
13 |
Now
when Jesus heard this,
he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
But when the crowds heard it,
they followed him on foot from the towns. |
Re:
execution of John the Baptist.
Jesus
“withdrew ... to a desolate place by himself” (grieve?)
Crowds:
“followed him on foot”
“That a
large crowd was anxious to follow Jesus there may suggest,
as Jn. 6:14–15 makes clear, that this was no chance gathering
but a deliberate popular movement to force Jesus into political
action (see on v 21 below). → 21 Besides women and
children could be translated ‘excluding women and children’,
i.e. only men were present, indicating a ‘military’
flavour to the gathering.” |
|
14 |
When he went
ashore he saw a great crowd,
and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
|
Jesus =
divine compassion |
|
15 |
Now when it
was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a
desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to
go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” |
Disciples =
(1) reasonable compassion – within the bounds of our own
resources.
In fairness
to the disciples, Jesus had never performed a miracle such as
was about to occur; there was no precedence in their experience
with Jesus that would suggest the idea of the miracle.
However,
being in a desolate place with no immediately available
resources for feeding a large population should have spurred the
disciples' catechetical training: Exod. 16.
(2) limited
compassion – when it is inconvenient, send them away. |
|
16 |
But Jesus
said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
|
Jesus is
still thinking of his compassion for the people rather than the
inconvenience to his disciples. How many times God leads us
into “inconvenient” situations to accomplish his purposes!
Gk: you
yourselves give them something to eat!
What is the
purpose of Jesus' command?
1: Show the
disciples Jesus' power to use their insignificant resources to
accomplish miraculous things.
2:
Invitation for the disciples to join in Jesus' mission. “I'm
going to do something great, and I want you to be a part of it.”
3: Show the
disciples that their own resources will always be insufficient
for the need. And that he is able to use those insufficient
resources to accomplish his purposes. |
|
17 |
They said to
him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” |
(a) The
disciples were intimidated by the magnitude of the problem and
by the insignificance of their resources.
(b) “There's
not enough for us, let alone for this crowd!” (“We need to take
care of our own needs before we can think about helping
others.”) → selfishness. |
|
18 |
And he said,
“Bring them here to me.” |
GOD IS NEVER
INTIMIDATED BY THE MAGNITUDE OF OUR PROBLEM!
God is never impressed by or limited by the size of our
resources. |
|
19 |
Then he
ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five
loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a
blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the
disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
|
Blessed,
broke, gave to the disciples – pre-shadows Holy Communion → Word
of the Gospel.
The task of
the church is always to preach the good news (break the bread of
life). |
|
20 |
And they all
ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of
the broken pieces left over. |
|
|
21 |
And those
who ate were about five thousand men,
besides women and
children. |
|
Jesus has power to act in our needs and the needs
of the world. He brings us face to face with the need, not that we will
be overwhelmed by the need, but firmly grounded in his overwhelming
power to meet the need.
He is able! |