The Miraculous Feast

The Paschal moon above

Seems like a Saint to rove,
Left shining in the world with Christ alone;

Below the Lake’s still face

Sleeps sweetly in th’ embrace
Of mountains terraced high with mossy stone.

Here we may sit and dream

Over the heavenly theme,
Till to our soul the former days return;

Till on the grassy bed,

Where thousands once He fed,
The world’s incarnate Maker we discern.

“And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and, looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets fall.” — MATT. xiv. 19,20; MARK vi. 39-43; LUKE ix. 14-17; JOHN vi. 10-13.

THE miracle, which is to form the subject of this chapter, seems to have had an important influence on the Jewish mind, in substantiating the claims of Jesus to be the Son of God and the Messiah promised to the Fathers. We cannot wonder, therefore, that it occupies a prominent place in Gospel story. It is worthy of note that the miracle itself — the feeding of the five thousand — is described by all the four Evangelists. Even John, who seldom travels in his inspired narrative beyond the events transacted in Judea, on the present occasion inserts this remarkable Galilean incident, in connexion with the sublime discourse to which it gave rise on the Bread of life.

Before referring to the locality of the miracle, it may be well to advert to the two causes which seem to have induced our blessed Lord and His disciples to suspend, for a time, their labours on the busy western shore of GENNESAKET, and seek the seclusion and repose of the opposite side.

The first appears, from St Mark, to have been the untimely death of John the Baptist, whose imprisonment in the castle of Macherus on the Dead Sea, had just been terminated by an act of capricious and cold-blooded cruelty on the part of Herod. A sorrowing group of his bereaved disciples seem to have hastened, whenever the deed was consummated, (or rather after the interment of their master’s mangled remains,)

to inform a mightier than John of the mournful tragedy. He who afterwards wept tears of anguish over the grave of Lazarus, was not likely to be unmoved when the tidings reached Him of His greatest prophet — a true “Master in Israel” — having fallen.

We have here a glimpse of the tenderness of the soul of Jesus. Sorrow at the death of a valued friend and follower, whose holy life had shone with undimmed lustre to its close, stirred the depths of His loving heart. Grief likes to be alone. The great world, with its din and bustle, is strange — grating — ungenial at such an hour. Jesus, feeling as a man, would seek to leave for a little the crowd — to commune with His own heart and be still. Related alike by kindred and, affection to the Messenger of the Covenant, He summons His disci [»les to take ship from Capernaum and make for the farther shore, that there they might mingle their tears and lamentations over the hero-heart that had so suddenly ceased to beat. John was the Forerunner of his Lord. “He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light” — the morning star heralding the dawn of Gospel day! When that Star was quenched in the firmament, the Great Sun of all Being mourned the sudden extinction of His brightest satellite, and for the moment waded through clouds of sorrow. As the “Friend of the Bridegroom,” the Baptist had “rejoiced greatly at the sound of the Bridegroom’s voice;” now the Bridegroom in His turn mourns when the voice of His faithful, earliest, self-denying friend is for ever hushed and silenced.

But a second cause may be added for this retirement to the solitudes of Naphtali. We find, in the preceding context.

that the twelve Apostles had just returned from their first missionary tour in the towns and villages of Galilee — the first-fruits and earnest of vaster enterprises throughout Jndea and the world. Weak and exhausted with their incessant ministrations, their Lord provides for them this season of needful rest. “Come ye also,” says he, “apart into a desert place, and rest a little.” It was a befitting opportunity, too, for communicating in private to their Divine Master the results of their preaching. “The apostles,’’ we read, “gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had DONE and what they had TAUGHT/”

Solemn and touching picture! Ah! it is what every minister of the Gospel has yet to do — when his work is done — when his mission is over — and he crosses to meet his Lord in the deep solitudes of eternity. What an incentive this for every Steward of the mysteries of grace to be earnest, faithful, self-denying, instant in season and out of season- — “warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” How terrible to confront his Judge at last, and to be branded by his own deeds and his own teachings as a traitor to his trust; listening, in the silence of self-condemnation, to the twofold question which will be put at the threshold of immortality — “What hast thou DONE? What hast thou TAUGHT?”

The place to which the Kedeemer and His disciples now retired was in the neighbourhood of Bethsaida or Julias, on the north-eastern shore of Gennesaret, under the green mountains of Golan, where the Jordan hurries its waters into the Lake.

We are not to understand by “a desert place” a region of dry barren sand; on the contrary, it was a spot fertile in itself, but it had not, like the opposite land of GENNESARET, been brought under the cultivation of the husbandman. It remained in a state of nature. Cattle browsed on its slopes, or on the rich pastures at the mouth of the Jordan. It was now the most delightful season of the Palestine year. The first flush of spring was carpeting both plain and mountain with living green. John specially notes the season: “The passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh;”* and, again, as confirmatory of the time, Mark (who is ever the most graphic and pictorial of the Evangelists, — always seizing, if I might so say, with a painter’s eye, some striking natural feature in the scene he delineates), afterwards represents the multitudes, in his description of the miracle, as seated on the “GREEN grass,” •(•

The Lord and His disciples had crossed alone in their fishing vessel, but the many eager auditors they had left behind — still thirsting for the word of the kingdom — set out on foot, walking round by the northern shore of the lake, in hopes of meeting Jesus as he landed, and of again enjoying His instructions. The fame of the Prophet of Galilee had now rapidly spread. As these anxious groups passed through

* John vi. 4.

t “The desert place was either one of the green table lands, visible from the hills on the western side; or, more probably, part of the rich plain at the mouth of the Jordan. In the parts of this plain not cultivated by the hand of man, would be found the ‘much green grass’ still fresh in the spring of the year, when this event occurred, before it had faded away in the summer sun — the tall grass which, broken down by the feet of the thousands there gathered together, would make as it were couches for them to recline upon. Overhanging the plain was ‘the mountain’ range of Golan, on whose heights ‘Jesus sat with his disciples, and saw the multitude coming to them; and to which, when the feast was over, he again retired.” — Stanley, p. 377.

the towns and hamlets that lined the shore, they added to their numbers, — villagers, husbandmen, fishermen swelled their company. Moreover, the time of the Passover approaching, it is more than probable they would meet some of the northern caravans of pilgrims coming to the holy feast. The report of the miracles performed in the towns bordering on Tiberias, had reached the adjacent region — Tyre and Sidon — the secluded hamlets of Lebanon and the cities of Syria; and many, hearing that the wonder-working Teacher was so nigh at hand, would doubtless willingly suspend their journey, and join the groups who were hastening to meet Him.

The crowd which had left, a few hours before, the streets of Capernaum, has now increased with these varied recruits to the number of five thousand. Might it not be taken as the first earnest of a vaster fulfilment of old Jacob’s prophecy regarding the coming of the Shiloh — “Unto him shall the gathering of the people be?”

From one of these green slopes, already indicated, Jesus sees the multitudes. The flocks browsing on the pastoral scenes around Him are carefully tended; but the Great and Good Shepherd is “moved with compassion” towards the human crowd below, because “they were as sheep not having a shepherd!” He prepares, therefore, to lead them to green pastures and still waters, and to give them meat to eat which the world knows not of.

Let us here note, the ever unselfish, untiring, unwearying ardour of the Saviour in Hi.3 great mission of mercy. Could we have wondered, if, in the present instance, He had declined to leave repose so needed? — all the more needed, as He knew that, with the Passover drawing near, there would be fresh claims on His own teaching, and on that of his disciples. How hard, it seems, to break that rest, (that well-earned recompense), after weeks of unremitting toil, and days in which they had scarce leisure or opportunity to taste food! Could we have thought it strange if Jesus had rebuked this rude disturbance — this unkind intrusion on sorrow and repose — and left the motley throng to return, as best they might, to their places of sojourn? But never in any one instance do we find Him sacrificing the comforts of others to minister to His own. “Christ pleased not himself.” It was the motto of His whole earthly existence. The deeps of His being are stirred by the sight of these unshepherded, unfolded sheep; and He hastens down the mountain slope to minister alike to their spiritual and temporal necessities. In a few moments that same majestic voice is heard in the deep stillness of this mountain solitude, with the roll of Jordan at their side, and the blue heavens for their canopy, proclaiming words which cause many in that “wilderness and solitary place” to be “made glad,”

Before performing His work of omnipotence, Jesus seemed desirous of testing the faith of His own disciples, and especially of one, from whom, after many weeks of close fellowship and communion, we might well have expected a more prompt recognition of the powrer of his Master. “When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto PHILIP, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he woidd do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little” *

* John vi. 5-7.

Philip, of all the Apostles, seems to have been “slow of heart” He gave promise, at an earlier period, of better things — when, with a soul apparently full of zeal and confidence, he sped him to Nathanael with the good news that Messiah had at last been found; and when he would not leave the guileless Israelite until, from under the shade of his fig tree, he had “brought him to Jesus.” The mingled gentleness and severity of the Saviour’s rebuke, addressed to Philip, on an after occasion, might have been administered now — “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?” Jesus had put the present question, “Whence shall we buy bread?” to see whether or not he would leap at once to the conclusion, warranted by all which, during the preceding weeks, his eyes had seen and his ears had heard of the Word of life. He had witnessed the tempest stilled — devils cast out — the possessed sitting calm at their Deliverer’s feet; — he had seen Sickness, at the same mandate, taking wings and fleeing away — and, above all, Death itself compelled to yield its prey; — and yet, in dull, stupid unbelief, he begins to make the poor calculation about his two hundred pennyworth of bread! Others, less privileged, might have conveyed to him a silent reprimand. Had the Leper of Capernaum — or the friends of the Paralytic — or Jairus — or the Gentile centurion — had one or other of these listened to the Saviour’s question, the likelihood is, that from each and all there would have been the reply —” Thou who changest the storm into a calm — Thou who hast the elements of nature and the events of providence in Thy hand — Thou who hast the key of heaven’s garner at Thy girdle —

Thou hast only to speak the word, and manna will distil, as aforetime, from the clouds, or the fowls of the air will fetch, as they did to Elijah of old, a mysterious supply. What is this fainting crowd in this remote corner to Thee, ’ who openest Thine hand and satisfiest the desire of EVEEY living thing?’”

Let us beware of dishonouring God by our unbelief, descending to earthly shifts and earthly calculations instead of honouring Him by a full and implicit reliance in His mingled power and mercy; — His ability and willingness to help — feed — sustain — comfort us. “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” was the challenge which unbelief once uttered. The reply was, a forty years’ experience of unvarying and unfailing faithfulness and love. “Man’s extremity” is often “God’s opportunity.” He suffers our circumstances to be at the lowest, that He may render more signal His interposing mercy and grace. Remember, “what things are impossible with men are possible with God.” Nay, “all things are possible to him that believeth.” “Cast then thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee,” “Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily, tlwu shalt be fed.”

One of the disciples is apparently either more disinterested than the rest, or possibly he may be spokesman for the others: “Andrew, Simon Peter s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many?” This, from the narrative of the other Evangelists, seems to have formed their own supply of provisions — the little stock which they had provided before crossing the lake — for their own evening meal.

After the previous days of exhaustion and want, to which we have already referred, this homely fare could ill have been spared; and had Andrew or his brother Apostles been men of selfish natures, they would have taken care not to make known the existence of their- tiny store. But, as we found iii the case of Matthew, it is the Gospel’s great triumph to displace SELF, and on its ruins upraise the two great master principles of love to God and love to man.

Let us learn the lesson here, of a kindly interest in others, — a willingness to deny ourselves, if we can confer a benefit on our fellows. He is unworthy of the name of Christian, whose every thought begins, centres, and terminates in self — a cold, frigid icicle, chilling all who come within his reach; when he gives, giving grudgingly; and what he gives, costing him no sacrifice. Sacrifice of some sort, either of substance, or time, or personal effort, is necessarily involved in every deed of true beneficence. It was not the gifts of costly munificence, thrown with supercilious air into the Treasury, which the Saviour valued; but the widow’s two mites, the little earnings which a grateful, giving heart doled out of her penury, and which made that evening’s meal homelier and scantier than otherwise it would have been.

Let us go back in thought to that rural scene on the Jordan, and as we behold the disciples hastening to their Lord with their handful of barley loaves and fishes, at His feet, for distribution to the fainting multitude, — let us learn anew, the lesson of self-sacrifice. That scene is a miniature picture of the world, with its thousands (ay, its millions!) of starving outcasts; famishing, body and soul, in temporal and spiritual destitution. Have we, like the disciples, abridged our own comforts to minister to theirs; or rather, is it not the duty of each to ask, before God, What can I abridge? Is there no needless expenditure — no lavish waste — no foolish redundancy — nothing that could be spared in my house or my table, in my social feasts, that, instead of going to feed and pamper that love of extravagance which is running wild in all modern society, would tend to dry the widow’s tears, clothe the nakedness and feed the mouths of the orphan and destitute? Not that the elegancies and refinements of life are to be condemned and denounced. Par from it! As “creatures of God” they are good, and if kept in due subordination, not to be refused, but rather “received with thanksgiving,” But they are to be condemned, if they are either abused, or if their very lavish profusion only hardens into a deeper and intenser selfishness, and a more guilty ignoring of the wants and claims of others. We shall find immediately a command given, with regard to the fragments of the feast, that they were to be carefully gathered, so as to allow of no wastefulness.

Ah! might not the crumbs, often despised among us, go to gladden the lot of some lowly Lazarus at our gate? might not the delicacies at many a board be spared, or abridged, to swell the widow’s barrel of meal? might not some lights of luxury go far to feed her cruse of oil? Remember the Apostle’s words, “Whoso hath this world’s goods, and seth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” Rein ember the words of a Greater than the Apostle — that adorable Saviour, who, on the Great Day will reckon what is done to the least and poorest of His brethren, as if done to Himself — “I was hungry, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink.” In doing it to yonder shivering outcast, yonder ragged beggar, yonder old man groping in his blindness, yonder widow with her homeless orphans, yonder idolater abroad, yonder heathen at home — “Verily I say unto you, ye did it unto MB.”

But, to return to the miracle It is supposed when Jesus first put the question we have already considered to Philip, it had been towards the afternoon. But as the day wears fast away, and twilight approaches, his disciples come to Him in great concern, urging the necessity of dismissing the crowd to the adjoining villages, that they might procure needed victuals and lodging for the night. The Lord proceeds without delay, to manifest His power by the prodigy which follows: “He commanded them,” says Mark, “to make all sit down by companies on the green grass; and they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties.”

We may imagine the scene; — Groups of men gathered in regular order; their long-drawn shadows at that sunset hour projected on “the green grass,” or creeping up the gentle slopes. In front, facing these haggard countenances, with the traces of grief and exhaustion on His own, stands the Son of God! He is about to fulfil the truth of a saying uttered from a mountain platform then full in view, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” These fainting thousands (many of them at least), had sought the Kingdom of God, and now they were to have the promised addition of temporal blessings.

The feast proceeds; — the food increases and multiplies in the hand of Christ — still more, in that of the Apostles, as they deal it out to the crowds — and more still, as the separate groups receive their allotted portion. At last, when all are satisfied, the disciples receive the closing command, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost: and they took up of the fragments which remained twelve baskets full.” The residue of the feast was greater than the amount of the original provisions.

Oh! beautiful type of true benevolence, and its invariable results. The Apostles had given their little all with an ungrudging spirit, — but they were no losers. The loaves expanded in the hands of Giver and receiver; and when the donors came to count their loss, lo, it was a mysterious gain! “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that wa-tereth, shall be watered also himself,”

But there were weightier spiritual truths intended to be conveyed in this miraculous feast. The Miracle for a moment lapses into the Parable. Great and glorious truths in an acted Parable-form are impressed by their Master on the apostolic band. These, as we have seen, had just returned from their first mission. He tells them still, in His name, and on his authority, to proceed on their Godlike work. That crowd was symbolic of a world, fainting, wearying, hungering, for the Bread of life, — and the command to the disciples is, “GIVE YE THEM TO EAT.” Nor were the overflowing baskets without their significancy; — did they not point to the inexhaustible affluence and fulness of the Divine riches? — that thousands on thousands have been ministered to, and yet still the table in the wilderness is as full as ever? Millions of hungry souls have been fed, and still the promise is as ample as ever, “He satisfieth the longing soul with good things;” ‘’Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Still the command is to His servants, “Give ye them to eat” — Proclaim, “He that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Nay, there is more than this implied; — in these overflowing baskets of fragments, God seems to say to his servants, “I will multiply my blessing, the more the bread is given, the more the word is proclaimed. There will not only be “bread enough,” but “to spare.” I will give “more exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think.”

While all this is encouraging to ministers, who are the distributors of the bread; those who receive it at their hands may read in this Parabolic miracle the willingness of Christ to supply the wants of all His people in this desert world. They never can come out of place, or out of season, to Him. As we see the Saviour coming forth from His needed solitude and rest, to minister to these wearied multitudes, does He not proclaim to all time, to fainting myriads, who, in future ages would have far deeper cause of weariness and unrest, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out,”

And now, let us “gather up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost;” — or rather let us, from the Saviour’s own discourse the day following, carry away the ONE great Fragment — His own sublime spiritual lesson supplied by the miracle — it is the key-note of that wondrous Sermon: — “Labour not for the bread which perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life.”

LABOUR NOT FOR THE PERISHABLE! — What lesson more needed, when with multitudes the perishable seems all they live for — all they care for? Yes, indeed. Sad it is, when we come in sober seriousness to pause and think of it, that so many thousands should be frittering away this great period of preparation for eternity in this unremunerative labour of earth. — Unremunerative! for what in a few brief years will all this worldly toil come to? All that the world can give, apart from Christ, never can, never will, satisfy. You may as well, by a few grains of sand, or a few spadefulls of dust, expect to fill up a yawning gulph, as fill the gaping crevices of man’s soul — reach the deeps of his being with the poor nothings of earth. He was born for nobler things, and with less noble things you cannot satisfy him.

Besides all this, how transient, uncertain, precarious, all that wealth can hoard, and labour realise! Like Sisyphus of old, the stone, after a lifetime’s labour, has been heaved to the mountain-summit; but in one unwary moment, it slips from the hand, down it hurries, with hopeless bound, to the depths of the valley; the golden heap which took a life-time to amass, one solitary wave of calamity comes and washes away!

BUT, “he that believeth on ME shall NEVER hunger.” His inordinate appetite for earthly things shall be so subdued and vanquished by the nobler portion he has in Myself, that he will neither too ardently covet earthly blessings, nor fret and mourn too heavily when they are taken away.

Let us listen to the voice of Him who is even now saying to us, “I AM THE BEEAD OF LIFE!” Let the voice of that same yearning Shepherd, who was moved with compassion towards the wandering multitude — let the voice of Jesus be heard telling every weary “labourer” of that rest He has procured. Let the monitory word follow us out into this busy world; let its accents fall in the place of business, in the crowded mart, in the workshop, by the counter, in the class-room, in the study — let it follow us up the ladder of ambition, and track our steps in the race for riches — “LABOUR NOT FOR THE

MEAT WHICH PERISHETH, BUT FOR THAT WHICH ENDURETH
TO EVERLASTING LIFE I*