Mark 6:37-44 - You feed them!

6:37

Jesus told the disciples to give the people something to eat. He knew full well that this was impossible, at least in their own strength. He also knew that they really just wanted some peace and quiet. The only way the disciples thought that they could feed the people was if they went and bought food for them. This would be rather expensive, the two hundred denarii was a substantial amount of money. So Jesus is essentially asking ridiculous things of them, at least ridiculous if looked at in purely human terms.

6:38-40

Jesus then took them step by step through a process. First He asked them to find out how much food they actually had. Five loaves and two fish was the answer. This was clearly not enough to feed five thousand. Seemingly oblivious to this fact Jesus told them to get the people to sit down in groups of fifty or a hundred.

6:41-44

Looking up to heaven was a common gesture of prayer among the Jews. Jesus then blessed the bread. Jesus broke the bread among them, and then divided the fish among them as well. So they all ate and were filled! And twelve baskets of leftovers were collected. So let’s look back on this. The disciples were tired, looking forward to time alone with Jesus. They were pursued by a large crowd, and Jesus, as He always did, taught the crowd. Then Jesus made the totally unreasonable suggestion that they feed the crowd. While not likely to be in precisely the same situation, I guess all of us go through times when it seems that Jesus is making unreasonable demands upon us, and everything within us is just wanting an easy time for a change. What are we to do in such situations? Well, first of all what not to do. What not to do is to beat ourselves up, or pretend that we really want to do what God is commanding and we are all up for it! There are times when we are full of faith and those times are wonderful, but there are times when we are not, and we need to learn to “win” even when we are playing badly. So what did the disciples do? They took one step at a time. Just doing what Jesus told them to do, and then the miracle happened.