Tags
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus feeds a crowd of people who have come to follow Him. There are those who find this improbable and who even feel the need to emphasise the metaphorical aspect of the event. That would be a mistake on at least two levels. In the first place one can hardly profess a belief in the most miraculuous event of all, the Resurrection of Jesus, and doubt that He had the ability to feed those who needed Him. In the second place, it risks taking away from the deep meaning of the event.
It is prefaced by what must have been a truly awful event for Jesus – the execution of His cousin, John at the whim of the tyrant, Herod. Like so many of us His first reaction was to find a place of solitude where He could mourn and perhaps come to terms with what had just happened. It is a need common to humanity, and reminds us that Jesus truly was human as well as divine. It is in His reaction to those who interrupted His need for solitude that we glimpse the Divine. Where you or I might have been irritated, Jesus is “moved to pity.” The Greek goes further and refers to a stirring of the body’s “inward parts,” which tells us something of the depth of His compassion. Where life has been taken, despite His own sorrow, Jesus gives life.
His disciples get the point that you or I might have got, that He needs silence and space; Jesus gets the larger point, which is that where there is need, there He must be with God’s love. So He heals. Then, rather than disperse the crowd, He feeds them. There is a reference back here to the Manna in the wilderness, as well as a resonance forward to the Last Supper. Here Jesus offers His time and patience, later it will be His body and His blood.
The miracle upon which we tend to focus is the feeding of the five thousand (although, given the women and children who were not counted, it must have been more), but we should not forget the sign of God’s Grace in Jesus putting aside His own needs for ours. There is love, not that we love Him, but that He loved us first. The miracle is God’s compassion for us. However much we may feel undeserving, it is ours all the same. Can we go and do likewise?
All Along the Watchtower 
Wonderful article. I especially liked, “Here Jesus offers His time and patience, later it will be His body and His blood.” Everything ties together. Old Testament and New Testament, the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son and us – all tied together. Beyond understanding and yet understood so well.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Audre 🙏🏼
LikeLike
Chalcedon – you mention the link with the manna of Exoodus, Everything you say here is good, but in addition – Jesus feeding the five thousand was his way of `coming out of the closet’ and showing who he really was. Everybody understood the manna of Exodus as the bread from heaven given by God himself and everybody understood the significance of generating bread to feed the five thousand out of the small loaves that he had been given. With this miracle he really did show himself to be (in some sense) the God who gave the manna from heaven (or at least sent by God and doing the work of God). Just as the bread from heaven in Exodus was no metaphor (the manna was real), so the miracle here is real.
LikeLiked by 2 people
These miracles of Christ love are still happening today and we can all be involved in small miracle with simple faith.
In the interest of being even-handed and representing the faith of some Catholics and evangelicals these are 2 links about disciples of Christ that “Went and did likewise” and experience the multiplication of food.
https://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/year_a/18-2.htm
Iris Ministries is a Christian Mission in Mozambique led by Rowland and Hiedi baker. They have seen thousands of village churches planted and whole villages of Muslims turning to Christ.
In the early days of their work, having been thrown out of their facility by the government, they returned to the home and they recount this event:
“At one point during the week after this exodus, with more than fifty children still packed in at the Baker’s house, food begun to run low. Nelda, a friend from the U.S. embassy, came to visit the Bakers, bringing a pot of chili for the immediate family. “I have a big family,” Heidi replied. Nelda protested that she had only brought enough for the Bakers, but Heidi gave thanks for the food and immediately began serving it to the encamped kids. The pot, brought to feed four, was not empty until everyone had eaten!” https://www.irisglobal.org/about/history
LikeLiked by 2 people
Rob – hmmmm – with other miracles there might not be the same problem.
But the feeding of the five thousand really was one where Jesus showed who he was – the allusion to Manna from heaven. He is declaring the he is the Messiah – and God is substantiating his claim.
For me the feeding miracles really have to belong to Jesus and Jesus alone, while he was here among us, establishing that he was the Messiah.
LikeLike
What a wonderful witness, Rob, thank you for sharing this with us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chalcedon = with apologies – it smells counterfeit to me.
Actually this is where `The Church’ and its authority would come in useful.
For me, the miracles were signs that Jesus was who he said he was. They also accompanied the apostles (the eye witnesses) and that is it.
I’d probably be more inclined to your view of `The Church’ and its importance if I believed in latter day miracles of the type that Rob described – it would then be necessary to have some sort of `authority’ to judge whether the miracle was real or counterfeit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, that is one benefit of the Church.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chalcedon – yes – if you are going to accept such miracles as on-going, then you need an institution which has people in authority who have the authority to discern the real from the counterfeit.
I prefer my own definition of `the church’ (the collection of people who are `in Him’) – and `the church’ doesn’t have this role, because we don’t have them; the identity of the man of sorrows has already been established.
Even though I am a Christian, I get the impression that in the situation which Rob described, the Muslim faith may be closer to my own than the `Christianity’ to which these African villages were converted.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t feel qualified to say that God has stopped working miracles, though sometimes I feel I should like to see one. Then I reflect on some of the things that have happened in my own life and wonder whether I did not witness some unawares?
Your definition of “church” is fine, it is the one the Church offers. The problem comes as we seek to police the boundaries, and that too, we see in Scripture.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chalcedon – well, I think we’ve all experienced miracles unawares – small scale miracles which are necessary in a fallen world. The point here is the sign-miracles whereby Jesus declared who he was and which gave authority to the eye-witnesses whom he had marked out.
Yes – as far as `church’ goes – it is the police (gestapo) aspect that concerns me most of all. I don’t actually see the benefit of `the church’ in this regard. You have given a correct critique of Bosco below under this post, but there do also exist Catholics who say things which are just as bad (in a different sort of way) even though Catholicism has a church hierarchy which is supposed to prevent things from getting too `off the wall’.
Unfortunately, within the `evangelical’ world, the Bosco exegesis of Genesis is all too common. I remember being shocked that this was `the standard’ for `the Evangelical Theological College of Wales’ (now `Union School of Theology’). Try reading the `inerrancy’ garbage written by some clowns who met in Chicago back in the 1970’s. After a few paragraphs you begin to understand that they’re trying to build up an intellectual basis for taking the Bosco line on Genesis – and a few paragraphs later they are absolutely explicit about this. Yes – it is rubbish – but depressingly there is an awful lot of it about.
By the way – on a completely different note – has your university decided whether or not you’re doing remote on-line teaching next semester or whether it will be in the classroom? Because with us they don’t seem to have made the decision yet (even though students need to know whether or not they’ll need accommodation in town). Our semester starts at the beginning of October, so it’s only two months away.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are mostly in agreement again, Jock. As this blog, among others shows, the existence of a hierarchy is guarantee neither of obedience or of uniformity. That may be as well.
Bosco saddens me. He clearly has had some sort of conversion experience, but it seems to have left him with a sense of festering hatred of the Catholic Church. I can’t imagine a genuine calling which would leave one’s heart filled with bile. But that may simply reflect my experience.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On your last point, yes, we shall be doing some face to face teaching. Large lectures will be online and we are sorting through how we timetable with social distancing. It will be a challenge, but as a small university, we have some advantages over the larger ones.
LikeLike
Chalcedon – thanks. Well, at least you have the basic principles sorted out – and it looks as if you basically knew what you were doing for some time – so you have much better organisation than we do.
Things changed for us within the last couple of hours – we received an email from on high making it clear that our teaching would be on-line as far as possible, except for first year students, since the feeling is that they should be given a chance to get to know each other. So at least there is clarity now. The other issue that came up which surprised me a lot – as a result of all the COVID-related shennanegans, exam sessions were extended, etc …. so they’re starting the next semester two weeks later and I’m not `on’ until 19th October.
I can’t help feeling that COVID is something that doesn’t affect the students, since they are young and healthy and won’t be seriously affected even if they do catch it – all this on-line business is to protect geriatrics like myself at the expense of the younger generation (where all the talent is and which needs developing).
Mind you – it wasn’t all bad. I got some terrific excuses from students for late assignments – due to work for other projects on epidemiology about modelling the spread of COVID – so the whole business did produce some interesting projects for some of the better students.
I like your next post `Church?’ very much – and I’ll comment on it tomorrow when I have a bit of time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Jock. Yes it’s hard. Some young are carefree about the risk, others are not, and we have to protect all we can as best we can. I pushed our start back to 28 September – but when I shall be back in person, I don’t know. I am in several high risk groups, so ought to be careful.
LikeLike
feeding 5000 with a couple of loaves and fishes could be called a miracle. jesus said the hebrews ate manna and went on to die, and that he who eats his flesh and drinks his blood will live forever. which means to believe every word he says. jesus is the word and man lives by every word of god. well anyway, the loaves and fish that were collected up had whats called an apparent history.. this can be tied into the creation story. who here believes genesis? who believes the earth and the universe is 7000 to 8ooo yrs old? who believes the bible? myself, i give the age of creation 20,000 yrs or so , give or take a few yrs. id like to give it 7000 yrs but that is mans calculation. its strict bible calculation. i wont get into that here. the thing is, scientists claim, with good reason, that the universe is 14 billion yrs old. getting back to the loaves and fishes, if one looked at the fish and bread collected, one would see the manner of preparation. one would see the browning on the bottom of the bread suggesting it was baked in some sort of oven. the fish most likely had grill marks, the trype that they all knew because everyone there made fish the same way more or less. one could see an apparent history of the food. the grain had been ground and water and yeast added and then baked. the fish caught, cut open and cleaned and grilled in some fashion. no doubt about it. the fish were caught either that day or the day befor. the bread baked either that day or the day befor. final answer.
when we look into the heaven and calculate distances to stars, we use light yrs as a measurement. when we look at the andromeda galaxy we calculate 200,000 light yrs distant. correct me if im wrong. im not looking at any figures. its all memory. but the unsaved godless scientific community uses that to prove the biblical explanation false. the light from andromeda takes 200,000 yrs to get here. the universe has to be older than that. we see things 7 billion light yrs away. the sun formed 4 billion yrs ago and has a life expectancy of 6 or 7 billion more. the strata on sediment on the earth suggests billions of yrs of history. well, the loaves and fishes were created instantly and had an apparent history also. you could not convince anyone they were pulled out of thin air that very moment and were seconds old.
i believe the bible and believe without a doubt that the almighty god created the universe with an apparent history. god say in the bible that he put things here to confound the wise.
so dont be scared to stand up and say the universe is only thousands of yrs old. believe god and believe the bible.
LikeLike
Bosco, ask yourself why you need to make up such palpable nonsense? No one, except you and others of your kind, actually believes this, and not only will no one be convinced, but they will think you foolish.
Genesis is not a scientific thesis, and to treat it as such is a category error from which much foolishness follows. It is a poetic account of the making the world by God and shoud be read as such.
LikeLike
good brother, thats what i thought even after i became a christian. examining DNA made me realize we didnt evolve. that led me to believe the bibles account. there are facts about the planets that back up a young creation. i wont get into them unless asked to.
so what you are telling me is that you dont believe the bibles account. well, theres no law against that.
LikeLike
I am telling you that Genesis is not a scientific treatise to be taken literally. There is nothing to stop you taking it seriously, just as there is nothing to stop most people thinking you are being rather silly. There’s no law against looking silly.
LikeLike
i believe the bible is the inspired word of god, and i believe every word from cover to cover.
LikeLike
None of which requires a literal reading of Genesis.
LikeLike
good brother, we arent picking and choosing are we? (;-D
LikeLike
No. You are saying you have to believe it literally. Nowhere are we told that. Yes, it is the word of God, and if we read it with the guidance of His Church we do better than if we assume that somehow we know best.
LikeLike
im quite used to people thinking im silly. people thought good brother noah was silly, till the flood washed them away.
LikeLike
Well, think how silly you may look when you find out the Church is God’s Church and you’ve ignored it.
LikeLike
well ill answer you under the church post. i wasnt going to get involved with that post. i was just gonna let the unsaved thrash it out.
LikeLike
Well, let’s hope you are right about yourself. If not, I hope to be allowed to give you a finger of water.
LikeLike
We are all flawed, which is why we need a Saviour , and our institutions are therefore flawed. But if we love each other, we must have some measure of tolerance for where each brother and sister feels he or she belongs.
LikeLiked by 1 person