Imagine you having a wedding at your house for one of your relative or for your daughter or son. The first thing is to welcome the guest, so you be running house to house inviting many people, as we get close to the wedding day. You need to take care of the food arrangements, take care of the bridegroom / bride dress, gifts for relatives, side arrangements of stage decoration, hall arrangement, church decoration and many more, it always is a stress filled and tension job to accomplish. Ones the wedding is over, you feel very exhausted and want to take some time to rest, imagine someone comes and asks for some help after the wedding, you will be in no mood as you are exhausted because of your physical state.
The above story has some resemblance of how Jesus managed a crowd of 5000 people and how he fed them, before we learn from this. Let’s look at this event that happened
'When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. As evening approached, the 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 villages and buy themselves some food.” Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. ' Matthew 14:13-21
Prior to this John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod, hearing this Jesus wanted to pray and express his grief so he moves to a solitary place to pray in private. That’s the start of Matt 14:13
In this we need to learn many things from Jesus, most often we are being taught about the compassion of our lord, there is much more than compassion we need to learn from this incident which can enrich our spiritual maturity in Jesus
Jesus was compassionate – We read “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick” Imagine how the atmosphere would be like with so many people there, I am sure it was like a place where the holy spirit was lit in fire electrifying people to go to Jesus, he also did touch and heal as many people as they came to him. We read “The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.” There were more people than 5000 people, to serve a small guest in wedding we get worn out, imagine Jesus physical state, he was not worried about his physical state of weakness, he was more worried on healing and caring for people who needed miracles. That’s the compassion of our Lord.
Time Fly’s in presence of Jesus – We read “As evening approached, the 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 villages and buy themselves some food.” This tells us that they were busy serving the people with miracles and casting demons and not look at time to eat or do what they usually did. That’s what presence of Jesus changed this place
Feeding 5000 – We read “Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to me,”
I am sure Jesus knew that they had only 5 loaves and 2 fish and it’s not enough for all to eat, still he asked something to eat to test the disciples of the faith on him.
Mindset of disciples is like our human mind set to turn away from help when you don’t have any, but Jesus was different as he is our eternal father.
They looked at what they had in hand and missed the point that they have the eternal father who can do miracles to satisfy them.
Their faith was low at the point, seeing faith happening at right in front of them throughout the day. They were completely blind sighted that they have Jesus who can make things for them.
Jesus once again proves his compassion only by surrendering to father’s will by taking and breaking the bread and asking the disciples to feed them.
Lastly, we read “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over” We need to learn from this
Thank God to wisely use what you have
Trust God’s unlimited resources
Don’t waste what he gives you
Actions we can do from this learning
Self-reliance - When we are in distress or worn out, we tend to do the opposite of what our Lord did, we tend to run after our own strengths to solve the issues, but we need to follow Jesus to seek the father’s will and get help from him by praying in solitude place. We need to get away from our self-reliance and be dependent on our father by praying to him with simple prayers.
Compassion
Lord is always compassionate when we come to him genuinely, Jesus lived what he taught as “love your neighbour as yourself “Luke 10:27, it’s the agape love that he expressed
Are we compassionate when we see the other person needing help? Even in situations where we don’t have enough to help the other person, Jesus teaches one lesson that’s to pray for that person so that our Father can provide the help that the person is looking for.
Faith Testing
Blinding of eyes – Many times we are like the disciples they missed the current event when they saw the miracles of Jesus, their eyes were blinded. Satan mindfully makes our eyes blind to take away the faith on how God has been true to his promises in past, when you encounter situations of life, look back how God made you a way in a difficult situation and bring the faith back.
Obeying Lord - Faith works when we obey the Lord. as people were asked to seat, they obeyed. I am sure people who would say there is nothing to eat and could have walked away, but they obeyed what the Lord asked to do, many times in life when we face challenges things go opposite, obey what the Lord commanded to do. things may seem quite opposite to what our faith may be.
Surrendering to Lords will - Surrender to the Lord’s will. whatever be the situation he will turn the empty things to a miraculous state, Jesus did this by taking bread and showing to heaven he asked help from father to feed them.
I don’t know what state you are in. Ask Jesus for help. He is waiting with the same compassion every day looking for you and me to come to him. He is even more caring as he knows what we are going thru as he has gone thru all the pain / suffering like us. So, reach to him with a simple prayer to surrender and ask for help, he can change things.