Member Log InLuke, in the ninth chapter of his Gospel, relates the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. You recall the story, I am sure. It took place on a hillside, where Jesus took his disciples after they returned from their respective journeys of proclaiming the Good News and healing diseases. A crowd followed, itself hungry for more of what Jesus was teaching. His followers wanted to see more cures. Evening drew close and the disciples asked Jesus to dismiss the crowd so they could go home.
The disciples were a bit incredulous when Jesus asked them to have the crowd sit in groups of about fifty. Let’s see . . . that’s about 100 groups of fifty! And the story relates only the number of men. It’s not unreasonable to think that there were about that many women and some children, too! Let’s say, conservatively, there were 200 groups of fifty. On a hillside.
Then Jesus told his disciples to "Give them some food yourselves." Their astonishment only piqued. “Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.” (Luke 9:13)
Jesus took the loaves and the fish, blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the crowd to eat. Everyone ate until they were satisfied.
I can just hear my ten year old grandson's response to this: “Yeah, right, YeYe!” “Like if I’m s’pose to believe that!” (My grandkids call me "YeYe" - Chinese for "grandpa." It's a long story . . . for another day.) I’m sure that I, too, would have stood on that hillside for a moment, scratching my head in disbelief. How can it be possible to feed so many with so little?
There are times to be intellectual about things, and there are times to move with faith and a bit of reckless abandon. That hillside experience called for faith and reckless abandon. It was not a time to step back and think about things, even for a moment.
I’ve always found the story of the loaves and fishes a bit amusing. My appreciation for it changed dramatically when, in December 2019, I had the great privilege to stand on the spot where the miracle occurred. Consider the abundance of food! It's so unbelievable that it can be nothing short of amusing. Our God is a God of excess! He doesn’t just bless us. He really blesses us. Abundantly!
So it was on the mountain that day near Bethsaida. After everyone had eaten their fill, the disciples gathered twelve baskets of food. Twelve baskets!!! Think about it. If each basket were to have been capable of holding, say, even five loaves of bread and two fish . . . well just imagine what such an abundance of food must have been to those five thousand people. The disciples potentially collected twelve times the amount of food after all were fed than there was at the outset of the meal.
If you expect to experience the miraculous, be ready to do the ridiculous. No doubt the disciples, when faced with feeding 5000 (plus!) with only five loaves and two fish felt a bit ridiculous, yet, it happened. And it was abundant!
In these changing times in the world, we will be called upon more than ever to live lives of faith. It will take faith to navigate the changes that will no doubt continue to surface in our society for the foreseeable future. Faith and courage will be necessary for those desirous of acquiring holiness and living a life in service of others. God will feed us, as surely as He fed the five thousand on the hillside. And it will be abundant.
Do not be afraid when you find yourself with the equivalent of five loaves and two fish, facing the equivalent of 5000 hungry mouths. Whatever the task before you may be, whatever it may look like, regardless the impossible nature of it, step into it with faith.
Do the ridiculous. Listen to God’s direction in your life. You won’t have room for the leftovers!
