Marcos 6

The Twelve return

30 Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and reported all to Him, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 Because so many were coming and going that they did not even have leisure to eat, He said to them, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile."

Bread for 5,000 men

32 So they went away in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. 33 But many saw them going and recognized them,*There is an even split in the attestation; half the Greek manuscripts have ‘them’ and the other half ‘him’, but the best line of transmission has ‘them’. Consider: if the fishing boat were setting out to fish, there would not be 13 men in it; also, the boat was known and there was only one large group of men like that going around together; the people would not have to single out Jesus to know who they were. So ‘them’ is correct. and they ran there on foot from all the towns and arrived before them, and came together to Him.*Perhaps 4% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘and came together to Him’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. 34 Well upon disembarking Jesus saw a large crowd*Let us try to get the picture. There is a large bay between Capernaum and Tiberias, the ‘mouth’ being some ten miles across. Just from the direction the boat took, many people would have a pretty good idea where they were headed. Unless there was a good tail wind, and especially if they had to row, people on the shore could easily outrun the boat, even covering a greater distance. Much like a modern marathon, the people would be scattered out along the shore for several miles, and any stragglers could follow the action. The front runners got ahead of the boat, and the followers were strung out, so wherever the boat put in, there would be people waiting; any who had gone too far would just double back. But people kept arriving and the crowd kept getting bigger (by the end of the day there were 5,000 men, plus women and children). The crowd frustrated the plan, but instead of being angry, Jesus felt compassion. [I’m afraid I often do just the opposite.] and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things.

35 When it was late in the day, His disciples came to Him and said: "This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. 36 Send them away so they may go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat."*This was an obvious cop-out; the surrounding area would not have enough extra bread to feed 10,000 people (or more). 37 But in reply He said to them, "You feed them!"*They had no way of expecting such a response, since humanly speaking it was ridiculously impossible. In the end, the solution did pass through their hands, but unless Jesus was joking (which I doubt), He was telling them to perform the miracle, before they had seen it done. Wow! They say to Him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and feed them?" 38 So He says to them: "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." When they knew they said, "Five, and two fish."

39 Then He directed them all to recline in groups on the green grass. 40 So they reclined in ‘plots’ of hundreds and of fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to His disciples to serve the people;*Let us pause and recall the scene. The Sacred Text affirms that there were about five thousand men, without counting the women and children. Now then, whenever you see a crowd of people, what is there usually the most of—isn’t it women and children? In other words, I suppose that crowd was made up of at least 15,000 people. Okay, now try to imagine that you are one of those twelve disciples and you have just heard the Master say: "You feed them!" Now what? Did the disciples have anything? As a matter of fact, no. They had neither money (which would not have helped much since they were a long way from town) nor food. Even the five loaves and two fish belonged to somebody else. Can it be that Jesus was playing a joke on them, or was He serious? I don’t know, but I prefer to think that He would not make a joke out of such a situation. But if He was serious, how could the disciples obey? Only with a miracle. In fact, they could not see a solution and gave the problem back to Jesus to solve; which He did. But did Jesus Himself hand the bread and fish to the crowd? No. Let us think about that scene a little more and we will see that the disciples still had to exercise faith. The Record affirms that they all ate until they were "full" or "satisfied". It was not just a little something to tide them over. Have you ever considered how much bread and fish it would take to "fill" 15,000 people (who had gone without lunch)? It seems to me certain that when Jesus blessed and broke those loaves and fish there was not an instant multiplication, such that there was enough for everybody; the tremendous pile would have buried Jesus, the disciples and the closest of the people! Really. Just stop and think about it. It must not have been instantaneous. When Jesus placed some bread and fish in the hands of each disciple that was all there was, up to that moment. Now then, try to imagine that you are one of those disciples with a handful of bread and fish, and you have to feed at least a thousand people (12 disciples and 15,000 people). Can you picture it? Wouldn’t you feel just a little ridiculous taking that first step toward the crowd? Somehow the disciples find the courage and approach the people. The first one helps himself and, wonder of wonders, the supply is undiminished! The second one helps himself and the supply is unchanged. It was never used up—as they went around distributing, the food kept multiplying (to have twelve bushels of leftovers, the people were also involved in passing it on). If they had tired and stopped in the middle, half the people would have stayed hungry. If the disciples had decided to eat first, I rather imagine that the miracle would have been frustrated and the crowd would have gone hungry. The disciples ate last, but they ate very well, thank you very much! (Have you ever tried eating a bushel of bread?) He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 Well they all ate and were filled.*The Text is clear—they ate until they were full. 43 And they*It probably was not the disciples who did the picking up, at least not by themselves. Also, those twelve baskets of pieces did not go with the disciples when they left. picked up twelve full baskets of broken pieces; also of the fish.*The large baskets were probably borrowed from fishing boats near by (see the parallel accounts). Maybe the owners got their baskets back with interest! 44 There were five thousand men who ate the loaves.*The term here refers exclusively to males, so with the women and children the crowd was doubtless over 10,000.