Bread to Distribute

Matthew 14:16-18

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Jesus feeds the 5000. We learn some things from this true story of what Jesus actually did, this incredible miracle. We learned that we can trust God to take care of us physically, but even more importantly, we can trust that God takes care of us spiritually. Jesus is the bread of life from heaven that gives us eternal life, forgiveness, salvation. But there’s something else we can learn from this too. Jesus gives us bread to distribute. Sometimes when I look at really familiar stories like this, it’s helpful to just slow down and think about what is actually pretty amazing, what is unexpected in this section, or put yourself in the sandals of the people in the story. What are they thinking?

We’ve talked about how Jesus was trying to get away privately by himself. He had learned that his cousin had just been murdered, but yet the people come to him. So he has compassion on them. Imagine the disciples at that time. They know Jesus wants to get by himself. They come and see all the people crowded on the shore. How frustrated are they that these people just keep coming to Jesus? They won’t give him a break. And yet Jesus goes and he’s filled with compassion.

Eventually the disciples come up to Jesus because they realize there’s a problem. Jesus, it’s getting late and the people don’t have any food to eat. So they notice there’s this problem. The people are in this remote place and they’re getting hungry. Maybe there’s even a little bit of compassion for them. Jesus, what should we do about this? And they have a plan that they’ve come up with. Jesus, send them away. Send them to a nearby town. They can find some food then. Then they won’t be hungry. There’s so many of them. Here’s a solution, Jesus. And what does he do?

He says something that is really unexpected. He says

They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat. (Matthew 14:16)

Okay! They check their resources that they see what they have. It’s completely inadequate, but they bring it to Jesus and say,

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.” “Bring them here to me.” He said. (Matthew 14:17-18)

How does it sometimes work for us? We’re around Jesus. We’re in his word. He’s rubbing off on us, his love and his compassion for people. And we see people who are hurting, who maybe have physical needs, who have spiritual needs for eternal life. And we say we got to do something about this. There’s something wrong here. So we go and we take it to Jesus and we say, Jesus, there’s some huge problems here. Here’s my best guess at a solution. Here’s how maybe you could solve this, Jesus. And like he so often does. He says no. You give them something.

No, Jesus, that’s not what I was hoping you would say. I was hoping that you could take care of this. Or I could pass it off to somebody else. No, you. You give them something. So the Christian goes back and they evaluate and they say, what can I do in this situation? And they bring back to Jesus. All right, here’s what I have to offer. And it is woefully insufficient and inadequate. And Jesus says. Yeah. Bring that to me. That’s perfect. I can use that. And Jesus takes this from the Christian and he gives thanks for it. And then, like the disciples, what did he do?

He fills up their baskets. After breaking and giving thanks for what they so inadequately supplied him. And he sends them out and they go and they distribute the bread and they distribute the fish. And then, and then their baskets are empty and they’re like, All right, what’s next? I fed 15 or 20 people, and then they go back to Jesus and there he is, and he fills them back up. And then they go out and they distribute and they run out. And then they go back and he fills them back up.

And it is kind of a neat picture of the life of discipleship, isn’t it? We see these opportunities. We bring them to Jesus. Jesus says, you, you help them. And he gives thanks for us. And he sends us out, filled up to be able to go and, share physically or spiritually sharing the life that we have, the good news of the gospel. And sometimes we go and do that and we run out and we’re like, oh, I don’t have anything left. And what do we do? Go back to Jesus. We go back to His word. We go back to church. We go back to the Lord’s Supper where he forgives our sins and fills us back up and sends us out again. And after all of that life of service, there’s always leftovers. And there’s always Jesus. And he equips us to serve him. God be with you as you do that.