157 - Friend, Fatigue and Feast

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Okay, picture this, 20,000 people out in the middle of nowhere and it's dinner time and the apostles come to Jesus concerned and they say, Send them away, there's nothing to eat here. But then Jesus turns to them and says, They don't need to go away. You give them something to eat.

And did they? We'll find out today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning and welcome to our dining room table. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim at the dining room table. And we are studying our way through the Gospel of Matthew. And if you remember early in the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist was a very prominent figure as the messenger who came before the face of Messiah, right? Well, today, as we enter into chapter 14, we find out that John has decisively left the story. We open with this account of the death of John the Baptist, which is a very famous story.

Everybody who's seen the movie knows it, right? But I like how Matthew voices it though, because that's the first two verses. Let me just read the first two verses. So we're in chapter 14. So at that time, Herod, the tetrarch, heard about the fame of Jesus, the fame of Jesus. And he said to his servants, Well, this is John the Baptist. He's been raised from the dead.

And that's why these miraculous powers are at work in him. Yeah. Okay.

So before we get the backstory on why you responded that way. Because if you're confused by that, the readers would be too, because what happened to John the Baptist? Yeah. So this Herod, the tetrarch, that term tetrarch is something we don't use very often. What we know is that after the death of Herod, the great, his four sons, the kingdom was divided up among his four sons. So this this is Herod, the tetrarch, one of the four, one of the sons. And if I'm not mistaken, this is the same Herod, who was the one that Jesus was sent to see in Jerusalem at his trial.

Yes, I think that would definitely be the case. Because this is Herod Antipas. And Antipas did Galilean a little bit north. His other brothers were one was further to the south. One of them actually, I think it was Philip was in Rome the whole time. But then, oh, Archelaus is in the south. I got that wrong.

Philip is in the north. So yeah, so that would be right. Okay. So anyway, that's it.

That's it. Details, details, details. But now we're going to get the backstory. But he hears about the fame of Jesus and says, Oh, the guy that I killed is back from the dead.

Right? He's totally clueless. I know this is like a massive guilty conscience talking here. But he misinterprets what he's hearing about the miracles of Jesus. And he knew that John the Baptist was he was a he was a divine kind of man. He had a special connection with God recorded to have done miracles. No, no, but that's what's fascinating about Harris. Herod's response here is that if we're talking about someone sent by God doing miracles, well, the only guy I know of that stature is John the Baptist. And hey, oh, no, I made him more powerful by killing.

I had him killed. Oh, yeah, that's what it is. Well, that's an interesting thought, isn't it?

You just went Star Wars on us right there. Yeah. Okay, so let's, let's read on. Backstory is coming now. Okay. In case you're all confused. Do you want to read?

I'll pick it up. Verse three. Here's the backstory.

Four, that means backstory. Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother's, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, it's not lawful for you to have her. And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people because they, well, I held them to be a prophet. But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, well, give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter. And the King was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he commanded it to be given. And he sent and had John beheaded in prison and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl. And she brought it to her mother and his disciples came and took the body and buried it. And they went and told Jesus.

Oh my gosh. Well, like I said, everybody who's seen the movie knows this story, but it's brutal and bloody and tells us a whole lot about this Herod. That because of his pride, and he had said this in public in response to this lascivious dance done by this young girl. Couldn't back out. He couldn't back out. And so he had John beheaded.

Had him beheaded. And it starts upstream with the fact that John, in a very bold and in your face kind of way, challenged the ruling leader of the area saying, it's not right for you having to had married Herodias. That's not right because it's your brother's wife.

It's your brother's wife. So, and in fact, that there's a lot of history about what happens because he makes all these choices. In the end, it's ruinous to him and Herodias, it turns out.

But it starts with that. John the Baptist is bold enough to confront Herod, the guy in charge of the whole region and say, it's not right for you to have married your brother's wife. And so that gets under not only his skin, but it really gets under her skin. Really gets under her skin. And she, and in a way, this is her chance to stop the mouth that's condemning her and him and what they've done.

Right. I don't know that we need to comment on that anymore, except that if you remember the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, Jesus knew who John was. And John, of course, knew he was John's whole job to identify the Messiah, the one God had sent. And so when John is put in prison, there had been some communication between them. John had sent and asked him questions and the disciples had gone back and forth.

So if we pick up the story here, Matthew tells us now when Jesus heard this in verse 13, when he heard this news about John was dead, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. Why would he do that? I think perhaps in response.

Lots of good human reasons. Okay. Yeah. It's sad news. It's serious news. It's sobering news. It's okay.

We're really playing for keeps now. Yeah. Right. Well, and you add to that the fact that in the other gospel accounts of this withdrawal to a desolate place, he's also very tired and the apostles are very tired.

Right. The news coupled together with just the frenzy of ministry just had to get away. It's good to get away. It's good to get away. Yeah. So the attempt is to get away from the people by getting in a boat and heading off ahead of them so they can't find you.

But it's not very successful. But when the crowds heard it, this is again in verse 13, they followed him on foot from the towns and when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place and the day is now over. Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. But Jesus said, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. They said to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish.

And he said, bring them here to me. Do you want to stop here for a minute? Yeah. Yeah. Let's pause.

Take a breath. Yeah. You know this story. So you know where it's going.

Let's stop for a second and kind of think about this. Yeah. So when he does go to shore, I mean, they try and get away on the boat so they can kind of zip across the lake and go someplace. So they're really going across the top of the Sea of Galilee and they're going over. In fact, in Luke's Gospel, it says they go over to Bethsaida.

So that's Bethsaida is just over where the Jordan River comes in and feeds the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee. So they're going over there and it is desolate. And although there's a lot of grass, but it's not developed in that sense with a lot of villages. It's not a city. It's not a city. It's a village.

Yeah. They didn't go to a city. But unfortunately, they didn't row fast enough or something because by the time they got to shore up there, the people were still there. They were following them and actually greeted them on the shore. Well, it's possible they could watch them. They could watch their progress.

Where's it going? We can run along the shore faster. Because they're not, like I said, they're not going across the lake. They're just skimming across the top of the lake. They could just walk along the shore and just watch them. So what's fascinating is that the point where they greet them on the shore, most people who are tired and dealing with bad news and I mean, they get kind of grumpy. When these people would show up, he'd say, you know, guys, let's not do it today. Not today. Yeah.

I'm hanging out the closed sign. But in a wonderful way, Matthew and the other Gospels all say that he looks on them with compassion. And in Mark's Gospel, it says he saw them as sheep without a shepherd.

And so the compassion drew him to kind of deny his own needs, the need for rest, the need to deal with the bad news. And he goes right back into doing what he was doing before they got in the boat, which is doing massive ministry all over again. And it looks like they did it all afternoon because they did it until the evening. Until the evening. Yeah.

Yeah. So denying himself, he served them. So it's interesting that the disciples say, you know, send them away so they can go get something to eat. And Jesus says, they don't need to go away.

You give them something to eat. Now, why would he have said that? And then I started thinking about the fact that clear back in chapter 10, he had given them authority to preach the Gospel, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and sent them out. So, you know, and back in Matthew 10, I think verse eight, it says, you've received freely, so freely give.

So freely give. So it's like this is a training event for the disciples because he didn't tell them to go feed people. He told them to go heal and raise the dead for heaven's sake. And in the other Gospel accounts, at this point, it actually says that's why he's doing this. It's for the apostles benefit. It's for their benefit.

To train them. And you got to realize too, we are well past the wine thing at the Cana wedding, and you know, where they saw... They've seen him multiply.

... a gigantic amount of wine multiplied from water. So although Matthew doesn't cover that event, John does, but we know that they've seen that at least, well, at least a handful of six of them have, five of them have. So they should put that together and say, well, you know, they look at the people here and we haven't seen how many yet.

It'll tell us in a second, but it's gigantic. So the idea of doing something to feed that many people is just so overwhelmingly over the top impossible. I mean, you got to think about a stadium size of people. Yeah. And they really haven't seen him do anything quite like this before. No, this is grand scale stuff.

This is immediate and very practical. Yeah. So, but it is interesting. It is interesting that in John's Gospel only, when he says, he says, you feed them, he actually turns to one person first. And that's Philip. And says, well, what do you think, Philip? And so Philip, you know, he kind of throws his hands up in the air and says, can't do this. And when there's this awkward position in this whole conversation with Philip, then Andrew kind of steps in and says, well, there's this boy and he's got some stuff here, which again is almost a fantastically ludicrous offer for when you're talking about a stadium full of people. All we've got is five loaves here and two fish, says in verse 17 of Matthew.

And he said, oh, go ahead. But to be fair, but to be fair, Jesus is the one that says, what do you got? Right. What have you got?

What have you got? So on the answer, even though the question and the answer seem ridiculous in the moment. Yeah. Right. Okay. So he says, bring them here to me, right?

Whatever you got, your puny little resource. And then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds and they all ate and were satisfied. Are we reading on or are we stopping? Okay. Keep going.

Okay. And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children.

Oh my gosh. So whole families. We're talking, yeah, a stadium full of people.

Yeah. So if you have men that are married, you can double the number, married and have maybe one or two kids, you can almost quadruple a number. So it may be upwards of 20,000 people.

And that's the size of a modern college stadium is 20,000 people. That's pretty remarkable. So we're talking to a lot of people, which is why when Jesus turns to them and says, you feed them, they're like, this is impossible.

Well, it is impossible with men, but nothing's impossible with God. Yeah. Well, you know, and the really kind of like the parables, the point of the story is a very simple one. Yeah.

It's very simple. What have you got? No matter how little it is, bring it to Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and exactly. And no matter how impossible the task seems, Jesus always starts with, well, what do you got? Let's start with that. Let's build on that.

Because not only does he, does he build on the, you know, the five loaves and two fish, but he also builds on 12 apostles. You're doing this. And so for 20,000 people, this is just, this is just crazy stuff. So he says, what do you got?

Let's just do this. And now what I find really fascinating at this point while they're, while all the apostles are are jointly shrugging their shoulders and, and, and, and Andrew is holding these fish in his brain. They're all, then he says, well, tell him to sit down, sit down on the grass. Now, when you look at the other gospels, two of the other gospels say when they sat down, they sat down in groups of fifties or hundreds. And he tells you to sit down in fifties. Well, that's banquet size. That's a banquet size sitting. So we're not just saying, sit down individually in your family groups. He says, sit down. Like you're going to have a banquet.

That's the fifties. So the expectation at that point, when he says, do that is that we're going to be fed all 20,000 people. Yeah. It's and so, so now it's like throwing down the gauntlet.

Jesus says, sit them down in banquet groups and the apostles are still shrugging their shoulders. And you know, it's like, so what are we going to do? Well, he sure got everybody's attention. Sit down and get ready.

He's got everyone's attention. And, and now what you would expect if I was writing this story, I would kind of lay the fish and the bread on the ground and laugh and say, we're not going to do that. We're going to do manna from heaven and have manna come down or something like that. Something, something really dramatic, but Jesus starts with taking this meager, almost no contribution and holds them up to God and thanks God for what little that they have.

I think that's, that's an astonishing start to the entire thing. Well, what's interesting to me, what you just said about manna from heaven, it was that that would be less personal, right? Because it would just sort of rain from heaven and everybody would go and gather what they needed, which is the manna story. But Jesus, look at what he does. He takes that little puny resource. He looks up to heaven, which is essentially saying, father, this is between you and me, right? Where you're going to do this and says a blessing, right? And then he starts breaking the loaves and giving them to the disciples. So this is this really interesting process of having brought this puny resource to Jesus. He, the son, who in the father sent, looks to the father and said, okay, this is your business, not mine.

I'm thanking you for this right now. And then he begins breaking the bread in the public eye. He has made this very visible link. This is not just a magic trick.

This is something the father is doing. Well, because, because he so clearly takes what is a puny, impossibly small thing and still says, this is a gift from God. This has come from God. Never repudiate what God gives you, even if it seems insufficient.

I think this is great. And then he breaks it, which is the process of taking what you have and sharing it with other people and then breaks it and gives it to the other 12 apostles. And then from that point on, there's enough food for everybody. You gotta wonder how long that took. I know.

How long did the breaking go on? And it boggles the mind. Of course the people would not have been close enough to see exactly what was happening. Right. But the 12 were. The 12 were. Because Jesus was breaking the loaves and giving it to them. And since we know from the challenge, from the challenge that this is, this whole event and how it transpired was really to train the apostles in something that they would need to rely on much later.

Well, pretty later in their ministries, as they went around the world. And God gives them meager resources. And instead of saying, oh, that's not enough, they say, oh, listen, there was this day where we didn't have hardly anything and God multiplied it in ways we could never imagine. And isn't it interesting that in this instance, they pick up 12 baskets full of leftovers, one for each of them. One for each of them. None of them could deny that there was not only enough, there was more than enough.

Well, yeah. And it's not because everyone just took a tiny bit. Like they passed it around and people said, well, you know, only take this little crouton size thing, you know, because there was some interpretation in the early church that this was like the Lord's supper. So they were just taking tiny little things, but it doesn't say that.

There's no indication of that here. It says they ate and they were satisfied. They ate as much as they wanted to until they said, oh, can't eat anymore. Well, that's a lot of food.

That's an awful lot of food. And still God in his great sense of humor from heaven starts with something that looks totally inadequate. And in the end, there's not enough. There's like more than enough and it's overflowing enough.

That's what's remarkable about the entire thing is that God, when you look at what looks like impossibly limited resources, he says, no big deal. In fact, I'm not only going to do what makes it sufficient, I'm going to go over the top and go beyond that. Fill your cup and overflowing, which is actually a picture from the Old Testament.

I'll fill that cup and actually have it overflow. And so here we overflow into 12 baskets. And he wants them to preserve that he doesn't want them to throw them away. So nothing, even when it goes over the top from God is thrown away. And one of the other gospels says, so nothing is lost. So nothing is all the leftovers. Yeah.

So nothing is lost. So we have all these people fed and more importantly, more importantly, we have the 12 apostles seeing something that they have never seen before in their life and that they'll use as a resource to pull from for the rest of their lives. Well, okay. So in a couple of chapters, we're going to do this again.

How about that? But this one is largely for a Jewish group and a couple of chapters down the road is going to be on the other side of the lake in a largely Gentile area, but it's going to play out the same way. Yeah, I know. That's what's amazing.

It's interesting. It's like underscoring the truth of this. The bread of life is come to feed you and there's always enough for everybody. And the process of what Jesus did when he looks to heaven, he blesses the bread, then he breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples. That's a little pattern that we're going to see repeated not only in the next giving of the bread, but we're going to see that repeated at the last supper. Yes. And we're going to see that little pattern repeated after the resurrection at the dinner with the two on the road to Emmaus, where he's going to take what little bread they have, break it, look to heaven, bless it, break it, and give it to them.

And in that process will be revealed to them. Yeah. And the breaking of the bread, they suddenly burn on them. You can read about that at the end of the Gospel of Luke. It's in, I think, the very last chapter of Luke. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I just love the fact that he uses the apostles in all of this, because it's a, again, these are just very apparent on the surface takeaways, but they're powerful, which is that the Kingdom of God that they're going to be involved with bringing around because of the Gospel that they bring, God deliberately takes something as important and as, well, as important as the Gospel and sharing the Gospel, and he gives it to people with very little resource. And we're talking fishermen. I mean, we're not talking about people who are... No training. ... gifted with the great public speaking skills or great intellect when it comes to parsing the Old Testament.

People with very little resource. And in the end, that's not accidental. God entrusts to people who are quite evidently weak and under-resourced so that when the Gospel does go out, it's clear that it's not because of the resources of those people or any intrinsic skill on their part. It's clearly something that God is doing.

It's clearly the Gospel all by itself, empowered by the Holy Spirit. So that's a deliberate tactic, and here he's getting them to understand, I could do this by just showering manna and tell the sitting banquet groups, send someone around to collect it. He could have done that, but instead he says, no, I'm going to rely on you guys and through the rest of your lives, I'm going to spread the Gospel in the same kind of way until people are satisfied and the baskets are overflowing.

Yeah, I think the picture is extraordinary. Yeah, and it becomes clear that the larger crowd didn't grasp that picture, but the disciples did. And the reason I say that is because in John's Gospel, right after this event, John 6 tells us that they came around the next morning, they raced across the lake to find him because they're like, we want another free meal. And they found him on the other side of the sea, and they said, Rabbi, when did you get here?

There's a lot of stuff that happens in between, right? And in John 6, 26, Jesus says, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. In other words, you're looking for a free lunch. But don't work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give you. For in him the Father, even God, has set his seal. There it is, this mark of the bread of life given to people. And it's a nice contrast, too, about the fact that we tend to live for the things that we need, like food. And they did, too. Yeah, well, Jesus had talked about that a lot.

I know. In fact, when we hit it, we hit it right out of the beginning of Matthew, when he goes to the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, don't be consumed by your need for these things. And clearly, their need is for the Word of God. And again, it's really fascinating that he was up in some wilderness area somewhere close to this, and he was giving them the Sermon on the Mount. And that was real food. This is not.

Yeah. Well, and I would say, track on farther in John 6 and read ahead, if you'd like, just to see how the people were responding. And it leads into this huge conversation about Jesus claiming to be the bread from heaven. The bread from heaven.

The bread that gives life to the world. So it's not just a symbolic thing or just a miraculous thing he did, that he himself is the bread that the Father gives for the life of the world. So I would encourage you listeners to read John 6 all the way to the end of the chapter and grasp that conversation, because this event is what precipitated it. That's what precipitated it.

Yeah, the context is really great. And Matthew doesn't tell us all that. He just gives us the event. Yeah, he just gives us the event.

Well, we're closing down on the end here. And you mentioned what's going to happen after this. And in Matthew's account, a very predictable thing happens after he feeds him for dinner time. A very predictable thing, which also then picks up the next morning. You're talking about in John 6. The next morning, they go across the lake to find him, ask when he got there, because they were stalking him. They were stalking him.

And they're looking for their morning bagels. And they said, we're here for the food. Well, even before that, Matthew's going to tell us next week that this whole feeding the 5000 was such a remarkable thing.

They said, let's make him king. But you know, before all of that, we have something incredible that happens the night in between. Yes. And so we won't spoil it for you. But I would encourage you read ahead. Well, no, but that's what I mean. Because Jesus is teaching the 12.

They want they want to make him king until they have to go they have to have to somehow figure out how to stop them from making him king. And that ensues what happens in the next chapter. Well, I'm not going to the next chapter. I'm getting into the boat. Oh, I Oh, yeah.

Well, that's true. About crossing the water and walking toward them in the storm. Yes, that follow.

So Jesus, this whole thing is as much or more about the 12 who are in the boat. So if you're listening, read ahead. Yeah. Because it's important to know that that happened right after this.

Yes. It'd be nice if there wasn't actually a chapter break, because this story continues on and the ramifications go right into the next the next section we're going to look at. So if you're curious, you can read ahead, read ahead, and you don't have to wait for us to get there. But just remember that this is closely tied to probably one of the most important miracles in the entire New Testament document documented by all four of the gospels. It made a big effect on the apostles.

And and surely, Matthew, who was there at the time made a big effect on him. So come back and join us as we continue to see Jesus doing remarkable things in Galilee and well and unfortunately, continuing to raise the ire of the people who were against him, because he was growing way too popular. So anyway, come back with us next time. We're still in chapter 14 next time, and we're going to continue the ramifications of what happened today in this desolate area, as they fed 20,000 people. So join us again next time on More Than Ink.

There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself. And you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. The end today. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Rhythm City.