Feeding of the Five Thousand

Quite often in the Bible, we're compared to sheep wandering around aimlessly. And when Jesus saw people acting like that, He wasn't angry.

He felt sorry for them. These people need a shepherd. And so in His compassion, the Good Shepherd looks at these human beings who are acting like sheep without a shepherd, and He will address their need immediately. As we observe the chaos and confusion in our world today, we see the analogy of sheep without a shepherd playing itself out in real time, don't we?

But there is hope. Jesus meets the needs of His people. Thanks for joining us for this Lord's Day edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today we will watch and wonder as Jesus cares for the hunger of more than 5,000 people. Here's Dr. R.C.

Sproul. In the nineteenth century, we saw the development of a school of theology known as the Religious Historical School and sometimes just described as historical liberalism. There's a definite movement that was anti-supernatural from beginning to end, its impact spilled over to the twentieth century with neoliberalism, and now into the twenty-first century with the advent of the so-called Jesus Seminar. Under attack by this school was every narrative found in Scripture, particularly the New Testament, that involved miracle or the supernatural because the tacit assumption of the critics was that there is no such thing as divine supernatural intervention in history. And so they were left with this narrative among others, and they took it upon themselves to explain how a more natural interpretation could be given to these texts that would not ask us to stretch our imagination to believe in miracle.

And some of these explanations range from the bizarre to the ridiculous. When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, our minister taught us in high school that what happened here at the feeding of the 5,000 was one of two things, both explanations he received from the Religious Historical School scholars. The worst interpretation was this, that Jesus had carefully prepared for this event by devious means of filling a cave near the Sea of Galilee with a large number of foodstuffs stored there in that cave, and Jesus had a flowing robe with loose sleeves, much as you might see on the attire of a magician, and He had His disciples hidden in the cave behind Him, and they formed a bucket brigade passing loaves and fishes up through the back of His robe, which He then distributed to this mass of humanity that was gathered there. And so what happened was no miraculous intervention by God, but rather a hoax perpetrated by a fraudulent preacher.

That was one explanation. The favorite one of my pastor was this, that when Jesus finished His teaching that day, the people were tired, they were hungry, and very few of them had thought forward enough to bring foodstuffs for their nourishment. And so Jesus asked His disciples to go around and find out who had brought food, and some of the people were prepared, some had brought fish, some had brought loaves. And so Jesus then addressed the multitude and said, share what you have one with another. And so everyone was able to eat because those who brought food shared with those who did not. And the true miracle that took place here was an ethical miracle. It was the miracle of human beings sharing their provisions one with another.

What one commentator in the twentieth century said about these theories is that what they manifest simply as this is unbelief. This is not what the text sets before us, and we're going to look and see indeed what the text declares. Let me remind you that this takes place after the execution of John the Baptist, which was sandwiched between the commissioning of the twelve to the villages around the Sea of Galilee in their first trial missionary journey. And so the first trial missionary journey where Jesus authorized them and empowered them to be involved in the ministry. And then that narrative is interrupted by the story of the execution of John the Baptist.

Now we come back to the text that disciples have returned from their missionary reach to the villages there in the region. And before we look at what happened, let me just introduce this this morning by saying that we have consecutive accounts of dramatic feasts. The first was hosted by Herod Agrippa. The second feast was hosted by Jesus. In the first feast, only the nobles and the elite of the territory were invited by invitation. In the second feast, it was the Amarets, the people of the land, the commoners who gathered there on the plain to be fed through the provisions set forth by Jesus. In the first feast, the food was prepared by gourmet chefs. In the second feast, it was prepared by the hand of the Messiah. In the first feast, the entertainment was through body and exotic dancing. In this feast, the first item of order was the exposition of the truth of God by the Son of God. And finally, we note this difference that in the feast hosted by Herod, its highlight was the bloody execution of a man of God. And in this feast that we read now, there were no executions. Only compassion made manifest in the feeding miracle of Jesus.

But with that contrast in view, let's look briefly at the text. The disciples, who were now apostles, temporarily at least, came back and gathered to Jesus, told Him all about the journey they had done. And He said to them, "'Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.'" I'm glad to hear what transpired on your mission, but let's go away from the multitudes, away from the crowds.

Let's go back to a quiet place, a solitary place where we can be alone together and talk about these things. This calls to mind the traditional situation that we find throughout the whole Bible where the traditional meeting place between God and His prophets, God and His people, is in the wilderness. And so now Jesus says, let's get away from the cities, away from the villages.

Let's go out and be alone just among ourselves with God. And so as they tried to find a solitary place, Mark tells us there were many coming and going, and the crowd was so great that the disciples didn't even have time to eat. And so they departed to a wilderness place in the boat by themselves. Now if you look at this, they're on probably the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, and they didn't get in the boat and go all the way across the sea, 15 to 20 miles, because if that were the case, the crowds would never have been able to make that distance in this short period of time and be waiting for Jesus and His disciples on the opposite shore. Rather, it's much more likely that the boat was going along the shore either to the north or to the south, a short distance where they were just trying to find a quiet place, but this huge crowd that had been stirred up not only by the reputation of Jesus, but now as the disciples had gone to each village and each city round about, huge crowds came out of those places to follow after the disciples as well as Jesus. So they see Jesus and the disciples get in the boat.

They see which direction they're heading. They could watch them from shore, and so they're running as fast as they can on the ground to keep up with Jesus and the disciples so that when Jesus turns, and the disciples turned the boat in toward shore and where the people knew they would come ashore, they beat them to it. And so they arrived before them and came together. And Jesus, when He came out, out of the boat, saw this great multitude and was moved with the boat with compassion for them.

Let's stop and park there for just a second. He wasn't frustrated. He wasn't annoyed because what He wanted to do had just been interrupted by what the mobs wanted Him to do. They weren't concerned to allow Him privacy to go away and be alone with His disciples. They wanted Him for themselves. And Jesus could have said, no, no, no, you're going to have to make an appointment.

I'm sorry. I have to spend this time with my disciples, and you folks are not invited. But instead, Jesus is moved by compassion. The word that is used here in the Greek text for compassion is only used to describe Jesus in all of the New Testament. This was a compassion that reached a level that was far deeper than human concern and human empathy for people in pain.

But what is it that sparked this profound compassion in Jesus? He looked at this great multitude, and He said, they're like sheep without a shepherd. That's what He saw. He saw people running. He saw people rushing. He saw people determined to get to a certain point, but they had no idea why they were doing what they were doing. They were working aimlessly. They were moving without any real understood purpose. They were like sheep without a shepherd. You ever see a flock of sheep without a shepherd?

I'll never forget the time I was playing golf some place, and this herd of sheep came from the fields next door and started running all over the fairway, interrupting the golf game. Nobody could… we didn't know where they were going to go. They'd go this way, then they'd go that way, and one would turn in the other direction, and the next group would follow them. They were all over the place, blind it seemed, aimless, sheep without a shepherd. And when Jesus saw people acting like that, He wasn't angry. He felt sorry for them. These people need a shepherd.

Oh, I love that image. It goes through all the Old Testament and all of the prophecies of the coming Messiah, who will be a shepherd king, who will be the good shepherd, who will be the one who lays down His life for His sheep. And so in His compassion, the good shepherd looks at these human beings who are acting like sheep without a shepherd, and He will address their need immediately. So He began to teach them. You know, the primary office of the pastor in the New Testament church is to feed the sheep.

Did you know that? We live in a time where churches have become so weak because people demand that the pastor do everything but preach and teach. But ninety-five percent of the labor of the pastor in the church is supposed to be preaching and teaching, not called to be a counselor, not called to be an administrator, not called to be a town leader, but His mission is to feed the sheep. And when Jesus made this commission later to Peter, beside the same sea, when He said, do you love Me?

You know I love you three times. Three times Jesus said, if you love Me, you feed your sheep. If you love Me, Jesus said, you feed My sheep. This is not My congregation sitting out here.

This is His congregation. You're not My sheep. You're His sheep, and My job is to feed you and to feed you with food that will not make you sick, food that will not poison you, food that will nurture you, the very Word of God. And so what Jesus did when He has compassion on His people is He teaches them, which we might miss in the rest of the drama of this story in thinking, well this feeding doesn't begin until later when He multiplies the fish and the love. It's not the whole time. Jesus is feeding these sheep with truth and with His Word.

So He began to teach them many things, and now the day was far spent. And so the disciples come to Jesus, and they said, well, this is a deserted place. You know, we're outside the city now. We're away from the villages.

It's a nice grassy plain, but it is deserted here, and it's late. Send them away. So they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. Jesus, it's time to call a halt to this.

Seminar is over. You need to send them away so that they can go into the villages before it's too late, before all the stores are closed, so that they can go into the villages before it's too late, before all the stores are closed, so they can get something to eat. Jesus said, you feed them. I've been feeding them here all day.

Now it's your turn. You feed them. And once again, they're flabbergasted.

I mean, they're gassed as definitely flabberg when they hear this. They say, how do you expect us to feed them? It would take two hundred denarii, it would take a year's salary to buy enough bread to feed this mob. Where are we going to get that kind of money? We don't have that kind of money here.

How many times have you heard that? We can't do this. We don't have what's necessary to accomplish this task. You know, I learned when I was a kid, I can't, never, did anything except sit there and say woe and alas about all the obstacles that stand before our mission.

And that's the way the disciples, well, we can't do that. It would be a whole year's salary. But what do you have? See what you have. So they checked around, and they said, we've got a couple loaves of bread and a couple of fish.

Okay. That's all you have? You take what you have, and let Me bless it. And we'll see what God does when you give Him what you have. We'll see what God does when you do what you can do.

You do what you can do. You give what you can give, and then get out of the way and watch God work. I mean obviously this text has great parallels with a similar miracle in the Old Testament in the wilderness when the people of Israel were so hungry. They wanted to go back to Egypt. They were so fed up with the manna that God had provided supernaturally.

You remember? God had given them bread every day in the form of manna, and they got sick of it. What is this, Moses? It's manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner. If we want to have a midnight snack, it's manna.

We've had smoked manna, baked manna, broiled manna, manna souffle. We've tried everything we can, and it's now become loathsome to us. And so now the people say what? Take us back to Egypt. Oh, do you remember the good days in Egypt?

We had leeks, cucumbers, garlic, onions. They forgot about the yolk that was around their neck. They forgot about the oppression of Pharaoh, and now they're ready to sell their citizenship in the kingdom of God for leeks and onions and garlic. And so Moses goes to God, and he said, God, I quit.

Get yourself another mediator. I'm turning in my prophet's card right now. Did I give birth to this multitude? All they do is complain and murmur and grumble. They can't wait to tell me the next thing they don't like about the program here. And now they're demanding meat to eat, or they're going back. God says, okay, they want meat to eat. I'll give them meat to eat.

Not for one day, not for five days, not for ten days. I'm going to give them so much meat that it will come out their noses, and it will be loathsome to them. Remember that? Now Moses hears God say, I'm going to feed them all. And what's Moses say?

How in the world are you going to do that? How can you feed all these people? Are you going to kill all of our cows?

Are you going to dry up the sea from the fish so that this multitude can be fed until they're satisfied? And God being Jewish answered a question with a question. When Moses said, how are you going to do this? What did God say? He said, as the arm of the Lord waxed short. Do you forget who you're talking to, Moses?

Step back and watch, and you will see if I will do what I said that I would do. And so the disciples obeyed Jesus, and they gave Him the fish and the bread. And He lifted His eyes to heaven, and He prayed a simple prayer. Mark doesn't tell us the words that He prayed, but in all probability He prayed the prayer that I'm going to read to you, which was the common Jewish prayer for meals at that time.

Listen to how it goes. Praise be to you, O Lord our God, King of the world, who makes bread to come forth from the earth and who provides for all that you have created. It was a prayer praising the providence of God. We thank you, Lord, that you have provided for us our daily bread, what we need.

Beloved, every commentator in the New Testament looks at this story, which as I said is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels that tells not only what Jesus did there, but it foreshadows the last supper. So far I've been feeding you. In a moment He will come, and He will feed you from His own table. He will feed you the bread that comes down from heaven. He will feed you by Himself, of Himself, out of His compassion for you. And when Jesus feeds His people, when He's finished, there are baskets filled with extra provisions, because as He did that day on the plane, every person's hunger was satisfied. When Jesus provides for us, it's super-abundant provision, more than we could ever hope or imagine.

Amazing! We've listened to a message from Dr. R.C. Sproul today on Renewing Your Mind. Each Sunday we're making our way verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark. I hope you're able to join us each Sunday for the series, but if you've missed any of the messages along the way, let me encourage you to request our resource offer.

It's R.C. 's commentary on Mark's Gospel. You'll be able to fill in what Dr. Sproul has already taught here on the program, and it will be a great study as we continue the series in the coming weeks. It's nearly 400 pages and full of R.C.

's insight. Request it with your gift of any amount to Ligonier Ministries when you go to our website at renewingyourmind.org. Another way to continue growing in your knowledge of Scripture is by listening to RefNet. 24 hours a day we're streaming sound biblical content from Dr. Sproul, our Ligonier teaching fellows, and other trusted pastors and teachers.

You can download the free RefNet app for your phone or tablet, or you can listen anytime at refnet.fm. Well, what would you do if you were in the boat and saw Jesus walking on the water toward you? Well, we'll find out what the impulsive Peter did as we continue the sermon series next week here on Renewing Your Mind. I hope you'll join us. Thank you.