When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities.
Throughout history and across many very different religious traditions there has long been a curious linkage between spirituality and food. The Old Testament has its share of dietary restrictions and laws, many of which to this day translate into what, for instance, observant Jews regard as kosher or non-kosher foods. Although the Christian faith has largely left behind such strictures, we, too, still regard gluttony as one of the deadly sins, and some Christians also promote strict vegetarianism.
Even some of the foods we eat each week have a religious background. In the mid-1800s there was a group of people in America known as the Millerites--a Christian sect firmly convinced that Jesus would return sometime late in the year 1843. He didn't, setting off what was called "the Great Disappointment." At least some of these folks, however, made the best of the situation by declaring that as a matter of fact Jesus had returned but that it had turned out to be an invisible, spiritual advent. Believing themselves to be living in an already-present millennial kingdom, these Adventists decided that as part of this new identity they should invent alternative foods as a sign of their not being fully in this world.
One preacher named Sylvester Graham invented a new kind of cracker for his congregation to eat--yes, that was indeed the origin of the Graham Cracker. Peanut butter was also invented at this time, as was a variety of cold breakfast cereals, including something called a "corn flake," perfected by Adventist devotee John Harvey Kellogg in a spiritual community located in a, then, little known place called - wait for it: Battle Creek, Michigan.
Food and spirituality have long been yoked, but aside from observing occasional periods of fasting, no religious group has ever said it would never eat anything again. We all know we must eat and drink to live. If we go much more than three days without water or a month or so with no food, we will die. Many organizations nobly work every day to get food to this world's starving. The fact that thousands of children die of starvation every day is as vivid, and utterly tragic, a sign of this world's broken condition as anything.
The Feeding of 5,000
Most biblical translations tell us in Matthew 14:13 (and again in verse 15) that the place to which Jesus had withdrawn—and the place to which the crowds had followed him anyway—was “solitary” or “remote” or “quiet.” As far as they go, those are all legitimate translations of the Greek adjective “eremos” that gets used here.
But most commonly when “eremos” is used in the Bible, it refers to the wilderness, to the desert, to that dreaded place that, theologically speaking, always stands for chaos, for all that is evil and fallen in the world, for all that is the opposite of the good cosmos God fashioned “in the beginning.” The wilderness is where the devil lurks. The wilderness is where testing and temptation come. The wilderness threatens shalom and life and all flourishing and is, therefore, a place of terror that sane people avoid.
So is it significant that Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 takes place in a location that is twice described by Matthew as wilderness-esque, as “eremos”? Probably. In fact, almost certainly!
All of the gospels report on the ministry of John the Baptist and John’s raising up of that verse from Isaiah of how it is in the wilderness that a highway must be built for our God (and, of course, John the Baptist did his work in the wilderness wilds, too). Jesus began his ministry right after his baptism by being impelled into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. There is no missing the theological theme that Jesus is coming to all that is chaotic and dead and wild and dangerous in this fallen world and he is bringing back cosmos and shalom into all that is fragmented and full of death.
So here in Matthew 14 - as in the other feeding miracle accounts - we are led out with the crowds to a place that is not just solitary or quiet or lonely but a place that is tinged with the desert, with “eremos”, with the devastation wrought by the effect of sin and with all that that means in the Bible.
And it is just here that the Messianic Great Shepherd of the Sheep comes to bring out an abundance of life as symbolized by the effusive multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Jesus did not make just enough bread and fish to squeak by but such an over-abundance that the leftovers had to be gathered up.
We need food to live. Those of us blessed enough never to have to worry about our food also have the luxury of being able to enjoy this creation's bounty in all its manifold variety. We even celebrate those skilled at serving up particularly tasty cuisine, whether it's Aunt Millie whose pot roast cannot be topped or Julia Child whose "Bouef Bourguignon avec Champignon" is so fine we'll shell out thirty or forty bucks just to get a plate of it.
We need food, we appreciate it. The crowds around Jesus on that long ago day as reported in Matthew 14 were no different. They were hungry, Jesus fed them and so he quickly rose in their estimation because of this miracle. And it was quite a stunning spectacle. This must have been an occasion of great wonder but also of great joy and hilarity. As the basket of bread and fish kept going and going without being depleted, waves of laughter must have accompanied it. By the time the basket got to the fiftieth person you can almost imagine his shouting back to the first person in line, "Hey, Sherman! Isn't this the same fish you ate?!" As astonishment gave way to joy, as growling stomachs gave way to stuffed bellies, the people realized Jesus truly was a great man of God. Only the Creator himself could "play" with the very stuff of creation as to pull off this feat.
Jesus has come to lead his sheep beside still waters, to transform the wilderness places in all our lives from locales of death and danger to places of lush life and abundance.
Seen from this angle, Matthew 14’s miraculous feeding of so many is no parlor trick, no little sideshow designed to titillate and impress. This is a vignette of everything Jesus came to do in the first place and it just so inspires tons and tons of hope for us all!
As Frederick Dale Bruner points out,
“The Feeding of the 5,000 is the only one of Jesus’ miracles that gets recorded in all four gospels.”
The only one! What is it about this miracle that makes it so important the evangelists clearly concluded that you simply could not have a gospel without it? It seems obvious that it is because what Jesus provides must be “fed upon” by all men everywhere, not just those of a single nation. That in the midst of this barren place, what Christ provides is more than sufficient to meet the need of all who come.
Jesus is revealed in this story as not only sufficient for spiritual needs but also physical ones; that somehow the “feeding” Jesus ultimately provides is food for not just the Church but for all the world for “whosoever will”.
Like the paltry amount of bread and fish the disciples initially discovered, so the food of the Lord’s Supper looks paltry and not up to the task of giving this hurting and broken world what it needs.
But this story tells us it is sufficient and that this is precisely what the world needs. Perhaps that is why--factually, theologically, sacramentally, and ecclesiastically—the four evangelists knew that this story had to be included.
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