13 Now when
Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by
himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the
towns. 14 When he
went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed
their sick. 15 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.” 16 But
Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They said to him,
“We have only five loaves here and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 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. 20 And
they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the
broken pieces left over. 21 And
those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Matthew 14:13-21
There were about
five thousand men, Matthew recorded, besides women and children. If we count the women and children, the
number could easily reach twenty thousand people. With that many people, no wonder the
disciples were nervous when Jesus told them to give all of them something to
eat (v. 16). True, humanly speaking,
what can “five loaves of bread and two fish” do to feed twenty thousand people
at the same time? The disciples’
mathematical calculation was spot on. It
was the perfect excuse to send the crowds away.
They were tired already anyway after the entire day spent helping Jesus
healing all the sick (v. 14). So now was
the most reasonable excuse to rest. They
had enough serving for one day. They
could not do it anymore. But, their own
Master indicated that they were not dismissed, not yet. The ministry was not over yet.
The disciples must
have felt stuck. How could Jesus tell
them to give twenty thousand people food to eat, when all they got was five
loaves of bread and two fish? Their
suggestion in the first place to dismiss the crowds was to relieve them of the
heavy burden of taking care of those many people. Perhaps they wanted to have dinner with the
five loaves and two fish. But now this…
a ridiculous command from their Master.
A kind of service that they could not do, according to their
mathematical equation. For them, Jesus’
command was impossible to do. It was an
impossible service.
If we look into our
own life at the moment, we often also rely too much on the human
capability. This includes ministry. As we participate in the ministry of the
Kingdom of God, our default system is to calculate everything according to our
human capability. Such reliance on human
power is understandable. We have seen
how human capability can get things done and done well. We do not need to hide the fact that often we
only approve ministry proposals that make sense and can be done in reality with
church’s limited resources. So, if the
church only has five loaves and two fish, then the church will only approve a
program in which five loaves and two fish can accomplish in reality. If five loaves and two fish can feed only 10
people, then the program must be adjusted to fit our limited resource. A program that proposes to feed 1000 people
would not be approved on the basis of irrationality and impossibility, since
what the church has can only feed 10.
What about programs
that can lift up a remote village even with only a little resource such as five
loaves and two fish? A program like
community development for example? A
program that fits the command of God to take care of the poor and free them
from the bondage of poverty? My guess is
that it would be quickly dismissed as being unreasonable. There are many excuses that we can draw from
our storehouses: 1) We don’t have the financial resources to support such
program, 2) We don’t have the people who are willing and capable of doing it,
or 3) It is not our church’s mission to do so, or even 4) Many Christian
organizations have already done it so we don’t need to, and so on and so forth.
What is worse is that often, instead of
approving the “impossible program
that truly fits the command of God,” the church rather opts to build a bigger
and more luxurious church building with a budget that can purchase a million
loaves of bread and four hundred thousand fish.
What does this mean
for today’s church? This means that we choose what is “impossible” for us. Quite surprisingly, if we are honest, we
would rather undertake a massively impossible
task that would give us more comfort and that would elevate our status rather
than undertaking a less impossible task that actually serves and truly ministers
to those who are in desperate need. In
other words, many modern churches today when deciding on what ministry to
undertake prefer choosing what they want for their own convenience than
choosing to do what they must do as God’s church. The disciples of Jesus had seen how Jesus
healed the sick miraculously all day long (v. 14), but chose to ignore Jesus’
miraculous power when it was not convenient for them (vv.15-17). It was easier to tell the people to go rather
than to feed twenty thousand people.
Jesus saw through
the minds that seek only their own convenience.
In verse 16, Jesus insisted: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” The
disciples made a genius excuse employing arithmetic in order to avoid the
ministry. But Jesus was no ordinary
man. He did not rely on human
power. He did not prefer His convenience
over others either. Jesus did not choose
the easy way. He chose to serve. So He told His disciples: “Bring them here to me.” Now, let
us pause here for a moment to digest this stunning reality of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Matthew 20:28a
records Jesus’ own words describing who He is: “28 even
as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” It is
very astonishing to think about what Jesus says here. Jesus came to serve. Jesus came to be a servant. Even though He was King of all the universe,
He did not come to be served. The King
came to serve. The nature of our Lord
Jesus is that He is the King that serves.
Contrary to the way the world portrays kings and princes, Jesus’ model
of kingship is service. God the Father
serves as well. Before He created
humans, God created the facilities and all what humans would need. In other words, God served humans. And God takes the task as a servant gladly
and voluntarily. No one coerces God to
be a servant. Nobody could. So Paul writes in Philippians 2:5b-7a saying:
“Christ Jesus, 6 who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be
grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a
servant.”
With that knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ, we now return to our passage with a slightly different view of His
seemingly ridiculous command. Jesus told
His disciples to bring the limited food to Him, ignoring the disciples’
remarkable arithmetic calculation of impossibility. There is no doubt that Jesus was extremely
tired. He did all the work of healing
those many people the whole day. He
needed rest badly. But He was not ready
to quit for the day. He added one more
service to do, which was to meet the people’s most basic need. Even though, I imagine, the people would be
okay to sleep without food that night – the adults at least, given Jesus had
touched and healed many of them. But
Jesus had their basic need in His mind.
These people needed food, and Jesus had the power to provide enough food
for them, so He went through more hours of service just to satisfy the crowds’
hunger. I don’t know how many hours
needed to feed twenty thousand people at once, but three hours could easily be
spent for that.
I truly believe Jesus cared for the
little children too. The adults could
endure hunger better. But the little
kids, as we know it, could not endure hunger well. When the kids go hungry, the parents usually
enter panic and frantic mode. I imagine
if they were dismissed right then, they could suffer even more because there
might not be enough food in the surrounding areas for that many people. At the time of Jesus life was not as modern
as now where we could find food in our city at almost every corner. There are plenty of food stalls or
restaurants that open until late at night.
But in the time of Jesus, with no electricity, no refrigeration
technology, no modern logistical management, it would be a disaster if twenty
thousand people attempted to find food at the same time in the same area at
night.
So Jesus initiated the ministry. He did not explain why He did it. He did not tell His disciples what He had in
mind. Perhaps it would be too difficult
for the disciples to comprehend at that time.
Or perhaps simply there was not the right time to get the disciples to
understand the ministry before doing it.
The ministry had to be done right away despite the inconvenience. And thus Jesus miraculously broke and blessed
the mere five loaves and two fish to satisfy twenty thousand people that
night. And lo, twelve baskets of
leftover were collected from the five loaves of bread and two fish Jesus broke
and blessed. The Mission Impossible was accomplished successfully. No inconvenience can deter Jesus from
completing His ministry. And not only
that twenty thousand people were well fed that night, they also witnessed
firsthand God’s miracle and power by experiencing it themselves.
As I reflected on this, I was
wondering what was in the disciples’ mind.
Were they astounded by the miracle that defied their super logical
arithmetic calculation? Did they learn
their lesson of compassion as modeled by Jesus? Did they learn that everything is possible
with God? Did they hunger for more
ministry with Jesus? Or did they grumble
because Jesus just robbed them of their resting time?
If we bring this passage into our
life today and ask ourselves in private, which do you think are we? Are we in awe of God for doing miracle after
miracle as we serve Him? Do we humbly
learn to have compassion as we learn to serve God by ministering to
others? Do we acknowledge and wait for
God’s superior power in overcoming humanly impossible tasks? Do we want to be involved more in His
ministry? Or do we grumble to God
because what He wants us to do robs us of our convenience?
As you are searching your soul, let
me tell about Viggo and Joan Olsen.
Viggo Olsen was an amazing surgeon.
He graduated cum laude from
the University of Nebraska College of Medicine.
He was a diplomat of the American Board of Surgery. He was also a fellow of the American College
of Surgeons. After the faith struggle
both Viggo and Joan experienced, finally they accepted Jesus Christ as their
savior and Lord. They were converted
from agnosticism or even atheism into Christianity at the end of their
investigation of the truth of the Scripture.
What was surprising was their prayer as they submitted their lives to
Christ. Lee Strobel reported about Viggo
and Joan’s prayer saying:
Wanting to maximize the impact they would have,
Viggo and Joan prayed a bold prayer in which they asked God to send them to a
place devoid of both Christians and medical care. He obliged—and they ended up spending
thirty-three years in the poverty-wracked nation of Bangladesh.[1]
Both
Viggo and Joan left the convenience of their lifestyle, status, and wealth in
order to serve God. Many people would
not do what they did. Many people would
only serve God when it is convenient for them.
When it is inconvenient, we tend to avoid it at all cost. Just like the disciples in the feeding of the
five thousand. If Jesus did not insist,
we would never know the wonder of God and the extent of His love. If Jesus did not initiate the service, the
twenty thousand people would run into great difficulties. If Jesus chose to agree with His disciples,
they would never experience God’s power in ministry. Viggo and Joan experienced firsthand the
power of God in ministry. Strobel
recorded:
There, they founded Memorial Christian Hospital
as a center of medical care and spiritual light, where countless people have
found healing and hope. They and their
colleagues helped establish 120 churches.[2]
Strobel
said to Viggo and Joan: “It must have been difficult to live in an
underdeveloped nation like that.”[3] The answer that Viggo gave to Strobel touched
my heart. Strobel wrote:
“Actually,”
he told me with a smile, “it was the greatest adventure we could ever
have. When you are in a hard place, when
you’re over your head again and again, when you’re sinking and beyond yourself
and praying your heart out—then you see God reach out, and touch your life, and
resolve the situation beyond anything you could have ever hoped.”
His
eyes sparkled. “That’s living it up!” he
declared. “There’s nothing that can
match that. We got to experience that
again and again and again. We wouldn’t
have missed it for the world.”[4]
Both
Viggo and Joan experienced God’s power over and over again as they gave
themselves to the service of the Kingdom of God.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus
came to the world to serve, our Father in heaven never ceases to serve us. Aren’t we then, as Jesus’ disciples and as
the children of our heavenly Father, supposed to serve? Jesus did not choose the convenient
ministries for Himself, but voluntarily sacrifice His own comfort in order to
do His Father’s will. How about us? Are we going to choose only ministries that
are convenient to us? Jesus taught His
disciples to set aside their own convenience and minister to those in
need. Jesus did not choose ministries
that help His own status or lifestyle or comfort, but instead He had people’s
needs in His mind. Are we then going to do
ministries that bring advantage to us or are we going to have compassion and
minister to those who are desperately in need?
If we follow Jesus’ footsteps, which is to serve even though difficult
and inconvenient, we would see God’s wonder being displayed through us. We would experience what Viggo and Joan
experienced as they served the Lord in Bangladesh. May the grace of God be with you as you
choose to serve the great God of heaven and earth. Amen.
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