Miraculous Meal

A MIRACULOUS MEAL

(Matthew 14.13-21)

(Mark 6.30-44)

(Luke 9.10-17)

(John 6.1-14)

The story is told of a nervous young curate taking his first Sunday School class. He asked the class: 'How did Jesus feed five people with five thousand loaves?'

Suddenly, he realised his mistake, but it was too late.

The following week he decided to correct his mistake and asked the children, 'How did Jesus feed five thousand people with five loaves?' A bright young boy at the front of the class put up his hand and said, 'Easy sir. He used what was left over from last week.'

Like that young boy we are often too smart for our own good, and miss the significance of the miracle.

The mistake we usually make is to concentrate our attention upon answering the question 'How' rather than the question: 'Why is this story told like this?' After all, the gospel writers are not seeking to provoke simply open-mouthed amazement, but rather wanting us to ask, 'What sort of change does Jesus bring into the world and my experience of it?'

In other words, we are not concerned about what happened in history but rather what is its relevance to us today.

Although we cannot know for certain what Jesus had in mind, we can, however, discover what the evangelist had in mind in his recording of the story, and how his readers would have understood it in the first century.

It is therefore necessary to bear in mind that all the gospel writers, save for Luke, were brought up in the Jewish tradition and wrote their gospels for an audience which was also brought up in the Jewish tradition.

Just as a diamond, when held up to the light, shines brightly as the light hits the various facets of the stone, so the feeding of the five thousand also shines brightly, as we bring to light the hidden messages contained within the story.

In particular, I want to draw your attention to five aspects of the story.

Firstly, the evangelist sees Jesus as a second Moses.

Moses, you will recall, rescued the Israelites from the captivity of slavery in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea into a desert place, where he fed them with manna from heaven when they were hungry.

Likewise, Jesus also passes over water to a desert place where he feeds his people whom he has rescued from the captivity of sin. He feeds, not just his twelve apostles, but also five thousand people, and as Matthew alone points out, also the women and children, from just five loaves and two fish and still there are twelve baskets of food left over.

Secondly, the evangelist sees Jesus as a prophet like Elijah or Elisha who also fed people from meagre resources.

You may recall that when Elijah asked the widow from Zarepham for a 'morsel of bread', she declined because she had only a handful of meal in a jar for her own use. However, Elijah persisted and said: 'Do not be afraid... first make me a cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son’. And we are told that, despite her use of the meal in the jar, its contents remained full at all times in the future.

A similar story is told of the prophet Elisha. This time, a hundred men are fed from only twenty barley loaves and there is still plenty of food left over.

If Moses represents the Law, then Elijah and Elisha represent the Prophets. Both bear witness to the Messiahship of Jesus.

Thirdly, the evangelist sees the feeding of the five thousand as a symbol of what Jesus does at the Eucharist.

For instance, we are told that: 'Taking the five loaves and two fish, He looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowd.'

Here we see clearly, what Dom Gregory Dix calls the fourfold action of the Eucharist, whereby, the priest representing Jesus, takes, blesses, breaks and gives the bread to the disciples at the Last Supper in the Upper Room.

There is no doubt, that when the early Christians heard the story, they would have associated it with the Eucharist. As my former New Testament tutor, Professor Denis Nineham, has observed: 'To the early Christians the whole story would have been strongly reminiscent of the Eucharistic worship, at which they too sat in orderly fashion while the deacons brought round to them loaves blessed and broken by the celebrant.'

Furthermore, in Mark's account of the miracle, we are told that the people sat down upon 'green' grass. This means that it would have been during the month of Ahib - the month of green grass, namely the time of Passover. And it was the Passover that Jesus was celebrating with his disciples in the upper room.

Finally, from the second century onwards, bread and fish were regularly used in Christian art as a symbol of the Eucharist.

Fourthly, the abundance of food would remind the evangelist of the heavenly banquet at the end of time.

Food was scarce in New Testament times. The Jews therefore looked forward to a time when there would be an abundance of food. In fact, this was their idea of Heaven.

So the author of the Book of Baruch in the Apocrypha looks forward to the end of time when 'the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those days, because these are they who have come to the consummation of time.'

This same thought can also be found in the Book of Revelation, when the author writes: 'To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna.'

So we can say that the feeding of the five thousand would have reminded people of the future heavenly banquet.

Finally, in both Matthew's and Mark's Gospels, the feeding of the five thousand is followed a couple of chapters later with the feeding of the four thousand.

Now, is this a mistake or is it deliberate?

I would suggest it is deliberate and refers to two aspects of the church's mission.

The feeding of the five thousand refers to the mission to the Jews. The figure 'five' refers to the Five Books of Moses, sometimes called the Pentateuch. The twelve baskets of food collected after the meal refer to the twelve tribes of Israel, The miracle also takes place in a Jewish area around the Sea of Galilee, and finally, the Greek word used for 'basket’ in the story is derived from Jewish culture.

On the other hand, the feeding of the four thousand refers to the mission to the Gentiles - the non-Jewish world. The figure 'four' refers to the four corners of the earth. The seven baskets of food left over refer to seventy being the conventional number of the Gentile nations. The miracle takes place in a predominantly Greek area of the Decapolis, and finally, the Greek word used for 'basket' in the story is derived from Greek culture.

In other words, the recording of the miraculous feeding twice refers to the church's mission first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, and the bread is a symbol of the Word of God. Possibly, the second miracle is not included in either Luke’s or John's Gospels because, by the time they wrote their Gospels, the mission to the Gentiles was an undisputed fact.

As I said at the beginning, to focus our attention upon the question 'how' is to miss the rich symbolism of the miracle, as it was understood by the Jewish evangelists and their readers.

Jesus, the fulfiller of the Law and the Prophets, continues to feed those who are members of the Christian Church in the Eucharist, which is a foretaste of that heavenly banquet which is open to both Jew and Gentile alike.

'Bread of heaven, on thee we feed,

for thy flesh is meat indeed;

ever may our souls be fed

with this true and living bread;

day by day with strength supplied

through the life of him who died.'