“And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworths of bread, and give them to eat?

He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.” (Mark 6:33-44)

One of the greatest miracles of Christ took place on a lovely day in the month of April, when the grass was green and the sky was blue (John 6:10). As the story unfolds, Jesus was in Galilee. He had crossed that body of water that John calls the Sea of Tiberias. Following the destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70), the Sea of Galilee was renamed Tiberias after Tiberias Caesar (Luke 3:1) who ruled AD 14-37.

Having crossed the Sea of Tiberias (or Galilee), Jesus took His disciples in a high mountain and there He sat with them. Into the rugged mountains, the Lord would often take the Disciples because there, among the majestic works of creation, they might find peace for the mind, serenity for the soul, and rest for the body.           

Despite the Lord’s withdrawal from society the people of the region sought Him. They had seen the miracles He could perform. They had heard Him teach with the voice of authority and not as the Pharisees. The hearts of many were open to the gospel and so the people came. They would not be denied. If Christ was in the desert, they would follow Him without regard to personal safety or comfort for themselves.

With such reckless abandonment the world should seek the Savior of their souls for in the search there is the reward of eternal life. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

The people who sought Christ did not just casually seek Him. The Bible says that they “ran afoot thither out of all cities” (Mark 6:33). So every soul should seek after spiritual things. The truth of the matter is that more often than not people are very careless with the eternal state of their soul, just like Felix.

Felix was a procurator of Judea and Samaria (AD 52-59) during the time of Paul’s ministry. Procurators ruled over politically disturbed areas like Judea and so were under the direct authority of the emperor rather then the senate of Rome.

Felix was a greedy and vindictive official. Hoping to get money out of the apostle Paul, Felix allowed the apostle to linger in prison for two whole years. He also knew that Paul’s imprisonment would please the Jewish officials (Acts 24:26, 27).

During the course of Paul’s imprisonment, Felix would have a private audience with Paul. In these sessions the apostle reasoned with the governor of “righteousness, temperance (self-control), and judgment to come.” At the end of each session, Felix trembled at what he heard, but he never changed. Instead the procurator delayed and hardened his heart and sent Paul away saying, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee” (Acts 24:25b).

But there is no more convenient season than the present. “Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (Heb. 3:7-12).

The people of Palestine were wise to run after Christ and to search for Him until He was found. The people were wise to give themselves to the noble pursuit of spiritual matters even if it means going to a desert place.

While the people gathered together, Jesus watched from His place in the mountain. Suddenly, His holy heart was moved with compassion towards the people “because they were as sheep not having a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). There are few animals, so I have read, as helpless and as senseless as sheep. Sheep are prone to wander about aimlessly and get themselves lost or into all types of situations they cannot get themselves out of such as getting stuck in a crevice or a thicket of bushes.

Spiritually, the people of Palestine were like sheep. Without a true Shepherd to guide them they wandered about. And the spiritual leaders of the land, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, were worse off than the people for they were spiritually blind to the things of God.

Christ had compassion on the multitudes gathering before Him and in that compassion the Lord began “to teach the people many things” (Mark 6:34). We are not told what Jesus taught the people on this particular day but it is not hard to surmise for Christ had a constant message with the multitudes:

He was the promised Messiah who had come to die for the sins of His people. As the Suffering Messiah spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, He would be betrayed, falsely accused, found guilty. He would be crucified, but on the third day He would rise again from the dead.

Let me suggest that one of the most compassionate things you and I can do for people is to give them the gospel of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. One of the most compassionate things we can do is to give a word of testimony, leave a tract, or invite someone to church in order to communicate how to be born again.

The things, which the Lord taught that day, were so memorable and so full of wisdom that the people did not want to leave. Suddenly, the shadows of the night began to be noticed. The sun would be setting at 6:00 PM If something was not done soon about food in particular, there would not be enough daylight left for the people to make an arduous journey home without many collapsing from exposure and hunger. Food was needed. And so it was that Jesus, as the Son of God, made a decision. On this day, He would simple spread a table of delight in the desert of good food. He would invite 5,000 men to His Father’s table. The women and children were welcomed as well.

Not knowing about this secret decree of God the Son, the disciples had been keeping an eye on the clock. Suddenly, they were very concerned about the welfare of the multitudes. In a state of apprehension they approached Jesus, made a valid point, and suggested a practical solution. “Lord,” they said, “This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat” (Mark 6:35, 36).

Have you ever had “nothing to eat”? It is hard to believe in an affluent society that elsewhere, hundreds and thousands of people perish every day because they have “nothing to eat” literally. There are many reasons for world hunger, most of them find a root in the spiritual realm where there is a famine of the soul. Spiritually, many people have “nothing to eat.” They have tried to find nourishment for their souls in the New Age movement, astrology, self-help techniques, or psychology. But like the Prodigal Son spiritually, they feed upon the husks of religious philosophies of this world and receive no nourishment. The have “nothing to eat.”

What is to be done when individuals have nothing to eat literally or spiritually? The Divine answer is this: come to Christ. Feast upon Him and then there will be a wonderful realization that the Savior is also the Sovereign of the universe with omnipotent power at His disposal. The solution to every situation in life lies in the Son of the Living God, not in human reasoning, no matter how practical it might seem.

To the disciples, there was a quick way to deal with the needs of the multitudes and that was to dispense the crowds, send them away and let them be responsible for their own welfare. “Lord,” they said, “Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread” (Mark 6:33).

To their eternal astonishment Jesus had no intention of sending the people away. Instead the Lord would feed the multitude from the resources at His disposal. And so Jesus told the disciples, “Give ye them to eat.” With these words Christ communicated three things.

First, the Lord wanted to encourage the hearts of the disciples that in every situation in life He was the Master of the Moment. The disciples did not know it, nor was it said at the moment, but later they would remember this occasion and be encouraged. Peter would retell the story to Mark who would write it down for you and I to be encouraged by.

Second, the Lord wanted to manifest His Majesty. If we are astonished by the miracles of the Master, we would be even more amazed if there were no supernatural events surround the life of Christ. He who declared Himself to be the Son of God must be expected on some level to display divine Sonship—and Jesus did.

Third, Jesus communicated in a subtle way that He had a sense of humor. Laughter is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us that there is a time to laugh. Job 8:20-21 says, “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers: Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing.”

When Jesus said to the disciples, “I want you to give them something to eat,” I suspect there was a faint smile upon His lips. He knew that the disciples had no power or resources within themselves to feed the people, but it would be fun to see their reaction, which was immediate and intense. “And they say [specifically, Philip said] unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworths of bread, and give them to eat?” (Mark 6:37 cf. John 6:7).

A pennyworth of money was equivalent to a days work for a rural worker. The disciples were trying to say that even a year of wages could not begin to pay for the food that was needed to feed this crowd. In other words, the situation was now hopeless. There were no resources for the work of ministry.

It is a facet of the human heart that it can become so alarmed at a situation there seems to be no solution to a given problem. At that point it is easy to forget that God often begins to work only when the need is the greatest, the hour is the darkest, and the human efforts are known to fail.

Now the way the Lord was going to work was through the instrument of faith mixed with gospel obedience in the normal duties of life. Turning to the disciples the Lord asked a simple question, “Tell me how much food you do have.”

Before long, an answer was provided by Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother who said unto Him, “Lord, there is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes:” Good for you Andrew. There is a flash of faith. Your faith is small, like a grain of mustard seed, but it is there despite the doubts.

Now the Lord issues another command. The people are to sit down in groups of fifty and a hundred. And there is gospel obedience. The people arrange themselves according to the pleasure of the Lord so that in the end they looked like rows of vegetables in sections.

Taking the humble offering of five loaves and two fishes, Jesus prayed and then, He began to divide the food. And in His hands the loaves multiplied and the fish multiplied. In His hands there was no limit to what could be done.

In astonishment the disciples keep coming back for more of the barley rolls and the little fish, and found enough resources for the people and more. And when the people were well feed, the Lord gave a final instruction.

So that nothing be wasted, pick up the extra provisions. It just so happened that there were 12 baskets of food left over, just enough for each disciple to have a basket full of miracles.

Here is a wonderful story full of rich spiritual lessons.

The compassion of Christ was for all the people. There is a terrible doctrine that says God does not love the unconverted. That is not true. When Jesus looked upon the Rich Young Ruler, the Bible says that Christ loved Him even though the young man turned back from the way of the Cross. And Christ loved the multitudes as well. We must be careful to guard the heart lest we exclude groups of people from the gospel of grace. We need to be compassionate people.

The Lord did not need the resources of the five loaves and two fish in order to perform His miracle. But the Son of God humbles Himself to receive gifts from men for three reasons.

When we share with each other we become like God. The goal of every person is to become like the Father and to reflect the attributes of divine essence. When we give to others, when we give to the Lord out of our resources, we are Godlike in the best sense of that word.

When we share with others we are released from selfishness. People say that have nothing to give to the Lord despite the fact that widows can give of their last coins and the Son of Man has no where to lay His head. Rather than articulate what is not true, it is better to find a way to give something so the soul is not a slave to selfishness.

When we share with others, we always receive more than what we give. The joy of giving is unleashed in the heart of those who give to the Lord and in those who help others.

The people were arranged in-groups for the Lord is a God of order and not confusion.

As Christ prayed and asked the Lord to bless the meal so we are to pray and give thanks to God—even in public places. We are to be a people of prayer (Col. 4:12; Jas. 4:2).

In the end, only Christ can supply our needs by His creative power. The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand was no optical illusion, no figment of a heated imagination, and no mere prompting of others to share what they already had. This miracle was real, solid, and substantial and a table of divine delectables was spread in the desert.

You can be part of a miracle by the new birth and by living out the Christian life trusting the Lord to meet every need of your life. What do you need? Whatever it is tell it to Jesus today and then come and dine.

“Jesus has a table spread
Where the saints of God are fed
He invites His chosen people
“Come and dine”;
With His manna He doth feed
And supplies our ev’ry need:
O ‘tis sweet to sup with Jesus all the time!

“Come and dine,” the Master calleth,
“Come and dine;”
You may feast at Jesus’ table all the time;
He who fed the multitudes,
Turned the water into wine,
To the hungry calleth now,
“Come and dine.”