29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
The sea of Galilee is another gentile region, full of non-Jewish residents. Jesus is continuing to reach out to those who the Jewish community saw as ‘the others.’ Not only is he traveling through the region, but he is stopping to heal and preach to its inhabitants. Our God sees all peoples and nations as being in need of his truth, and of loving care. Even though they had wandered from God and didn’t believe in him, God still called out to them. The power of this is brought home when one grasps that we ourselves are the gentile outsiders God has accepted into the community. Almost 99 percent of North Americans are gentiles. Because in our society the cultural split is between Christians and non-Christians, we usually think that the “other’s” who need to be accepted are unbelievers. But pretty much all American Christians are ‘foreigners’, the non-Jews who God has invited into the heavenly party. This passage is talking about us. This leads to a number of questions we all must wrestle with:
1. While knowing that God has not dismissed us personally for earthly reasons, do you still struggle to dismiss others because of their:
former sins?
gender?
skin-color?
economic status?
cultural heritage?
politics?
If you particularly struggle with this, try reading through John 4 and John 8. Let God’s word wash over you, and allow His opinion of others to become your own. Furthermore, apply God’s opinion to yourself. Even if you struggle with judging and dismissing others, God still cares about you, and he wants to forgive you. Let him.
2. Do you ever struggle with a sense of entitlement, as if God owes you something? But if we are gentiles, then God has adopted us. We were originally lost without him. Everything that we receive is not ours by some right, or birthright, but rather, something he has given to us as a sheer gift. When things go wrong and we suffer, this does not mean God has to make it up to us, or that he has somehow failed us. To live and breath and to have the hope of His kingdom is not something we are entitled to; they are all gifts that he has given out of his own generosity. Do you talk to God as if he owes you something?
3. God loves you no matter where you are from (i.e. Sea of Galilee or Jerusalem), what you have done (sinner or saint), or what society sees when they look at you (ie. Gentile or Jew, believer or unbeliever). If God unconditionally loves you so much that he is willing to overlook all of those things and come down to die for you, what does that say about your personal value? It means that regardless of your failures and inadequacies, God still thinks you are worth pursuing. Does this line up with how you see yourself?
32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”
We must understand how radical the concept of God having ‘compassion’ was at that time. Greek philosophy held that God was unfeeling and unchanging; furthermore, human emotions were almost entirely rejected. The idea that God could come down to earth and have compassion on others was in and of itself radical and counter cultural at that time. We often take it for granted that God cares about us, because Christian values have been instilled into our culture over thousands of years. But this was not always the case. Have you truly grasped how amazing God’s compassion for us is?
33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”
34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”
35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.
Many commentators in the last few hundred years have sought to reconcile scripture with modern science. This passage in particular has fallen under ruthless scrutiny. The objection goes like this: since nature usually operates in one way (ie. 7 loaves can’t usually feed 4000 people) it cannot later operate in a different and new way. They assume that what normally occurs must do so by some kind of natural law, and in no circumstances could do otherwise. Therefore, scripture must be unscientific, because it is contrary to what normally happens. It is objections like this that have led to the overwhelming secularization of North America.
But if God created nature, then why can’t he do what he wants within it? Furthermore, if formerly unobserved things cannot occur in nature, then how can science ever progress? If new evidence that contradicts current scientific ‘laws’ was always dismissed, then how could new discoveries ever be made? If what seemed normal 200 years ago was natural law and could not be broken, then no new scientific discoveries should have been made since 1811! Thus, Science actually requires anomalies for it to progress! Our God is so great that he cannot be boxed in by these petty human ‘laws’. Indeed, he can bring about dinner for thousands at the flick of a finger. And if he can do that, what do you think he can do with our most overwhelming problems, and with our deepest insecurities? All issues and struggles, when submitted at the feet of our lord, seem insignificant when compared with his all-encompassing power. Are there areas in your life you haven’t trusted to God’s power?
Some people like to spiritualize this text, making the fish and bread represent the spiritual bread that God will feed to us in abundance. Do you think this is true to the text? Do Jesus' miracles have far deeper meaning than just the physical acts themselves?
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