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Jesus had “appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3:14-15). They had been busy sharing in Jesus’ ministry, preaching repentance and even healing the sick (6:12-13), and now they had returned, eager to tell Jesus all they had done. Tired from the continual press and clamor of the crowds, Jesus sought a place of rest for himself and the twelve (6:30-32). It was futile, however. When Jesus was recognized, the people hurried after him (6:33).
Rather than become aggravated at the vast company who were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34), Jesus once again showed great compassion. “In his own body God has felt the hunger of the poor, their thirst, their exhaustion,” wrote François Mauriac in his renowned Life of Jesus. “He has had a part in their sweat, their tears, their blood.” First Jesus taught the crowd in order to satisfy their spiritual hunger (6:34). Then, recognizing how late it had become and how long it must have been since they had last eaten, Jesus fed their physical hunger too.
Trying to feed so many people didn’t make sense to the apostles (Mark 6:37). As they logically pointed out, not even two hundred days’ wages could have bought enough food for such a crowd! They focused on what was lacking, and the magnitude of the need hindered their faith. Like Jesus’ disciples, we often think that the bigger the problem, the less likely it can be overcome! But Jesus was not deterred by the size of the crowd or the meagerness of the provisions at hand. Rather, he blessed the few loaves and fish that could be found—most likely with the traditional Jewish prayer, “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who bring forth bread from the earth.” With this act of thanksgiving, in which he acknowledged the gift of the Father, Jesus opened the way for the miracle he performed.
Just as God had miraculously fed the Israelites with manna—“bread from heaven”—and quail when they hungered in the desert (Exodus 16:1-15), Jesus now showed his divine power and fed the hungry crowd with a miraculous quantity of bread and fish. In Jesus’ actions we see a foreshadowing of the Last Supper and the Eucharist—“the bread of life” (John 6:35). This feeding of the five thousand also anticipates the great banquet—“a feast of rich food” (Isaiah 25:6)—that will occur when Jesus returns at the end of time to invite us to “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9; see also Matthew 8:11).
The disciples must have been incredulous at first and then humbled as they distributed the few loaves of bread and fish, only to find more every time they reached into the basket. The five thousand people received not just a mouthful each, but were “filled” (Mark 6:42). As with the abundance of wine at Cana (John 2:6), Jesus was not stinting with the quantity of food he provided. Nor was anything of God’s abundance to be wasted. “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost,” he said (6:12). The twelve baskets full of pieces of broken bread and fish may allude to the twelve apostles, who represent the foundations of the church, or to the twelve tribes of Israel.
Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish calls us to faith in him as the Son of God. It is also an invitation and a challenge to place our trust in his deep love for us—love made manifest in his daily care for us and in the Eucharist, his body given to nourish and strengthen us on our journey to heaven.
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