Feeding The Masses
Mark 6:7-52
This story is about a revolution. Much like the one happening in the middle east right now.
-the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle performed in the gospels.
His Revolution
-the apostles (only time term “apostle” is used in the bible) return from being sent out by Jesus to go teach and heal. The crowds followed them back. Jesus took the disciples out to the wilderness to rest, but they didn’t have time to because the crowds saw their boat and followed them to the banks of the lake. So they get there and there is this massive crowd waiting for them. Jesus felt compassion for them. Text says he saw them as “sheep without a shepherd.”
-Revolutionary statement. A shepherd as been a metaphor all throughout the Jewish culture for the leaders of the people. He looks at this crowd and said they have no leadership. That’s why this part of Mark is laid out so weird with that story about Herod thrown in there.
-Herod used to like John the Baptist, but when Herod married his brothers wife John says to him, “It is not lawful for you to have your brothers wife.” So his wife, Herodias, has had a grudge against him and wanted him put to death, but she couldn’t because Herod feared John. But on his birthday, he hold this banquet for all his rich friends. Herodias’s step daughter in law comes in and she‘s dancing for him, and Herod asked her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.” So she asked her mother what she should ask for. She told her, “The head of John the Baptist.” So she went to him and asked, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist in a platter.” At first the Herod told her no, but he didn’t want to break his promise to her so he immediately sent the executioner for his head. (John had been in Jail for the duration to keep him safe from Herodias)
-It seems like one of those “meanwhile” moments in a story. A “this is what happened while they were gone” thing. But its not, it’s a flashback. It was stuck here in the middle of this story because Mark wants to show you the shepherd.
-Herod doesn’t care about his peoples sensibilities. He rules over Galilee, a very religious place. He told his brother divorce your wife, I’m marrying her, and John steps up to try and preach the truth to him. Herod’s confused by him, he fears John, but he also wants to do what he wants to do. So he’s stuck in the middle of his wife wanting him dead and the fact that he kind of likes listening to him. So when Herod gets caught up in the moment with Herodias’s daughter dancing in front of him, he tell her he’ll give her whatever she wants. The irony of this is that he’s not even a king, his dad was king. In his will he specified that none of his kids would rule and he split the kingdom into fourths, and this is just Herod Antipas, the seventh son of Herod the Great. Mark calls him “king” through all of this because Herod wanted to be king, he petitions Rome later to be king, and that’s what gets him deposed. He wants to be important. So his dilemma: Do I obey the truth that I fear? Or do I pursue being liked by my rich friends? And it says the he IMMEDIATELY sends for the executioner.
-Meanwhile it jumps to a King out in a field where people haven’t even had a chance to eat.
-Ezekiel 34
-The son of David was someone they were looking for. Ezekiel says: He’s going to come and be the shepherd for these people that you haven’t been.
-Herod’s banquet ends in death, Jesus hands out the bread of life.
-You read in John, it says that when Jesus is feeding them, the people understand what is going on and they try to make him King by force. It says Jesus escapes them, he’s not like the kings of this world. He’s also not there to overthrow the government. He’s in a whole other kind of revolution: I’m going to take people who are starving, and I’m going to feed them. He’s giving power, not taking it.
-He comes to give bread, not death. That’s the king coming to the field.
-He’s creating a new system where you give instead of take.
-He doesn’t want to do it alone. You see them when he’s breaking the bread. Its not like Harry Potter where food suddenly appears on the tables. He does it through the people. His revolutionaries.
His Revolutionaries
-Mark calls them the “apostles“. As you look through Mark, Jesus has been building to this, with the “fishers of men.” Then they just sit with him and watch what he does and learn from him. Then Jesus tells them to go out and fish. Go preach what I preach. Go do what I do. And they go do it. And it works, a crowd follows.
-The rap community is awesome at discipleship. Think Dr. Dre and Eminem. Dre bring him in and doesn’t give him a record deal right away, he just gives him a verse in one of his songs and then eventually sends him on his way to do his thing. Same with DOC and Dre. Technically, his is exactly what we should be doing, but in the religious sense, of course.
-I do and you watch, I do and you help, you do and I help. You do and I watch. He’s not doing this alone. He brings people up and sets them free.
-you can tell the disciples are feeling this moment, because they come to Jesus and say, “Hey, its getting late, we should probably wrap this up and send everyone to on there way to get food, you know?” Jesus loves that because they’re starting to think like ministers, they’re concerned. So reasonable plan right, turn them loose to get lunch on there own? And Jesus gives this logistical nightmare: “You give them something.” Emphasis on YOU. Then they give him the most sarcastic and disrespectful answer throughout the gospels. “Shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? (denarii is a days wage, so 200 days wages). There like oh, ok, so I’ll just take that $35,00 and go buy them all bread, right? Remember earlier how you said don’t carry any money with you? Seriously? We’ll do ministry, but what your calling for is unrealistic. So Jesus asks them to go and see how much break they have. He lets them feel there inadequacy. They come back with 5. Jesus puts them in this situation where they learn that they have to come to him. No, I’ll just get a job and let missionaries do that. I’m want to help, but I’m digging in my pockets and all I have is 5 pieces of bread, sorry. I’m insufficient, I cant do that. Jesus puts them in a place where they feel helpless. He wants them there. If they feel inadequate, then they see what he can do.
-He sits them down by the hundreds and fifties and divides the bread and fish. They eat till they’re satisfied, and afterward they collect 12 baskets full of leftover pieces.
The reason he’s doing it.
-That’s a miracle, folks. No one from the crowd decided to pull out extra loaves that they had, that’s not how you get 12 leftover baskets. If you don’t think he does miracles, he’s walking on water a couple verses later, so get over it.
-He puts them in this moment where he wants them to be a part of changing everything.
-You think you can’t make a difference, that’s fine, you come to him broken and empty, you give him what you have, and you let him work.
-Its like that show Captain America. The kids with the rings cant do it, just call the captain already!
-Your job isn’t to solve things, its to seek him.
-He knows your small, he just wants you to admit that.
-Whats interesting about this miracle is that really, its unnecessary. They weren’t dying. No ones daughter was dying this time, these people were just a little hungry. Letting them go to the nearby towns the get bread would have been fine. Jesus creates a crisis because he wants to show you your small, and then he wants to show you him.
-That’s what happens in the next moment, he puts them in the boat out in the water. They get out there and the disciples are rowing and they cant row in. So Jesus just walks out to them on the water. They think it’s a ghost. He’s like, umm no, its me, don’t be afraid. And he gets in the boat. That story end with them being astounded because they didn’t understand the loaves. That means these miracles are unnecessary for our immediate physical need. But they were deeply necessary for your soul. He’s not trying to show you the solutions to your little problems, hes trying to show you the big solution.
-Im the guy who runs nature, and im going to create a crisis to make you feel hopeless so you can look at me and say that im the guy who runs the world.
-He’s doing this so you fix your eyes on him.
-He’s going to come and not just heal our hunger, not just calm the rage of nature, hes gonna fix the souls of every human being. And he does that by taking the brokenness and not just overpowering it in this moment, he’s gonna take it and put it on himself.
-”I’m like this bread, one day im going to break in two, and im going to feed you and make you whole."
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