The feeding of the five
thousand is found in every Gospel which means it was a big deal to the early
church. My guess is it was the Galilean Woodstock of sorts (without the music
and drugs) so that it occupied the popular imagination and even those who were
nowhere near the mountain that day wished they were until the five thousand
magically multiplied and everyone claimed to have been there for a bite of fish
and a morsel of bread. Well, maybe not, but it really was a big deal. In fact
those who actually were there ran around the lake to meet Jesus (who walked
across) thinking that the one who provided supper might also make them
breakfast. (John 6:26) Of course we do the same thing when with limited vision
we value temporal needs over eternal truths. Not that God is disinterested in
our everyday. But the miracle of the story is that God takes what is and
multiplies it into what can be. We are tempted to tell the crowd to go away
which devalues both our own resources and the multiplying effect of faith. But
the story of the first century Galilean Woodstock is that what appeared to be
too little was more than enough.
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