Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Jesus Feeds Us

34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”

When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”

39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketsful of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

This rather spectacular miracle assures us that not matter what our hunger is, for food, solace, patience, deliverance, love, Jesus is aware of it and will supply it.  The miracle took place slowly as the crowd formed into groups of 50 and 100, and the disciples distributed the fish and bread to them from their baskets, gradually becoming aware that no matter how many times they handed out food, their baskets were never empty, and to boot, when all had eaten, 12 baskets of "left-overs" remained!  Two questions"  1. Why do we fret when it seems we have reached the end of our endurance and our basket seems totally empty?  2: What can I do to help fill the empty baskets of others?  Food for today's ponderings.

Bro. Rene

 

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