In the passage for this week, Matthew 14:13-21, we read of Jesus meeting the needs of nigh on 5000 folk, whilst the disciples are flummoxed by the whole thing. When you read the passage, what was your focus centred upon?
Was it the number of loaves of bread, or the number of slippery fish? – all which have been the subject of numerous theories to discern a hidden meaning. Was it the number of baskets they managed to gather up after the feast? Surely that’s the 12 tribes of Israel??? If so, is this a text purely for the Jews, and not the Gentiles? It is the Gospel according to Matthew, after all.
We have to be wary that we don’t seek to highlight one group over another, for surely that undermines the whole Gospel, especially when we return to the Sermon on the Mount.
The bit which drew my eye was the journeying. Jesus went by boat, whilst the ‘crowds followed by foot’. Agreed, the MegaBus was not invented back then, although of course the caravan was – two humped was the preference, I am told. But the folk went by foot and got to the place where Jesus was heading to by boat before he set foot on the shore. Why didn’t Jesus go by foot? : he was ahead them already.
This story of the feeding of the 5000 is one in each of the four Gospels. But each one presents it in its own context. In the Gospel according to Mathew, what precedes the story? It is the death of John the Baptist (JtB).
It is the end of something, leading onto something new.
The people walk to find Jesus. Where else in Jewish Biblical history have the people walked and walked? The Exodus, a story firmly entrenched in every Jew’s understanding.
They had to leave Egypt then, and find something very new.
At the conclusion of their Exodus, the people would understand God. In Matthew’s story, the people walking to a deserted place, to find Jesus, replicates the Exodus.
The Greek word for “deserted” is erēmos, which is oddly the same word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew text , known as the Septuagint, for the area to which God demands Pharaoh release the bound Israelites’.
At their meeting with Jesus, we then move onto something very topical : the Last Supper. Just like the one shown below, this doesn’t contain 13 people: then again nor did the one in the Olympics.
Jesus feeds the people who are far from their normal abode. They that are momentarily homeless, the wayfarer, the traveller, a drag artist, the person we might see passing us by. They may even be from a different timezone… They are all fed, loved and supported.
The dialogue excellent
thank you
Hi, Bob. The Olympics diorama wasn’t a Last Supper rendition. It portrayed a Greek Bacchanalian celebration, in honour of the Games. However, I like your blog post and the image of the Time Lords sharing ‘time’ together. Thank you.
Hi Linda
Accepted. Hence a deliberate reference to a table which didn’t have 13 people on one side. The Greeks, considering the origins of the Olympics, wouldn’t include the Lord’s Supper.
Hope you are ok.
When I tried comparing Exodus to Jesus feeding 5000, I was not sure if in Exodus people really understood God as they struggled for like 40 years to ultimately settle down. Yes, the number 12 is seen in many places in the Bible (perhaps in the book of Revelation too). It is weird, but the Hindus believe in the horoscope and, once, I was told, I was lucky to be born on the 12th and not the 13th. 🙂
About the fact that Jesus went by boat while people walked and yet reached before him could have many reasons….perhaps Jesus wanted to have his private time with God, and so he took a boat while people walked fast along some shortcut path to reach a destination.
True, Jesus feeds everyone, including me, from a different timezone 🙂