Today marks Daily Mediation number 5,000 in a row, or nearly 14 years. For this reason I turn to the Feeding of the 5,000 and my favorite Scottish scholar (as I have Scottish roots), William Barclay.
When it grew late, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But He answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to Him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” And He said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then He ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and He divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men. Mark 6:35-44
“It is a notable fact that no miracle seems to have made such an impression on the disciples as this, because this is the only miracle of Jesus which is related in all four Gospels. We have already seen how Mark’s Gospel really embodies the preaching material of Peter. To read this story, so simply and yet so dramatically told, is to read something that reads exactly like an eyewitness account. Let us note some of the vivid and realistic details.
They sat down on the green grass. It is as fit Peter was seeing the whole thing in his mind’s eye again. It so happens that this little descriptive phrase provides us with quite a lot of information. The only time when the grass would be green would be in the late springtime, in mid-April. So it is then that this miracle must have taken place. At that time the sun set at 6 p.m., so this must have happened sometime in the late afternoon.
Mark tells us that they sat down in sections[or groups] of hundred and of fifty. The word used for sections is a very pictorial word. It is the normal Greek word for the rows of vegetables in a vegetable garden. When you looked at the little groups, as they sat there in their orderly rows, they looked for all the world the rows of vegetables in a series of garden plots…
The wonderful thing about this story is that all through it runs implicit contrast between the attitude of Jesus and the attitude of the disciples. (1) It shows us two reactions to human need. When the disciples saw how late it was, and how tired and hungry the crowd was, they said, “Send them away so that they can find something to eat.”
In effect they said, “These people are tired and hungry. Get rid of them and let someone else worry about them.” Jesus said, ” You give them something to eat.” In effect Jesus said, “These people are tired and hungry. We must do something about it.” There are always the people who are quite aware that others are in difficulty and trouble, but who wish to push the responsibility for doing something about it on someone else…
(2) It shows us two reactions to human resources… In effect, the disciples were saying, “We could not earn enough in more than six months’ work to give this crowd a meal. They really meant, “Anything we have got is no use at all.” Jesus said, “What have you got?” They had five loaves. These were not English loaves: they were more like rolls… It did not seem much.
But Jesus took it and worked wonders with it. In the hands of Jesus little is aways much. We may think that we have little talent or substance to give to Jesus. That is no reason for a hopeless pessimism such as the disciples had. The one fatal thing to say is, “For all I could do, it is not worth my while trying to do anything.” If we put ourselves into the hands of Jesus Christ, there’s no telling what He can do with us and through us.”
William Barclay in The Gospel of Mark (TDSBS; Philadelphia; Westminster Press, 1975) 157-159.
For 5,000 days, God has not disappointed me.
I have explored what saints and scholars through the centuries have said about generosity. It’s been an indescribably rich journey. And many of you have been with me for many of those days. Thank you. I pray you have been blessed.
My rhythm has been to study and write them in real-time, so they post less 24 hours after writing each one.
Today I looked to Barclay. He shined yet again. He reminds us that we must have mindset change in how we view both human need and resources. We must see needs with compassion, and give God what we have and watch Him work.
Too often we see needs as someone else’s responsibility, and we don’t try meeting them because we focus on what we don’t have. We think we don’t have enough so we don’t even try.
Jesus profoundly teaches us that when we give God what we have, there’s “no telling what He can do with us and through us.” I never dreamed that in giving Him an hour a day, I’d write 5,000 meditations.
But this is not about me. It’s about a generous God who loves us so much that He wants us to have eyes of compassion and hands willing to share what we have so He can do miracles in our midst.
To get a glimpse of how the mindset change called for in this biblical text is transforming churches across Malawi through the work of GTP, take seven minutes to watch the “Palmful of Maize” video.
And pause and pray that God will sustain us for another 5,000 days to live, give, serve, and love like Jesus. There’s “no telling what He can do with us and through us” when we give God what we have.
“In the hands of Jesus little is aways much.”
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