Amy C Walters

Jesus Feeds the 5,000 | Luke 9:10-17

Thousands of people have followed Jesus into a remote place and it was starting to get late. The disciples want to send the people away to fend for themselves. But Jesus tells them, “You feed them.” The disciples are focused on their limited resources, not realizing that Jesus can take our little and make it limitless.

We’ve come to another very famous Bible story: the feeding of the 5,000. This is one of the few stories that appears in each of the four gospels. 

The disciples and Jesus have withdrawn together to a remote location near the town of Bethsaida. And in spite of its remoteness, the crowds have followed Jesus there. In fact, we’re told that there are about 5,000 men, so that number does not include the women and children, which could be thousands and thousands more.

I love the fact that Jesus welcomes these crowds. He’s not put off by them or irritated by them, but he has compassion on them, and he is there welcoming them, teaching them, healing them. 

The disciples, however, notice that it’s starting to get late in the day, and they’re getting concerned. It’s a remote place, so there’s very little food, there’s very little lodging, and there are very many people. The needs far outweigh the resources that are available. 

The immediate issue is, how are we gonna feed all these people? But I think there’s an underlying issue in this story, too. It’s the feeling that there’s never enough. 

Maybe you’ve felt that before. There’s never enough people to do all the work. There’s never enough time to get it all done. There’s never enough energy to keep going. There’s never enough resources to go around. There’s never enough patience to get through it. 

It’s a feeling of scarcity. And that’s what the disciples are experiencing. 

They want to solve the situation by sending the people away to fend for themselves. You see, one of the things about scarcity is that it kind of puts you into a every man for himself mindset. I’m going to grab mine and make sure I’ve got what I can. Everyone else–good luck to you. You deal with it on your own. 

But Jesus instead proposes another solution. “You feed them.” 

Imagine you’re one of the disciples and you hear Jesus say, “You feed them,” and you look out over that sea of thousands of faces. How would you feel? Probably completely overwhelmed. Maybe panicky. There is no way I could possibly do this.

Maybe you feel weary just at the thought of it. Maybe you’re overwhelmed right now with life the way it is and you can relate to how the disciples are feeling. 

So the disciples start thinking about how they can solve this problem. And what do they turn to? What they have available right there. “We only have five loaves of bread and two fish.” 

Five loaves, two fish, that’s it. That would be barely enough to feed the disciples right there. Maybe they could each get a bite, and they could just scrape by on that. It seems absurd to even mention it to Jesus because it falls so woefully short of what the need is.

But Jesus doesn’t just scrape by. He’s not concerned with everyone getting maybe just a taste. He’s got bigger plans in mind.

Jesus takes what they have, those loaves and those fish, and he looks up to heaven and he thanks God. Even though it’s just a tiny bit, he is grateful for the little bit that God has provided. Because Jesus takes those, breaks them, and multiplies them. 

He hands it out to the disciples. And the Greek here indicates that he just keeps handing it out. 

And the disciples are distributing it to the people, and it says, “They all ate and were satisfied.” Not that they all got just a little bit of nibble. Not that they got just enough to tide them over. They ate until they were too full to eat any more. No room for dessert! 

In fact, there were even leftovers available afterwards. The disciples go and pick them up. And how much was left? Twelve basketfuls. Just like the twelve disciples. Because Jesus is driving home this point that he can take our little and make it limitless.

That’s our key truth for today. Jesus takes our little and makes it limitless. 

Several stories ago, we talked about how God is a multiplier, and here we see it in action with Jesus. We see him as the Creator God, taking just a little bit and creating plenty for everyone out of it. When all the disciples could see were their limitations and how their resources fell woefully short, Jesus says, give it to me and I’ll make it more. 

I think we have all been in those places in our lives where it feels like there’s not enough to go around, where everything is inadequate. We don’t know how we’re going to get the resources that we need. We don’t know how we’re going to accomplish all the things that need to get done. We are overwhelmed, and we look at the “only” that we have, and we say it’s not enough.

What do we learn from this story about not enough? We learned that in Jesus’ hands, there is no such thing as not enough. Jesus can take it and blow our minds with what he is able to do with it.

What is your “only”? What’s the thing that you look at and say, I only have this and it’s not enough? Give it to Jesus. See what he does with it.