I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat

 

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

 

- Mark 8:1–10 

 

Yesterday we read that, after having had a dispute with the Pharisees and scribes who'd come to Him from Jerusalem,  He arose and went to the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon.  And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.  For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.  The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."  And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs."  Then He said to her, "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.  Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.  Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impedimet in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on them.  And He took him aside form the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighted, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.  Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well.  He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

 

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.  My study Bible reminds us that this second feeding of a multitude should not be confused with the first (see this reading), as they are two distinct miracles (see Jesus' remarks in Matthew 16:8-10).  There is significance, for example, in the variance in the number of loaves.  In the first instance, there were five loaves, which symbolizes the Law, while here, there are seven.  Seven is a number which symbolizes completeness; here, my study Bible says, it indicates spiritual perfection.  Therefore, in the first feeding, Christ revealed Himself as fulfilling the Law, while here He shows that it is He who grants spiritual perfection.  My study Bible also makes note that these crowds had been with Christ for three days; this is the number of days He would rest in the tomb.  To participate in His perfection only comes through being united to His death (see Romans 6:3-5).

 

 Why two different feedings in the wilderness?  Why did this need to happen.  One thing that we can see is a growing hint of the Gentile participation in the Church that would come in the future.  At the previous feeding in the wilderness there were twelve baskets of fragments taken up; twelve might be symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel, and it is also symbolic of the twelve apostles.  That is, in symbolic fashion, these twelve baskets represent the spiritual supply which would be taken out of Israel and distributed through the work of the apostles.  But here there are seven baskets, a number, as my study Bible said of the seven loaves, which symbolizes completeness.  That is, the mission of Christ is now showing signs of what its completeness will look like, a grace sufficient to heal an entire world; in fact, the creation, the cosmos.  That is, the grace that is always a step beyond the Law, which can come only from the divine, a justice or righteousness beyond the Law.  Here there are four thousand people.  In some way the number four symbolizes the world:  four corners, the four points of the compass, the directions of the world.  Four also reminds us of the Cross with its four points.  In this sense, these four thousand people symbolize all the people of the world, both Gentile and Jew.  The "thousand" multiplies the symbolic impact of the number, making it for all and through time.  Moreover, this seems to take place while Christ is still in the Decapolis.  In Greek this name means "ten cities," and it is a region of Greco-Roman cities, a population of mixed Jews and Gentiles.  So, as we read of the Greek woman, a Syro-Phoenician living the Gentile area of Tyre and Sidon in yesterday's reading, who begged like a little puppy for Christ's healing for her daughter, there are clues here of Christ's ministry expanding beyond Israel, although He was first to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:6, 15:24).  Now here in the Decapolis, He has opened the ears and mouth of one who was deaf and with a speech impediment (see again yesterday's reading, above), and now there is this great feeding of a multitude in the wilderness.  As Christ has done in Israel, so He will also do for the world, not through the Law but by grace.  My study Bible has pointed out the significance of the three days this crowd has been with Him, similarly to the days in which Christ will remain in the tomb before resurrection.  And there we get much deeper into the mysteries of grace and of the work that will go out into the entire world.  For grace works through our own interaction in life; it is not simply a gift which comes out of the blue or in answer to a plea, but it rather comes through participation and engagement with Christ, as we also enter into His struggle which He engaged in with the world in its imperfect state.  We grapple in our own lives with the sin that is around us and within us -- not as a permanent sort of stain but as something in our environment, as a kind of legacy we're born into.  People hurt us, we want to hurt them back, we develop habits of selfishness and blindness just as we see and take in from all around us, a world caught up in its own blindness and deafness to God's message and God's grace.  We struggle with corruption and disappointment and failure and ailments of all kinds.  But engaging in this life with Christ, and participating in His same life and ministry, means that we engage these things through a prayerful life and with Him.  We seek His guidance and grace for how to cope, how to respond, how to move forward in such a sea of snares and potential troubles.  Like Christ has borne the Cross on the way to the Resurrection, so we also bear our own crosses and may therefore come to experience our own resurrections on the way of life through God's grace and participation in that life.  This is the way it seems to me; and He's given us the tools to live that life of participation in His own life and death and Resurrection.  I was once speaking to a priest of a very difficult experience I was going through, and I said, "I feel like I'm being crucified."  He told me that was good, because after Crucifixion comes Resurrection -- and He was correct.  It was not easy, but I had to go through it with prayer and faith and reliance on Christ.  I needed to make the difficult choices and struggle that entailed for me, with Him and through Him and His saints and all the help available and stored in the Church, in those baskets of fragments that await us all as the treasure of the entire Church and the experience of all the faithful.  Our grace does not come from sitting on the sidelines; but as with Jesus' life and ministry, the way out is the way through -- with God.  That is, through participation in His life, death, and Resurrection.  He told us we must each take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23).  St. Paul spoke about this experience of living faith when He wrote, "I die daily" (1 Corinthians 15:31).  No one said this was going to be easy -- but what it means to "die daily" is that we are truly alive, in Him and with Him and by His grace (John 10:10).  And lest we forget, through His great compassion for us, even in the midst of our wildernesses.