How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?

 

 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 a dispute with the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, Jesus went to the 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 who had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on them.  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."  Immediately his ears were opened, and this 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.  We have already read that Jesus fed a multitude of five thousand men (and more women and children) in this reading from Thursday of last week.  This is a second feeding of a multitude which should not be confused with the first.  They are two distinct miracles in the Gospels.  My study Bible comments that there is a significance in the variance of the number of loaves.  In the first feeding miracle, there were five loaves, which symbolizes the Law (for the Five Books, the Penteteuch or Torah).  But here there are seven.  Seven is a number which symbolizes completeness; here it signifies spiritual perfection.  So therefore, in the first instance, Christ reveals Himself as fulfilling the Law, while here He shows that it is He who grants spiritual perfection.  My study Bible asks us to note also that these crowds had been with Christ for three days, the same number of days that He would rest in the tomb.  Participation in His perfection can only come through being united to Christ's death (see Romans 6:3-5). 

 

 There are some other things we need to note about today's reading in addition to the ideas which my study Bible offers.   Mark's Gospel has just reported to us two significant events of Jesus' ministry which took place in what is Gentile territory.   In yesterday's reading (see above), we read about the Syro-Phoenician woman who begged Christ to cast the demon from her daughter, and then in the Decapolis, he healed a deaf and mute man, "opening" his ears, and "loosing" his tongue.   In today's reading, we can presume that this event takes place in what is nominally Gentile territory; that is, it is likely a region still on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  (We're told in the end of the reading that Jesus and the disciples sailed to Dalmanutha, likely just opposite to the place where this feeding took place, in lower Galilee, and so closer to home territory for Jesus.)  In light of the Gentile influence which would be present (even if those who follow Him are Jews), we can look at the number four thousand and see its correlation with the wider world.  The number four signifies the four points of the compass, the four directions; magnified by one thousand, it tells us of the great multitudes of the world.  While Jesus is sent first to the Jews, also instructing the disciples to do the same (Matthew 10:6, 15:24), and "salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22), the text seems to open up the ways that Christ (or rather, His word and gospel) will eventually go out to the whole world.  The number seven in the amount of the loaves, in this respect, is significant, as my study Bible says it signifies spiritual perfection, as contrasted to the five loaves representing the Law in the feeding in Jewish territory.  "Spiritual perfection" would indicate that regardless of where the gospel message goes, Christ's spiritual teaching will bring all to perfection, whether that be those who begin with the understanding, for example, of the Hellenistic world of the philosophers and pagan myths of the Greeks and Greek-speakers, or out to the world beyond.  In whatever place, beginning with any spiritual tradition, it is Christ who will bring understanding and spiritual perfection out of the cultural concepts and practices which people already know.  While the Jews already have Jewish spiritual history, and know and understand the Lord through their Scripture, whatever is true or good or beautiful in other traditions will be brought to spiritual perfection through Christ's message and teachings as the gospel is carried to the world.  He has said that He has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17), and most certainly He is the One about whom they testify (John 1:45), but Christ is also the Lord of all -- God of gods, King of kings, Lord of lords (Deuteronomy 10:17; 1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14, 19:16).  Let us note that for these people also, Christ says, "I have compassion on the multitude," just as He had compassion on the previous five thousand who had followed Him into the wilderness from His home territory in Thursday's reading of last week.   The whole world needs His compassion, and this has never been more true, and will always remain so.  In the Psalms we read the people's question, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?"  (Psalm 78:19).  In today's reading, we learn that what Jesus offers is food for the world (John 6:51), for all in their own wilderness.