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, broken then and gave the 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 the 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 another confrontation with the Pharisees, Jesus 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 impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  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 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, broken then and gave the 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 the away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.  My study Bible comments that this second feeding of a multitude should not be confused with the first (see this reading).  As conveyed in the Gospels, they are two distinct miracles.  Christ's teaching to the disciples in our next reading will make this explicitly clear (see Mark 8:14-21).  My study Bible adds that the difference in the number of loaves mentioned is significant.  In the first feeding, there were five loaves, which symbolizes the Law (contained in the first five books of the Bible).  But here there are seven loaves.  Seven is a number which symbolizes completeness or fullness.  Here, my study Bible says, it indicates spiritual perfection.  So, in the first feeding, Christ reveals Himself as fulfilling the Law, but here He shows that He is the One who grants spiritual perfection.  My study Bible asks us to note also that these crowds had been with Christ for three days, which is the same number of days He will rest in the tomb.  Participation in Christ's perfection can only come through being united to His death (see Romans 6:3-5). 

 

One may ask, why two different feedings in the wilderness?  What purpose does this serve for us, and in the salvation ministry of Christ?   Today's reading, in which we are presented with a distinctively different, somewhat contrasting feeding in the wilderness to the first, reveals to us in some sense the particularities of needs and the appropriate manifestation of what is necessary at different times and in different circumstances.  My study Bible has explained the significance in the differences in the number of loaves, and in the number of baskets.  Each number gives us a particular sense of what is being revealed and given to us.  They also tell us a story about the evolution of Christ's ministry, as the crowds grow, and even as His reputation grows within areas of mixed Jewish and Gentile populations.  We must also consider that contemporaneously with these events, the opposition and scrutiny from the Pharisees in Jerusalem has also grown.  Even now, in our next reading, we will read that the Pharisees now come to dispute with Him (Mark 8:11-13), a more aggressive stance than in the past.  So this change in the significance of the numbers, to seven loaves signifying completion or perfection, and to seven large baskets taken up within the "future" of the Church for those who will enter later, teach us something about the evolution of Christ's ministry -- in particular, in response to the growing hostility of the Jewish religious leaders.  We may also see the significance of three days as noted here in the text, giving us a hint of the death of Christ to come, and what that means for our salvation.  The salvation that will be given by Christ will be for a fullness of a promise extending far beyond what had been conceived in the past, one which will be extended out to the world and beyond what was considered the "nation."  Let us also examine the number four thousand, in terms of its significance spiritually.  In the number four we may read the significance of the four corners of the world, and also the four corners of the Cross.  In each case, and with a multiplication by a factor of one thousand, that also indicates a fullness of another sort -- of the entire world.   In this symbolism is now a prefiguring of the Great Commission to come, in which Jesus will tell the disciples, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  It is of great significance, then, that we can observe the gradual and evolving changes within Jesus' ministry, as He first sends the apostles out only to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 10:5-6), but eventually, in the Great Commission, to "all the nations."  It teaches us that in our own lives, as much as we often would wish life would stand still, and a decision taken today will be sufficient for tomorrow, each day brings with it new evolution and new change, and what we need spiritually may also evolve and grow.  So we may also be challenged, as are the disciples throughout the New Testament, to grow our faith as necessary as well, to meet the new things God has in store for us, the new places we may go, the growth God asks of us.  For life does not stand still, and we have a Savior who moves with us, in whom we may "live and move and have our being."