So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments

 

 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 Jesus went to the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, after yet another confrontation withe the Pharisees.  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, 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.  This is a second feeding of a multitude reported in Mark's Gospel (see this reading for the first).  These are two distinct miracles.  My study Bible comments on the variance in the number of loaves.  In the first, there were five loaves, symbolizing the Law.  Here in this instance there are seven loaves.  Seven, my study Bible says, symbolizes completely.  Here, it indicates spiritual perfection.  So, in the first feeding of five thousand, Christ reveals Himself as fulfilling the Law, but here He shows that it is He who grants spiritual perfection.  Moreover, here the crowds had been with Him for three days, which is the number of days that Christ would rest in the tomb.  My study Bible also notes that participation in Christ's perfection can only come through being united to His death (see Romans 6:3-5).  

With Christ's movement in Mark's Gospel, we really must come to consider the evolution of the Church and its extension to the Gentiles.  Throughout this Gospel, we read of Christ and the disciples crossing over the Sea of Galilee, from one region to another, and back and forth where He is well known and to regions of more Gentile influence.  In yesterday's reading, He spent time in Tyre and Sidon (where He healed a Gentile women's daughter), and also the region of the Decapolis with its Greek and Roman culture, although also many converts to Judaism.  These remind us of what will come to be with regard to the, as yet, future Church.  So it is hard to view this second feeding in yet a new wilderness without seeing it in that light, as yet another hint of the opening to the Gentiles that will come.  The symbolism in the reading which is discussed by my study Bible seems to hint at this future gospel that will go out to the Gentiles:  spiritual perfection through participation in the death and Resurrection of Christ.  This is a new covenant that will go out to a new people, those people being a combination of Gentiles and Jews, but perhaps ironically where there is "neither Greek nor Jew" (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11).  We can pick another number from today's reading and see it symbolically:  the four thousand who are fed.  Four is a number that clearly symbolizes the world, such as in the four directions of the compass.  To magnify that number by one thousand is to speak of the whole world as well as the world to come, the many faithful who will be in the future Church, a future we still move toward, a number uncountable.  The seven large baskets of leftover fragments give us again the number seven, but this time as a number of completion for the gospel that will go out to the world, the bread of heaven with which the world will be fed through the Eucharist and the teachings of the apostles and the Gospels (John 6:33; 50-51).  We might view Christ's ministry as distinctly evolving, moving into its future that will be left for we who were to come, and those to come after us.  As we do, we begin to get some idea of what this concept of "perfection" is, and how it is related to the fullness of what that will eventually become.  This is a process that continues, and we don't yet know its end or what all of that process of perfection will look like.  What we know as "end times" is called teleology, from the Greek word "telos."  This word is usually translated as meaning "end," but this is not a perfect translation.  It is better understood as a fullness, the "end point" of something being its most full expression, carried to its furthest point.  That furthest point is also "perfect."  In fact, the Greek word telia (coming from telos) means "perfect."  And this is the sense in which we should understand what "end times" are, for we have been in "end times" since the beginning of the Church, and will be until Christ's return.  It is this fullness that we must keep in mind, even as we see that the many thousands are "filled" even in the wilderness, and all leading to "perfection" in the seven baskets that promise this food for the life of the world.