Sunday Reflection – August 6, 2023

Feeding more than 5000

Matthew 14 13 After Jesus heard about John, he crossed Lake Galilee to go to some place where he could be alone. But the crowds found out and followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw the large crowd. He felt sorry for them and healed everyone who was sick.

15 That evening the disciples came to Jesus and said, “This place is like a desert, and it’s already late. Let the crowds leave, so they can go to the villages and buy some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They don’t have to leave. Why don’t you give them something to eat?”

17 But they said, “We have only five small loaves of bread and two fish.” 18 Jesus asked his disciples to bring the food to him, 19 and he told the crowd to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up toward heaven and blessed the food. Then he broke the bread and handed it to his disciples, and they gave it to the people.

20 After everyone had eaten all they wanted, Jesus’ disciples picked up twelve large baskets of leftovers.

21 There were about 5,000 men who ate, not counting the women and children.

Kids Korner: Feeding the crowd (August 6th)

Read Matthew 14:13-21 with your family.

The story we read today was so important to the early Christians that it is the only miracle story found in all four Gospels (the Gospel of John usually has different stories). Imagine sitting in that crowd so long ago. Matthew tells us there were 5000 men, plus women and children. So the crowd was probably closer to 10,000.

You would think a meal for that many people would be a banquet, but it was really a simple picnic of foods that everyone ate every day.

Jesus never tries to do miracles or make promises that were too big. He wasn’t showing off his power by bringing in food they had never seen before. He kept it simple, just like he kept his message simple. Feed people… it doesn’t matter what food, so long as the people are full afterwards.

Jesus was not putting on a show, he was simply seeing that people were hungry and asked his closest friends to help feed them.