Luke 9:10-17--Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

Luke 9:10-17
English Standard Version
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Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
10 On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. 12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

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This particular miracle is recorded in all four gospels (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:1-15).  The disciples are returning from being sent out in verses 1-6, and they are telling Jesus about all that has happened to them while they were away.  Jesus tries to go away with them to a small town called Bethsaida--maybe think of it like a retreat where they were going to debrief and relax after much long and hard work of ministry.  I'm sure there was a need for some "refreshing" they returned.

However, the people who had been waiting for Jesus to come back into the public light knew if they followed the disciples once they returned they would find Jesus.  So then we see large crowds--some of the largest we have ever seen following Jesus--try to follow Him and His disciples while He is trying to get away with them.  You can see that this is Jesus' intent from Mark 6:30-33, "30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them."

The gospel accounts also seem to agree that when the crowds followed them, Jesus had compassion on them, not turning them away and taught them many things and healed the sick in the crowd that was following them.  John also includes the details that this was close to the time of the Passover, giving us some indication that we are now about a year away from the crucifixion of Jesus and this would be a time when all the Jews from all over the world would have travelled to Jerusalem for this special pilgrimage feast that would celebrate the redemption and deliverance of Israel and their birth as a nation when God rescued them out of slavery in Egypt and made those who were not a people into a great nation.  Therefore the people are going to have these ideas of Moses and miracles and being freed from oppressors on their mind.  Passover was a time when the people longed to be free and the Romans often had to deal with riots and this may give some context as to why Herod, the "king" appointed by Rome over the province of Galilee was concerned with who Jesus was in our last passage that we studied.  Is Jesus going to start a political revolution with the Passover approaching?  I say that Passover must have only been approaching and not already there because during the week of Passover, the people were to eat no bread containing yeast, but we are going to see regular barley loaves here in just a minute, so it must not yet have been the time of preparation when the people would have rid themselves of all the yeast in their houses.

After a long day of teaching and healing, Jesus sees that sun is starting to go down and has compassion on the people.  There is some back and forth with the disciples that is to test them as Jesus first tells them to send the people away so they may go back to the villages to buy bread and find shelter for the evening.  The disciples reply that they are too far away from the towns for the people to safely make it back without fainting from hunger, for they have apparently travelled a long way and gone all day without any food because they were so excited to once again be in the presence of Jesus.  Jesus then tests the disciples to tell them to give the people something to eat or to themselves go into town and buy the supplies needed for the people.  We see some quick accounting by the Phillip in the Gospel of John to tell us that it would take more than 200 denarii (a denarius was about a day's wage, so read this a "more than six month's wages") to simply give bread to all the people there as the number of people was roughly 5,000 men not counting the women and children, so imagine this probably as 5,000 household groups.  It's safe to say that a whole village or more of people were probably following Jesus at this point.  Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, goes out into the crowd to take inventory of what supplies the crowd may already have.  Did anyone already have enough to share with their neighbors?  All Andrew could find was one boy with a small meal of five barley loaves (barely loaves probably means that this boy was from a poor family) and two small fish.  Andrew brings the boy to Jesus to show Him that this is all they have to offer and the boy gladly puts everything that he has in the hands of Jesus (though this is not specifically a teaching about sharing your lunch, imagine how this story would have been different if Andrew didn't go looking and if this boy didn't go with Andrew to Jesus and didn't give the little that he had--just enough to feed himself--to Jesus).

Jesus does not answer the questions of the disciples who are still busy trying to do their accounting and wonder how so little could feed so many, and He simply instructed them to have the people sit down in groups of fifty.  Jesus then took that which was offered in His hands and gave thanks for it and divided and distributed it to all the people until everyone had their fill.  Not only was there enough to feed everyone there, but there were 12 large baskets of scraps leftover (where these baskets came from to collect these scraps, I don't know, but there was more than enough to feed the people for a while).

I would encourage you to read the rest of John 6 as there are some interesting and important discussions there with the disciples and the crowd that we don't really get a glimpse of anywhere else.  Luke is just going to pick up at the next point in the story that all the witnesses he gathered information from reported, which is likely the next day (or maybe sometime shortly after that).  We in fact spoke of this very passage last time when we spoke of the questions that Herod was asking and how Jesus would turn around and ask this question of identity to His own disciples.  Notice though that this miracle and some other events recorded in John 6 have happened in between and Jesus has made a definite "I AM" statement at that time.  I think Luke wants us to see that this miracle answers the question that Herod was asking and even though the disciples had heard all the same answers from the people as Herod did, they came to a different conclusion because of the words and works of Jesus (specifically the signs they had just seen).  Yet, the other people in John 6 heard and saw something different and it was an offense to them.  Jesus would ask them at that time if they too would leave Him to which Simon Peter replied, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”  I think this is part of the same confession that we will have recorded in the next section of the book of Luke (remember that the point of the gospels is not to capture every word ever spoke by Jesus and His disciples, but to record the events that happened in an orderly way so that we might know the true identity of Jesus and that in Him we might know for certain the truth about what we have been taught--specifically that in Him and through Him alone we have eternal life).  How do I know that is their purpose?  Because both Luke and John tell us why they wrote their gospels.


Luke 1:1-4
English Standard Version
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Dedication to Theophilus
1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.



John 20:30-31
English Standard Version
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The Purpose of This Book
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

So then, these things are told to us and there is agreement on all account so that we might know the identity of Jesus, be sure that what He taught was true, and know that in Him and by believing on His name, we might have eternal life.  That is the purpose of this passage today.  It is about a provision and Passover that we are looking forward to that is greater than Moses.  The Bread of Life that is greater than the mana that the people desired, and yes, even about a King that was greater than Moses or David.  His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and of His dominion will be boundless and without end transcending both time and space.  He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords of all people in all places at all times.