Matthew 15:29-39--Jesus Heals Many and Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand

​Matthew 15:29-39 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Matt.15.29-Matt.15.39

​Jesus Heals Many
29 Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. 30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.

Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” 33 And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?” 34 And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” 35 And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 38 Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.

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Not much is said here about the many people that Jesus healed beside the Sea of Galilee, but remember that Matthew just said that when Jesus had returned home to Nazareth, not many people were healed because of their lack of faith and Jesus cursed many of the other towns He had ministered in saying that if the works He had done in them had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, the people would have repented (and He would know because He's God in the flesh) and that Sodom and Gomorrah would sit in judgment over those towns.

These people from near the Sea of Galilee are not the well-to-do people from the big towns, nor are they the people that grew up with Jesus as a kid and couldn't see Him any other way.  They had the faith to believe that He was who He said He was and to come to Him for healing and Matthew emphasizes over and over again in his gospel that it was their faith that made them well.  These "dumb fishermen" from small fishing towns seemed to "get it" more than than the people living the lives of the rich and famous, and we'll see that this is where Jesus will do most of His ministry--with these people that society had cast aside as being unworthy of their time and attention.

We then see that there is another miraculous feeding.  This is not the same event recorded twice.  Everything about this one is different than before.  The first time the disciples came to Jesus to ask him to send the people to town to get food and shelter, here Jesus calls the disciples to himself.  The first time Jesus tests the disciples by saying "you give them something to eat," but here He is plain, "I do not want to send them away."  In the first case, while we don't know the location, we know they were close to the towns because word had gotten to people quickly as soon as Jesus had come ashore, but this time they were a far way off from any source of food as Jesus said the crowd had been following Him for three days and He was afraid they would faint (or possibly die) on the way back.

The disciples seem to quickly forget who they are with (we probably wouldn't be any different) and ask Jesus, "What are you going to do?" and pointed out that it was a very large crowd and a very desolate place--they forgot that this is the same God who provided manna from heaven for the millions of people wandering through the wilderness and gave them water from a rock twice when they were in the desert and turned "bitter" water that they could not drink into "sweet" water that they could be used for all their needs.

Jesus asked the disciples this time how many loves they had.  This time it seems they had brought provisions themselves.  They had seven loaves and a few small fish--even the words for "loaves" and "fish" are different here then before because these items they are giving Jesus are tiny and they want to emphasize how hard they think it is for Jesus to do anything with what little they have.   Jesus once again gave thanks and broke the bread and the fish just like He had done before and I have to imagine they had quite the "face palm" moment when they remembered that He's already done this for us before, we should have believed He could do it again--yet are we that different?  "God, I know you did that back then 5 years ago, but this situation is different, I'm not really sure you can handle THIS situation that I'm in now.  This is just too big and I have nothing to offer this time."  We forget that God doesn't need anything to provide a miracle because He made the whole world out of nothing by the word of His mouth.

Everyone ate and was satisfied.  This time there were seven large baskets.  The size of the baskets and the number of baskets nor the number of the people is as important as it doesn't matter where you are at and how much you have to offer, Jesus is able to take care of your needs and do "exceeding abundantly above all we could ask or think" so that we are satisfied and hopefully that we respond in worship by faith.

After the crowds were counted, they were sent away and Jesus and His disciples left in a boat for another place named Magadan.(still on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in the same region He's been focusing most of His ministry on).  We'll pick up there next time when we see the confrontations between the Pharisees and Sadducees and Jesus start to ramp up.