Feeding the Four Thousand

(Mark 8:1-10)

Does Jesus ever leave his people lacking in anything? Will he provide for their needs? Absolutely! Every time. There is nothing that he cannot and will not do for his people.

People will generally care for those that they love, whether that is their family, friends, husbands, wives or children. They will do their best to provide what they can if someone they love is in dire need. But sometimes we cannot do much to assist.

However the Lord shows his love for us in that he ALWAYS provides for those he loves; for those who live according to the will of God. Here in this section we see that Jesus had compassion on the crowd. They had been following him and with him for three days with nothing to eat. He could have dismissed them and sent them away, but he said to the disciples to give them something to eat for he was concerned the people might faint from hunger on the way home.

The disciples had a few loaves of bread but said, “How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?” (Verse 4) Now given that the Lord had earlier few the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes, you would have thought the disciples would recognise that Jesus could do anything and feeding the four thousand should not have been an issue. But this was a lesson they still had not yet fully learned.

They had seven loaves of bread and found also a few small fish. So again Jesus took the food, blessed and broke it, and there was sufficient to feed the four thousand people plus to gather up seven baskets of leftovers.

This was the second time he had performed this miracle of creating food from thin air. What we gain from this is the knowledge that even today the Lord will and can provide our needs, no matter how impossible they seem, when we put the matter into his hands.

From a personal perspective I have seen the blessing of the Lord in miraculous ways both in my own life and that of those I know. He has always provided for his people, and his hand is not short either. He does not provide the second best to his people but always the very best.

We can take away from this teaching confidence and comfort in the knowledge that the Lord loves us so much that there is nothing he will not provide. We may not get all of our wants, especially if they are not what we need, but we will always have enough of what we need. As King David wrote, and I have quoted in the past, “I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread.” (Psalm 37:25)

The feeding of the four thousand is clear evidence of this blessing of the Lord. He gives liberally and plentifully to his people and they will not ever suffer want. As King David said, the people of the Lord who are righteous will never be forsaken and we can take great comfort and be reassured about that when we strike tough times. when the world worries about recession and the fall of the dollar, those who are the people of God can rely on the bounty and love of a faithful Lord and God who has said, “I will never fail you nor forsake you.” Hence we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)