Matthew 14:13-21
“Notice what you notice.” Matthew’s account of the feeding of the 5,000… We can guess that Jesus is still in Galilee. Most recently we have read the accounts of the beheading of John the Baptist; before that was Jesus sending out His disciples and He Himself going into cities in Galilee (Matthew 11:1). And since Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, we can presume that John’s disciples came to Jesus in Galilee.
So in Matthew Jesus hears the news from John’s disciples about John’s beheading. Possibly to mourn by Himself, he gets into a boat and puts out to sea, to go off somewhere by Himself. But the fervor of the crowds for Jesus was so strong that they walked along the shore, wanting to keep up. Luke’s gospel has Jesus putting in at Bethsaida as His destination, only a few miles up the coast from Capernaum. I’m assuming that Capernaum was Jesus’ departure point, since he went by boat and Capernaum was home base for Peter’s fishing business. Matthew writes that when He went ashore He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick (v. 14).
But another thought came to me, in that they had traveled only a few miles by boat. As they put out to sea, while they could still see the coastline Jesus could see the people following along on the shore wanting to be with Him. So, moved with compassion and in spite of His desire to grieve over John, He had His disciples put in at the nearest location, thereby accounting for such a short trip. And in spite of the “desolate place”, the crowds would have still been close enough to nearby villages to buy food.
We’ll have three more days of the “Feeding of the 5,000”, since this miracle is reported in all four Gospels, so we’ll have more to say in the next few days.
Slava Bohu!
I was struck in Matthew’s account with the word YOU. You feed them. They replied they only had 2 fishes and 5 loaves. When given the impossible task by God our job is to obediently do what we can… and let God do the rest.
Amen!