May 17 / Luke 9:10-17

Luke 9:10-17

“Notice what you notice.” Luke’s account of the feeding of the 5,000… There are a couple of items different in Luke compared to Matthew and Mark. First, there is no mention in Luke of Jesus and His disciples getting into a boat to get away. They merely withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida (v. 10b). Second, Luke mentions their location as Bethsaida.

Third, to me the most compelling difference is in verse 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.” Matthew and Mark also have evening approaching, but only Luke suggests that the crowd needs to go away and “find lodging”. That is, they need to go away for the night and not come back! This makes me wonder what happened to the crowd after they all ate and were satisfied (v. 17). If it’s evening and they are in a “desolate place”, do they just camp out for the night? Or do they eat and then disperse to “find lodging”? But the crowd that was fed numbered 5,000 (men) – the nearby towns of Bethsaida and Capernaum probably had populations only on the order of two to three thousand. In addition there were probably smaller nearby villages. It’s asking quite a bit to have these locals open their homes to so many outsiders. Naturally, many in the crowd were probably locals themselves, but still…??

But the point is larger than this one miracle. For more than a month we have seen Jesus being surrounded by crowds in Capernaum and in other towns and villages in Galilee. Where did they all come from and where did they go in the evening? And where are the crowds in our churches? Aren’t we preaching the same message that Jesus taught? Do today’s people need to see the healings and other miracles before they believe? Or maybe the greatest miracles today are those that have happened in each of our individual lives? What brings us to the Gospel? Why do we believe? And what do we do now that we have found faith? Maybe we have found “lodging” and are already too comfortable? Lord, make us hungry again!!

Slava Bohu!