YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT

Matthew 14:13-21
Key Verse: 14:16

    "Jesus replied, 'They do not need to go away. You give them
     something to eat.'"

     In the last passage we studied that Jesus was rejected and
despised by his hometown people, even though he taught the word of God
and through his teaching his hometown people were amazed.  Through this
we learned that after teaching the Bible we should not expect praise or
admiration. Rather, we must expect contempt and rejection. But we must
rejoice in the Lord that we taught the Bible and participated in the
sufferings of Jesus Christ. One lady taught a sheep and gave all her
heart. Her sheep received everything and ran away. Since then she
doesn't teach sheep anymore, because she was greatly wounded by her
sheep's rejection. This is not good. We must imitate our Lord Jesus
Christ who taught the Bible from the beginning to the end in the midst
of rejection and contempt and thus he fulfilled God's mission without
any hint of discouragement. In the last passage we also learned that
John the Baptist fulfilled his mission as the forerunner of our Lord
Jesus Christ through his martyrdom. Jesus was not sorry at his
martyrdom. Rather, he praised John as the greatest among those born of
women (Mt 11:11). We must do everything with martyrdom spirit. We must
do school homework with martyrdom spirit. We must teach the Bible to
other students with martyrdom spirit. Then God will give us spiritual
wisdom, and joy that spiritual power is circulating in our bodies and
souls. Today we learn Jesus' compassion. Jesus is the Son of God
because of his compassion. We also learn how Jesus trained his
disciples in several respects to grow as fruitful disciples. May God
bless you to learn the compassion of Jesus and Jesus' discipleship
ministry.

First, Jesus withdrew to a solitary place to pray with his disciples
(13).  Look at verse 13. "When Jesus heard what had happened, he
withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the
crowds followed him on foot from the towns." Verse 13a says, "When
Jesus heard what had happened...." It meant how his forerunner, John
the Baptist, had been beheaded. Jesus was not surprised at how John the
Baptist had suffered a cruel death in order to complete his mission.
But he realized that he had to pray to God to take over John's
ministry, and continue to work to proclaim the gospel in that
situation. So he needed time to pray in order to talk to God and to be
strengthened by God. Another reason he wanted to have a retreat was to
give a vacation to his disciples, who had been completely exhausted
just hanging around Jesus. So he got into the boat with his disciples
and crossed to the other side of the lake.  It was indeed a necessary
retreat. Nobody should bother his retreat.  Nobody should bother his
time of prayer.

     But a surprising and totally unexpected event happened. The people
who were desperate and needed Jesus' help watched his movement
carefully and found that he and his disciples were crossing the lake by
boat. They did not have a telescope. Maybe they used their fingers as a
telescope by curling them into circles and putting them to their eyes.
Then they saw that Jesus was in the boat far away from them. They began
to run with bare feet, circling around the lake so desperately. As a
result, they reached the spot where Jesus was supposed to land, and
they were waiting for Jesus when he arrived. When Jesus landed with his
disciples, probably the crowd said, "Good morning Jesus! Thank you
Jesus. We are here for your help."

     They bothered Jesus' prayer in a solitary place. They also
bothered the disciples' short-term vacation. In a sense they were
obnoxious people, and they were a large crowd.

Second, Jesus' compassion on them (14). Look at verse 14. "When Jesus
landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed
their sick." Generally, ordinary people are selfish, and if they are
bothered, they say, "Don't bother me, and I won't bother you." There
was a beautiful lady. She was a princess to her parents. But after she
met Jesus, she spent most of her leisure time teaching the Bible. Her
parents loved her. But she did not spend time with them. Then they were
so unhappy that they firmly decided to brainwash her through
deprogrammers. They failed to brainwash her because of her firm faith
and wisdom. When they failed to brainwash her, they lost interest in
her and didn't support her at all. They didn't give even one dollar for
her happy wedding. I am not criticizing the parents. But when we see
people, we find that they are all self-centered. They say they love
their children. But if their children don't try to fulfill their dream
or compensate their failure, the parents become self-centered and begin
to keep a distance from their children. Most American parents quit
supporting their children after high school. So their children have to
work and study at the same time.  As a result, there are so many young
American students who are trying to support themselves and study. In
the course of time, they find that they did not finish a two-year
junior college in eight years. This is not one or two persons' problem.
It is a nationwide problem of young American students. Parents think
that their children are responsible for themselves after age eighteen.
So they don't support them after age eighteen. These parents do for
their children and their country only what they must do. Therefore
American high school students' ranking in the international math and
science contest is number 48. It is not their fault.  It is due to
their parents' selfishness. We cannot say that these kind of people are
men and women of compassion.

     Let's see how Jesus was compassionate for the people who needed
his help. Let's look at verse 14 again. "When Jesus landed and saw a
large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick." The
disciples could have said, "Wow! They hinder our vacation." Jesus could
have thought, "Wow, too many people!" But Jesus did not think so. Jesus
had compassion on them. Compassion comes from God's love. Here we see
that Jesus is the Son of God who was filled with compassion. When he
heard of John the Baptist's martyrdom, he must have been deeply
depressed. Therefore he needed time to pray to God after his forerunner
was killed. He was greatly burdened to fulfill the work of world
salvation. So he had to pray. But Jesus was not selfish. Jesus was not
self-centered. He saw these desperate people with God's compassion.
What did Jesus do when he saw a large crowd of people? He canceled his
plan for prayer time. He ignored his disciples' tiredness. He began to
heal the sick people from mid-morning to the time of dusk. The western
sky was getting darker. But Jesus was compassionately healing the sick.
In this passage a specific healing story is not recorded. But we can
see many examples of Jesus' healing ministry in the gospels. Once Jesus
saw a man with leprosy. His body was almost rotten. His eyes were
rotten and barely supported by the sockets. But Jesus had mercy on him
and said in Mark 1:41, "I am willing. Be clean!" In the movie
"Ben-Hur," when Ben-Hur's leprous mother and sister appeared on the
street with him, people threw stones at them. But Jesus was willing. He
cleansed this man with leprosy and made him whole. Once Jesus saw a man
with a shriveled hand in the synagogue. Jesus restored his hand so that
he might have a dream of marriage like other young people, so that he
might be a basketball player like Michael Jordan, so that he might be a
pianist like Clara Schuman (Mt 12:13). Once Jesus saw that a widow was
weeping, following after her only son's coffin. Jesus said, "Don't cry"
(Lk 7:13). Then he raised her son and restored the mother from her deep
sorrow. Jesus' compassion finally demanded that he be crucified on the
cross and die, shedding much blood. But he was raised on the third day
and opened the way to the kingdom of God. Whoever believes in him can
live in the kingdom of God, even though they must live in this hard
world. And on the last day he will see Jesus face to face and bear the
likeness of Jesus. Therefore we must learn the compassion of Jesus. If
we claim to be a Christian without the compassion of Jesus, we are old
wineskin Christians or hypocritical Pharisees. When we learn the
compassion of Jesus, we can be happy and we can be a blessing to
others. Finally the disciples learned Jesus' compassion. 2 Corinthians
1:3 says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort...." Again, James
5:11b says, "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy."

Third, Jesus' discipleship ministry. Let's see how the disciples
responded. Look at verse 15. "As evening approached, the disciples came
to him and said, 'This is a remote place, and it's already getting
late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy
themselves some food.'" They liked Jesus' compassion. But they could
not ignore the reality. It was getting dark. The number of people was
huge. What really mattered to them was that they had no food. And their
twelve stomachs began to make noises. It was not a good sound like the
sound of the Chicago UBF Orchestra. It was a growling sound, because
the disciples were hungry, too. So all the disciples came to Jesus and
said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the
crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some
food." They were reasonable and realistic, but they lacked several
things as responsible shepherds and world leaders. So Jesus taught them
several things.

First, Jesus taught his disciples to have faith in God (16). Look at
verse 16. "Jesus replied, 'They do not need to go away. You give them
something to eat.'" "You give them something to eat." By saying this,
Jesus teaches his disciples to have faith in God. Jesus knew that they
had no money in their pockets. He knew that it was too late to prepare
food for such a large crowd of people. But Jesus did not allow them to
despair because of their impossible situation. Jesus wanted them to
have faith in God, that by depending on God they could feed the crowd
of people.  Jesus wanted to teach them that they could do nothing, but
God can do everything. By faith we must experience the power of faith
to feed five thousand people with our own bare hands. Without faith no
one can help himself. But with faith anybody can feed even five
thousand people.

Second, Jesus wanted to teach them a shepherd's responsibility
(16-19a). "You give them something to eat." When Jesus said this, he
wanted his disciples to find out what they could give to God when they
had nothing in their hands. The starting point of faith is to have some
possibility in an impossible situation by having faith in God. The
disciples said, "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish"
(17). This was too small an amount to distribute to such a large crowd
of people.  But to our surprise Jesus said in verse 18, "Bring them
here to me." Jesus wanted to teach them a sense of responsibility for
helpless sheep.  When we see modern America, many things seem totally
impossible.  And campus evangelism seems to be too great to be done. So
we deeply despair and become nominal Christians. This is not what Jesus
taught.  Actually, American young people are spiritually thirsty and
hungry.  Whether we can do it or not, we must have a sense of
responsibility.  Those who have a sense of responsibility can be used
by God greatly.  A sense of responsibility comes from God's compassion.
Before conversion, Paul lived for his own selfish dream. At that time
he was a disaster to the early Christians. He was irresponsible for his
actions. But after his conversion, a sense of responsibility grew in
his heart until he could have a sense of responsibility for the whole
world. Like Paul, we must have Jesus' compassion and become men of
responsibility for ourselves, our families, our communities, our nation
and the whole world. Those who do not have a sense of responsibility
may do many things but they will be unfruitful and unhappy, because
they cannot recognize themselves as normal human beings.

Third, Jesus taught his disciples a coworking spirit (19b-21). Look at
verse 19b. "Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave
them to the people." There is a deep spiritual lesson in this verse.
Generally, people are proud. So each one wants to be a one-man show.
Each one wants to become the President of the United States. There are
many Christians who love God so much. Yet coworking with others seems
to be nonsense to them. But Jesus said in Matthew 18:20, "For where two
or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Believing in
God is easy. But coworking with others is very difficult. We know that
the cross is the symbol of Christianity. The vertical line represents
our relationship with God. The horizontal line represents coworking
with others or loving one another. Many people love God, but they hate
their brothers. Many people work hard for God, but they never cowork
with others. They cannot be great servants of God. Here Jesus, even
though he is the Son of God, coworked with his disciples by letting
them distribute bread to the people. Therefore, in both small and large
matters, we must learn how to cowork with others and how to love one
another.

     Today we studied Jesus feeding the five thousand. According to
Matthew, the five thousand were only men. Matthew omitted women and
children. Verse 21 says, "The number of those who ate was about five
thousand men, besides women and children." Matthew was formerly an
orthodox Jew. So he didn't even count the women and children. In
reality, the total number might have been more than ten thousand.
Jesus' saying, "You give them something to eat," tells us to have faith
in God that we can feed five thousand men, and women and children, by
faith. Jesus' saying, "You give them something to eat," tells us to
have a sense of responsibility starting from oneself and extending to
the whole world. Jesus also taught us a shepherd heart for large
crowds.  Spiritually, "large crowds" refers to all people of all
nations. Therefore Jesus said to his disciples, "Go into all the world
and preach the good news to all creation" (Mk 16:15). May God bless you
to accept his word, "You give them something to eat."