Read and Believe in Jesus.

“We have only five loaves here and two fish.” Matthew 14:17

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REVIEW – Sin and guilt will drive a person crazy. That’s what happened to Herod Antipas. Involved in great sin, he arrested the outspoken John the Baptist to please his adulterous wife. But that wasn’t enough; she wanted the baptizer dead, so Herod had John executed – a “holy” man, in Herod’s own estimation, a “prophet” to the people – for speaking the truth. And how Herod regretted it. Now he was haunted by stories of another “prophet,” a “messiah” who performed miracles too. Surely this was the Baptizer come back to life to haunt him!!

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Matthew 14:13-14.

After burying John’s body, his disciples came to Jesus and told Him what happened. When Jesus heard this, He “withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by Himself.”

John was Jesus’ cousin, but more than that, he was the prophesied “forerunner” of the Messiah. He prepared the way for Jesus by warning the people, preaching repentance and baptizing them as they confessed sin and repented, and then finally by identifying Jesus as “the Lamb of God” who would take away the sins of the world.

John had served God well. He had been faithful. He had graciously and without jealousy pointed his followers to “One greater.” And he had been martyred. Jesus couldn’t help but be reminded of His own death in the not-too-distant future. And so, He went alone to a quiet place to mourn John and pray.

But, as always, the crowds eventually found Jesus. They poured from nearby towns, bringing their sick and needy. Jesus “had compassion on them” and healed their sick.

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Matthew 14:16-20.

Towards evening, Jesus’s disciples came to him and (as if Jesus did not know) told Him, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

Jesus answered calmly, “They don’t need to go away; YOU give them something to eat.”

Silence.

Finally, one of them said, “We have only five loaves (rolls) and two fish.”

“Bring them here to me.”

Jesus had the disciples sit the crowd down on the grass. (in groups of 50 and 100, Luke 6:40)

When all were seated and quiet, Jesus looked to heaven and blessed the food.

Then He broke it and gave it to the disciples to distribute. He kept breaking and handing it out. They kept going through the crowd and feeding the people.

They all ate UNTIL THEY WERE FULL.

Then the disciples collected up the leftovers and found they had twelve baskets full. (These were small baskets, holding just the amount for the disciples’ own dinner.)

Five small loaves and two tiny fish (a boy’s lunch, John 6:9) fed 5,000 men plus women and children until they were FULL, and were enough for the disciples’ meal as well.

A miracle, indeed.

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(John 6:14-15 tells us the crowd was so amazed by this miracle that they decided to make Jesus king so he could feed them always for free. Jesus, perceiving this, immediately sent the disciples away in a boat, firmly dismissed the crowd, and went up the mountain (finally alone) to pray and possibly to grieve John’s passing.)

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