5 August 2024 Matthew 14:13-21
“But when the crowds heard it, they followed Him on foot from the towns.”Matthew 14:13
The context for Matthew’s version of the Feeding of the 5000 is the reaction to the execution of John the Baptist (14:1-12). Political paranoia seems to have run in Herod the great’s family. He himself executed three of his sons on suspicion of disloyalty, and a fourth escaped execution by dying of other causes. Herod Antipas was suspicious of John the Baptist, and thought his criticism of his divorce and remarriage might motivate others to rebel, so he had John imprisoned, and finally executed. Herod himself had made the connection of Jesus to John the Baptist – “This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead,” Herod said, “and for this reason these powers are at work in him” (14:2) – so it was a reasonable fear among Jesus’ followers that Herod might come after them the same way he had come after John the Baptist.
Maybe that is why Jesus left for a deserted place (14:13) – the closer He was to His people, the more likely Herod would suspect them. You would think that Jesus followers might have come to the same conclusion. They might be a little reluctant to be around Jesus, too.
But that isn’t what they did.
Instead of avoiding Jesus, they went looking for Him. In fact, they ran to find Him. Jesus had taken a boat to the deserted place; His followers took the long way, on foot, and actually beat Him there (14:13-14). When Jesus disembarked, he found a crowd of 5000 men, not including women and children. The crowd might have been as large as 20,000, the size of a large Galilean town. If they were afraid of Herod, afraid of being seen with Jesus, they didn’t show it. Jesus sometimes had problems with crowds. Some crowds were not on His side. Some crowds cared more about their own agenda than they cared about Jesus’ agenda. But not this crowd. So, Jesus healed them, and fed them, all of them, miraculously. Five barley loaves and two fish were all they had, but Jesus made it enough for them all and then some. Only the Resurrection rivals this story in the New Testament. It is told six times, and is in all four gospels.
We aren’t told what the motive of the crowd was – a crowd that large could have had perhaps a great many motives. What is certainly true is that in what was undeniably a dangerous time with a dangerous prince, a very large crowd sought Jesus. They trusted Him more than they trusted the dangerous prince, more than they trusted anyone else. There are still dangerous princes and principalities, powers that mean ill to believers. Jesus doesn’t feed and strengthen everyone. He feeds and strengthens those who trust Him and come to Him. He forgives the princes and powers who don’t understand what they are doing, but He doesn’t feed them.
Do you want the bread from heaven, the water of life? Do you trust the words, “Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35)? Jesus feeds, but only the people who look for Him. It is the only sustenance capable of dealing with dangerous princesand dangerous times.
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