Article June 6, 1914 Issue

Feeding the Five Thousand

BELLE F. KERR

In no one of the miracles of Jesus was man's divinely bestowed dominion more clearly manifested than in the feeding of the five thousand, which occurred toward the close of his second year's ministry and immediately following the tragic death of John the Baptist. The great heart of the Master had turned forever from the fickleness and caprice of human favor, which had terminated in bitter intolerance and the destruction of Truth's herald. With clear discernment of the instability of human affection, Jesus' vehement protest against mortal methods must needs be expressed in just this manner, the feeding of the multitude proclaiming the eternal spiritual fact that the provisions of divine Love and wisdom, for human need, are infinite.

In all the demonstrations of the divine power which animated Christ Jesus,—in stilling the tempest, healing the paralytic, the leper, the blind,—each act emphasized his joyous interpretation and apprehension of man's sonship in God. While these successes had won for him fame and the plaudits of the beholders, after the beheading of John all this was for the time seemingly canceled by the weight of evidence of the treachery of mortal ambition and selfishness, the enormity and effrontery of impersonal evil which culminated in the execution of John. The gospel states that Jesus spent the night following the announcement of that event on the mount with God, then on his return to the disciples there was accomplished his great victory over error by his walking on the sea,—a glorious prelude to the miracle where substance was made manifest at that hillside banquet, the holy afterglow of his own communion in a night of prayer.

Besides the Master and the twelve, there was a throng of wayfarers,—many earnest, honest ones, who listened eagerly to Jesus' gracious words, so tender and so forceful, reviving and restoring their trust in an almighty God. As they accepted the Master's teachings, they believed that this was he who should redeem Israel. No doubt certain others were assembled in a mood of indifference or cynicism. When Jesus told his disciples to bid the company sit down upon the grass, that the lad's five loaves and two fishes might be distributed to the hungry host, this requirement was significant of its deep metaphysical import to the Master,—that obedience and humility were essential preliminaries to such a refreshment as he had provided. In Jesus' hands the five barley loaves afforded a sustenance which was a refutation to that of the senses, upon which these needy ones had hitherto subsisted, each participant perceiving the symbol of that spiritual bread which should forever satisfy all clamor and longing. As many as would, received the fishes, the fullest measure of a spiritual repast.

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