In this very familiar passage, the disciples bring an operational problem to Jesus: too many people, not enough food. So Jesus provides an operational miracle: multiplication of food. But the operational miracle isn’t meant simply to solve a problem.
This problem must have come up all the time. Surely, the next day, they would have found themselves in a similar position, people clamoring for more Jesus, more teaching, more miracles. So what is the story actually meant to tell us?
We can’t assume that Jesus will always work a material miracle to meet our needs, according to our plans.
Not enough money? No problem, Jesus always provides more money than you need.
Not enough people? No problem, Jesus always miraculously sends workers to help.
Not enough hours in the day to do all your work? No problem, Jesus will always miraculously multiply your capacity so you can always do more than you have energy to do.
Or so we’d hope.
What I really believe this passage is teaching us is this: when you bring your problems to Jesus, you get Jesus. Not always miracles. Not always solutions. But always Jesus.
I think that’s why Jesus does the miracle the way he does it. He lifts up the bread and blesses it. He breaks the bread and distributes it. And everyone is satisfied.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Jesus meets the need in a way that unmistakably points our eyes forward to the cross, and to the communion meal that we take to remember the cross. Jesus: blessed, broken, distributed to us and through us to a world that doesn’t always even know that they need him.
Matthew Perry, actor from the popular sitcom Friends, wrestled with addiction for many years of his life. In his book, he tells his story about overdosing while he was going through withdrawal. He encountered God while waiting in the “in between”, that space of hoping that someone would be able to get help in time. This is what he wrote:
“I frantically began to pray — with the desperation of a drowning man. ‘God, please help me,’ I whispered. ‘Show me that you are here. God, please help me.’… For the first time in my life, I was in the presence of love and acceptance and filled with an overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be okay… For the first time in my life, I felt okay. I felt safe, taken care of. Decades of struggling with God, and wrestling with life, and sadness, all was being washed away, like a river of pain gone into oblivion. I had been in the presence of God. I was certain of it. And this time I had prayed for the right thing: help.”
Matthew wanted rescue from addiction, but in bringing his panic to God, what he encountered instead was something, someone far better: God himself. When we bring our problems to Jesus, we ought to anticipate a solution that's different from what we think should be done. Yet, we can trust that regardless of what materializes, we will be satisfied.
Without minimizing the legitimate needs that we have, these stories remind us that in the midst of whatever we lack, whatever gaps we might experience in our capacity and the needs around us, that we can trust Jesus to actually satisfy our deepest needs.
Jesus, who works miracles. Jesus, who gives us rest from the relentless voice in our heads that insists on more, faster. Jesus, who lays down his life for us.
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? - Romans 8:32
Jesus, thank you that when I ask for help you give me yourself and you are far better than what I think I need in that moment. Help me to treasure you above everything else this world can offer me.
Throughout the Day: Recognize that you have very real, tangible needs, bu first invite Jesus to satisfy the desires of your heart so that you won't look to those temporary solutions to satisfy your soul.