An Appointment with Christ: the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish (Mark 6:30), Part 6

My dear brothers and sisters, I greet you in the powerful name of Christ Jesus. This is your friend and brother Roberto Miranda speaking, and over these past few weeks I have been sharing with you the passage from Mark, chapter 6. We have taken time to analyze this passage, which concludes and culminates with the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, because it contains tremendous and profound teachings, as I believe you will agree with me.

Here we see that this crowd approaches Jesus in need of the Word, and the Lord devotes time to teaching them. At the end of a long day of teaching, the disciples say to the Lord Jesus Christ, “Lord, send them away now so they can go, because night is already approaching, and buy food, and we can continue with the rest we had planned.”

But the Lord, surprisingly, tells them, “You give them something to eat.” Answering, He said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to Him—I am reading verse 37, chapter 6—“Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”

When Christ tells the disciples to give the crowd something to eat, the disciples are horrified. They look at the enormous number: 5,000 men, and here we are not counting the women and children. There were 5,000 men alone, but the crowd was even larger. And of course, humanly speaking, it was impossible. First, the disciples did not have the money; second, they did not have a place where they could buy food; and third, there was no place large enough to provide food for so many people. All the conditions seemed to make it impossible for Christ’s words to be fulfilled.

But I see something important here, and I want to emphasize this again: the Lord wants a church here on earth that has compassion and meets the needs of the world. Throughout His ministry, I see Christ meeting needs. When physically sick people approached Him, the Lord used the power of God to heal; when demon-possessed people approached Him, the Lord used His authority to cast out the demons; when emotionally troubled people and those with mental problems came, the Lord ministered to those suffering from lunacy and emotional illness. When people like this crowd approached Him in need of a word of spiritual teaching, the Lord took time to teach them. And here we now see that this crowd has a physical need: they need food, and the Lord, through His grace and mercy, now also feels compassion directed toward meeting the crowd’s physical need for food.

And the church of Jesus Christ here on earth must be equally varied in the way it ministers. Sometimes we will have to pray for healing for the sick; sometimes we will have to rebuke demons and free people from demonic oppression; on other occasions, the church will have to have a counseling ministry and minister to families and individuals through the teaching of the Word of God, enabling them to receive the knowledge necessary to resolve family, marital, personal, and emotional problems. And sometimes the church of Jesus Christ will also have to address social problems. The church of Christ has the wisdom and the power to feed the hungry, help the homeless, help the unemployed, and become involved in the educational and academic affairs of the community. The church is a very powerful voice, filled with wisdom, and it should serve as an intermediary in every aspect of the community’s life.

There are many churches and many Christians who have a very limited idea of what ministry is, and we believe that we must restrict ourselves solely to spiritual matters. If someone comes with a material problem, we simply say, “I am going to pray for you.” But the Word says that we must be careful, when someone comes with a material need, not to send them away saying, “Well, may the Lord bless you. I am going to pray for you.” Instead, we must also minister to that material need and be doers of the Word, not hearers only.

It says in James, chapter 2: “My brothers, what good is it if someone says he has faith but has no works? Can faith save him? And if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,’ but you do not give them the things the body needs, what good is that?”

Good question. The church must perform works of mercy. We Christians must perform works of mercy. Many times we will have the opportunity to be a blessing to a relative, a friend, or even a stranger who has a material need. We can share our money, our home, our food, or a word of encouragement with someone. But many times we are so busy that we simply say, “May God help you; I am going to pray for you.” You know what? You have resources in your life with which to bless many people. Do not place the burden solely on God, because God wants you to share it with Him. God wants you to feel the needs of others just as He feels them, and many times He will choose you as His instrument. He could do the work directly, but God likes to work in partnership with His children, and He wants us, His church, to be instruments of His grace wherever we may be. You are an agent of God’s grace. As a Christian, you must see yourself as an instrument in God’s hands.

Wherever you may be, entrust yourself to God and ask Him to make you an instrument of His peace. At work, we sometimes encounter people who are so needy, and we simply turn away and say, as Cain did, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” You know what the answer is? Yes. You are your brother’s keeper. God expects you to care about your brother’s need.

Many times we offend God by living selfish lives, so wrapped up in our own problems and our own needs that we have no time to show compassion to our neighbor. The Lord Jesus Christ tells you, “You give them something to eat.” Do not simply send people away without a thought; rather, Christ wants to use you in partnership with Him to bless those in need, those who labor and are heavy laden.

I want a merciful and compassionate church, just as He is merciful and compassionate. And the only thing the Lord wants is your willing attitude; He wants you to surrender to Him. When the disciples told Him, “Lord, we do not have the resources,” He said to them, “Well, look and see what you have there among the crowd.” The disciples began to search and ask among the people, and they returned and said, “Lord, the only thing we found among all these people is five loaves and two fish.” And the Lord said, “That is enough.” You see, there is always something you can give to God. The Lord could have created the bread and fish out of nothing. It was as easy for Him to create them out of nothing as it was to multiply the little that was there. But He always wants us to contribute something. You know that there is something in your life—there is a gift, a quality, and a characteristic within you that God has placed in you—and God can use it to bless others. Every Christian has a gift given by God. Each one of us has value and has something to contribute to the Kingdom of God, if only we believe.

You have only five loaves and two fish within you with which to feed the crowd. Many of us feel so poor, so insignificant, and so incompetent that we do not think God can use us. But every child of God, no matter how humble, has something of God’s grace, and God can use that as a starting point for His grace and mercy to be manifested. Five loaves and two fish—a little boy in the crowd had them, and Christ told them, “Give them to Me. That will be the raw material I am going to use to feed the crowd.”

The disciples thought they had nothing, but there was something Christ could use. In the same way, there is something in you that can be the beginning of the manifestation of God’s grace in your life and through your life. Look for those five loaves and two fish; they are within you. Then begin to be a man or woman of mercy. May God bless you!