Five loaves of bread and two small fish

There is a story in the bible of where Jesus unexpectedly feeds five thousand people on a mountain in a very deserted area. The story is found in John 6: 1-14

Jesus had just performed many miracles and needed to get away from the crowd so he led his disciples to a quite area so they could recharge (that is a whole other lesson.) Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd (5,000) following him and he had compassion on them. They were not anywhere near a village or town and he knew the crowd would need food. He asked Philip in front of the twelve disciples “where do we buy bread for these people?’ Jesus was testing him to see what he would say. Sure enough, Philip said (I am paraphrasing) it’s impossible. Hearing this exchange Andrew said, “here is a boy with five barley loaves and two small fish.” I could write for the next 5 hours about the answers from the two disciples and what it meant. That’s not the point though. The point is that Andrew knew who Jesus was and that he could take the fragments of food and feed the thousands just like Jesus can take the fragments of our lives and do something special.

The story goes on to say that Jesus had the 5,000 men (plus more women) and sit down in the grass and from the five loaves and two fish he fed the multitude. It says in the scripture that the people were given as much food as they wanted and there were twelve baskets (one for each disciple) left over. I believe each disciple was given a basket of leftover food so they could hold a visual reminder of who Jesus really was.

I want to state the point of this passage again because it is inescapable. Andrew who was just one of the twelve standing there knew who Jesus was and that he could take the fragments of food and feed the thousands just like Jesus can take the fragments of our lives and do something special. If we will let him. Merry Christmas. KT

2 thoughts on “Five loaves of bread and two small fish

    1. Loretta, sorry for the delay on this. With the holidays I am behind in responding. The simple answer is one disciple was looking at the circumstances and the other one was looking at Jesus. Pretty good insight for all of us. Love you!KT

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *