MATTHEW 14:13-23
JESUS IS HUMAN. Sometimes I have a hard time getting my head around that. I have a hard time grasping that he has ascended bodily into Heaven and that this person to whom I pray, whom I have never seen, heard, or touched, is human.
He was in his mother’s womb for nine months. He was a messy, mucous baby when he came out of that womb. He was a little boy. Can you imagine Jesus being like my son Simeon, who skipped across the synagogue platform one Sunday as he returned from Sunday School? Can you imagine Jesus jumping or falling, scraping his knee? He was a boy who grew physically and mentally and perhaps in some incomprehensible way spiritually. He learned to walk, talk, read, write, and pray.
He was a human baby and boy. And, of course, he was a man. And as a man we don’t know if he was tall or short or had blue or brown eyes. We don’t know if he liked folk music or if he had a good singing voice. We don’t know if he had a sweet tooth or bad teeth. There is a lot we don't know about his humanness. But from the Gospels we do know that he walked, sat, sailed, and got hungry (Mark 11:12) and thirsty (John 19:28). We know he felt tired (John 4:6), and so he slept (Mark 4:38). And we know he spoke, sang, and prayed (cp. Hebrews 5:7), grieved, and wept (John 11:33-35), and he did the most fallen human activity—he died (27:50).
Jesus is human. Sometimes I have a hard time getting my head around that. And our text—which is so much about Jesus’ divine power (what a supernatural miracle the feeding of the 5,000 is) —begins and ends with a very human Jesus. Fully human.
Christ's Contemplation
As we look at this text, we will look at Christ’s humanity first, starting with an inclusio of Christ’s contemplation in verses 13, 14 and 22,23. Here he desires to get away from the crowd and his disciples in order to “linger in prayer” (v. 13), as Hagner says (cp. v. 23). Starting in verse 12 we read, “And his disciples came and took the body [of John the Baptist] and buried it, and they went and told Jesus.” They likely told Jesus everything we read of in verses 1-11, the horrid details of John’s death.
“Now when,” verse 13a reads, “Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate [eremon = desert or wilderness] place by himself.” We are not told where he went, likely somewhere on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee (e.g., “Bethsaida,” Luke 9:10b). We know, however, what happens once he gets there. The paparazzi are waiting for him. “But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd” (vv. 13b, 14a). Jesus saw a crowd that killed his contemplation, or at least paused it.
Then verses 14b—21 record the miracles of healing and feeding, which I will discuss in just a moment. But as we are still contemplating Christ’s contemplation, look at verses 22. There we read, “Immediately he [Jesus] made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.”
So plan A was: “I’ll get in the boat to get away.” That didn’t work. So he went to plan B: “You disciples get in the boat. Off you go. Bye-bye. See you on the other side.” How on earth Jesus is going to get to the other side? They have no idea.
He dismissed the crowd (v. 23a), and off they go because the sick were cured and the hungry fed (vv. 14, 19,20). Then finally comes verse 23b: "He went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came [at last], he was there alone...
Do you see all this? Jesus hears of John’s death and wants some solitude. Plan A: The great boat escape. Plan B: Feed ’em, heal ’em, send ’em all away happy in Jesus. Then, once the coast is clear (literally) up the mountain he goes for some alone time—a time to pray and contemplate.
What was on his mind?
We can only speculate, but speculate I will. Here is my sanctified-by-Scripture speculation (read the endnote for my defense). I think he thought about John’s death. Not only did he grieve over that death and perhaps weep as he did when Lazarus his dear friend died, but I think he thought of John’s death in light of his own death.
As we saw earlier, John’s passion in verses 1-11 foreshadows Jesus’ passion. Like John, innocent Jesus would suffer and die for the truth at the hands of the political powers of the day. Jesus knew that. Jesus also knew that with John down, he was soon to fall as well. That was God’s will for him.
So I think he thought about what human beings think about when they lose a loved one. I also think he thought about what he thought about at the Garden of Gethsemane—the thirty-nine lashes, the crown of thorns, the falling on the road to Golgotha, the nails, the thirst, the laughter at the foot of the cross, the rejection, and the loneliness—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (27:46). He thought of the loneliness of the atonement—so we might become the righteousness of God through faith in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). I think he thought about the cross of Calvary. On this mountain he thought of that mountain. On a hill far, far away he thought of that hill that was no longer so far, far away from him, a hill that was closing in on him.
Christ's Compassion
And it’s that thought (if I’ve thought rightly about his thought) that makes what happens between this inclusio so remarkable, but also so predictable. The one who wants to contemplate his crucifixion—the ultimate act of selfless love—here (in the middle of our text) has compassion on (selflessly loves) the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, those longing to be free and longing to be fed.
Look again at verse 14. Jesus got on the boat to get away, but when he steps off the boat, a sea of people crash against him. Ah, the crowd, mentioned four times in our text. The crowd crashes against him. So much for solitude.
When I’m writing a talk, contemplating some important idea, or praying and I’m interrupted by a sheep from my flock or an arrow from my quiver, my gut reaction is not compassion but consternation.
But look at verse 14b. It’s so beautiful! It tells us so much about the heart of our Great Shepherd. Here the heart of God is laid open before us. When Jesus “saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick,” and then he fed their bellies. He had compassion. “His heart went out to them” (14:14; cp. 9:36; 15:32; 20:34). I like that rendering of the word “compassion.” His heart went out to them, and his hands healed and fed them. Jesus demonstrates not just an attitude of compassion but acts of compassion. What Moses heard from God about God on Mount Sinai—“Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6b)—is what we see here in Jesus.
This is also something that can be seen throughout the history of the Christian Ecclesia—an attitude of compassion accompanied by actions of compassion. That’s the one-two punch of Christadelphian activism! Jesus cared about the physical needs of people. Here he doesn’t hand out gospel tracts on how to get in touch with God. Here he feeds. Here he heals.
Our Ecclesias and charities follow in his footsteps. Look at the needs of the world today—people who are sick, hungry, and hurting. Close the camera in on who is there helping, and you will find Christians. A man in my church. Dr. Vadim Gaponenko, is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works on cancer research, developing ways to fight and kill cancer. When I interviewed him fox membership, I asked him if his work environment—being surrounded by biologists—was hostile to his faith. He replied that when he did his PhD work there was some hostility. But since he has gone into the area of cancer research—first at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland and now in Chicago—he has found little persecution because many of the doctors and professors in this field are Christians or share Christian values. Isn’t that interesting?
I’ll put his experience differently, in my own slightly exaggerated words: Christian biologists flock to cancer research because they are motivated not by money or power or prestige but by the compassion of Christ. Because of Christ’s compassion, Christians want to heal dying people. And because of Christ’s compassion, Christians want to feed starving people.
In my house we do not have a television, but we do have a computer and the Internet. So my wife and I watch shows via the Internet site hulu.com. Hulu has short commercials, and in early 2010 many were about Haiti relief. World Vision is one of the organizations that bought some commercial time, and this evangelical Christian organization said something like this in their twenty-second slot: “World Vision—we were there before the earthquake, we have been there afterwards, and we will be there in the future.”
The key is the beginning and the end. We were already there, helping in this poor country, and we will be there after the whole world (and its cameras) have moved on to the next high-TV-ratings natural disaster. I thought to myself, That’s Christianity—Christ’s compassion in the world. When nobody’s looking, Christians are breaking down protein molecules in a university lab and breaking bread in some impoverished region of the world.
So the compassion of Christ is to be the compassion of the Ecclesia. We love the world in attitude and action because God in Christ first loved us.
But as we look back at our text let me ask you, is this miracle recorded only to serve as a perpetual motivation for Christian charity—to keep us going in leading the world in healing the sick and feeding the poor? No; there is a greater reason.
Interestingly, this is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. Why? What is its importance? What’s the point of it? That Jesus is really nice? That he loves people? That he puts people first? That he shares his food? That we should do all of the above? No. The point is power—compassionate power—compassionate power that points to personhood—who Jesus is. Jesus’ authority.
Let me point out how this power points to Jesus’ person. Look again at the miracles. After Jesus put on a half-day messianic medical clinic for likely hundreds of people, we read:
Now when it was evening the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said. “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We have only live loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” (vv. 15-18)
Then what happened? “Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass” (v. 19). He laid them down in green pastures, “and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing [possibly the traditional Jewish blessing—“Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the world, who bringest forth bread from the earth”]. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”
So what do we have here? With most men having wives and (let’s say) “two and a half children” per suburbanite (as pollsters like to put it), that’s nearly 24,000 people. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. That's a lot of bread. That’s a lot of fish. That’s a lot of supernatural spontaneous regeneration.
At the beginning of this chapter I talked about Jesus’ humanity. I hope you saw his humanity at the top and tail of our text. But here in the center we see he is also Gods son. Don’t miss it. Here we are to see, in the language of Isaiah 7:14, “Immanuel”—God with us.
Ulrich Luz writes this statement in disbelief: “We must give up all attempts for a historical kernel of something that once happened here, if one doesn’t simply want to assert oneself against all verifiable experience.” In other words, this couldn’t have happened in history because we’ve never experienced something like this—one loaf turning into thousands of loaves... one fish, two fish, new fish, true fish! We haven’t seen it, so how can we believe it? It goes against—-like the resurrection—verifiable experience.
That type of attitude is unfortunate, but it really gets to the heart of the issue. Unbelievable! That should be our first reaction to this miracle. Not, “Oh, this miracle again; I know it like the back of my hand; yeah, Jesus takes five loaves, two fish, 5,000 are fed, twelve baskets of scraps.” Rather, we should react like this: “He took what? Just five loaves and two fish and fed 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people!? And there were doggie bags for everyone?” You see, Matthew wants us to see this miracle and say of it, “This must be the hand of God. This must be the Son of God!” Jesus’ power reveals his identity.
Think carefully about this miracle and what is so unique about it. No first-rate faith healer could do this, and no world-class magician could duplicate this. The greatest tricks our greatest magicians do are just that—tricks. They are illusions. You might think that the Statue of Liberty has disappeared, but it has not. It is a very carefully crafted illusion, and magicians like David Copperfield know that and boast in that. They know how the whole thing works. It is scientific to them, not magical.
Or think of charismatic faith healers. Have you ever watched one of them do the miracles Jesus did—cure a leper, give sight to the blind, walk on water, stop the wind, raise a little girl from the dead? I doubt you have, for his “miracles” are all stuff that can’t be verified. Oh, he’ll “heal” a bad back, a bum leg, ringing in the ears, a sinus infection. But here Jesus takes seven pieces of food and does a perfectly unduplicatable miracle. Oh, the magician can do it, but he knows and his staff knows that bread and frozen fish trucks delivered the secret stash the day before. And the faith healer, well, he’s not fooling anyone. He wouldn’t dare try this one. He would rather sink in the water as he attempts to walk on it than gather 24,000 hungry people in some superdome and have them all leave with their bellies empty, their fists in the air, and their 100-dollar checks still in their back pockets.
This supernatural multiplication is just that—supernatural! One person could he fooled by someone somehow turning one fish into two. Maybe the second fish, as sick as it sounds, was literally up his sleeve. But 24,000 people could not be fooled by someone when two fish turn into 10,000. Do you know what I’m getting at? This is a visible, tangible, verifiable, edible attestation of Jesus’ identity. This is no cheat, no imposter, no false prophet. This miracle screams, “This is God’s Son!’’ Who else can this be? You see, the power shows the person; the authority (over the elements of this world) reveal his identity.
If you miss that in this miracle, you miss its meaning. Yes, feed the hungry, heal the sick. Jesus is compassionate, and you should be compassionate too. Yes, that’s here. But that’s not all that is here. Here Jesus is the sovereign Lord. With the blink of an eye, the passing of a loaf, one turns to two to three to four to five. This is the bread of God from the hand of God. That’s what we are to see.
In case we miss that—seeing the miracle for what it is and thus Jesus for who he is—Matthew provides some other subtle details. Think back to the Old Testament. Think back to divine food provisions in the Old Testament. What are the two key stories? The most obvious one is the provision of manna (and meat) during Israel's wilderness wanderings (see Exodus 16; Numbers 11). Similarly, here in 14:13 the setting is “a desolate place,” which is wilderness-like (see especially John 6:31). And that’s the first important story for understanding this story.
The other one comes from 2 Kings 4:42 -44,"’ the story about the prophet Elisha feeding 100 men with twenty loaves. Several details in the 2 Kings text coincide with our text. First, there is a crowd. Second, a man brings to the prophet an insufficient amount of food to feed the crowd. Third, Elisha says in essence, “Great. That’s all we need. Give these loaves to the men so they may eat.” Fourth, the man says, “Hey, Elisha, do the math—twenty here/100 there.” Fifth, Elisha says, “Let God do the math. You just do what I say.” Sixth, he does it. Seventh, “And they ate and had some left” (v. 44).
The point of the parallels with Moses and Elisha is to say: Behold, Jesus is greater than Moses and Elisha! The words said of Jesus at his baptism and at the transfiguration are reiterated figuratively here: “This is God's beloved Son.” That’s what we are to see. Do you see that? Do you believe that? This was written so you’d see that and believe that.
Count to Eight
In 14:13-23 we learn about contemplation (Jesus sought solitude, a time and place to get away to stop and think and pray, and we should do the same). We also learn about compassion (as Christ was compassionate in attitude and action, so should we be). We learn about contemplation and compassion and even about provision. As Bruner says, “Disciples should always count to eight.”" That is, in this passage there are seemingly only seven things available to provide for the people—five loaves and two fish—but we should always count to eight. We should always count on Jesus, the one factor we can count on to provide our daily bread.
However, while we learn about contemplation, compassion, and provision, the main lesson here is that Jesus is God’s “beloved Son,” or as Jesus describes himself elsewhere, “the bread of life” (John 6:35), “the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:58a), and “whoever comes to [him] shall not hunger” (John 6:35), and “whoever feeds on this bread will live forever” (John 6:58b). That’s the point of this passage. We are to contemplate the power of Christ. We are to contemplate the compassion of Christ. We are to contemplate the humanity of Christ. We are to contemplate the divinity of Christ. We are to contemplate the powerful compassion of the man and how we find everlasting sustenance and satisfaction in him alone.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)