Photo by Tá Focando on Unsplash
By Mike Chaffin
But He said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.” Luke 9:13
I woke to the smell of fish cooking on the fire. It was such a wonderful smell to wake up to each morning. As usual Jesus was cooking breakfast. A lot of us had just returned to Him from visiting surrounding villages where we told them the good news. What a time we had, praying for people, healing the sick and casting out demons.
The day started off quiet enough. I thought we camped far enough from the villages to have a day of rest. But it wasn’t long until a steady stream of people came out to where we were. Word of mouth traveled fast in these parts. Before long there were at least five thousand men, not counting their families, sitting on the hillsides around our campfire. The master never was one to disappoint a crowd and He ministered to them for several hours. In fact, it was about the 12th hour when some of the other disciples grabbed me and asked me to speak to the Rabbi about Him telling the people to go away before it was too late for them to get something to eat in town.
I was pretty worn out and ready for the crowd to leave so I marched right over to the teacher and said “Jesus, please send the crowd away so they can lodge for the evening and get something to eat.”
He looked up, cocked his head to one side and said, “You feed them.”
“Well, Jesus,” I said, “we only have five loaves and two fish! There isn’t enough money to buy food for this many people.”
He just smiled that smile of His and asked us to bring what we had to Him and get the people ready to eat. It was no use arguing with Him when He had that look in his eyes, a mix of compassion and power. I’ve never forgotten that look. He blessed those two scrawny little dried fish and those five miserable loaves of barley bread and about an hour later we collected twelve baskets of leftovers!
I had seen Him perform miracles before, but nothing like this. It was like the fish just kept getting bigger every time I broke a piece off and it was the same for James and John with the bread. They had half a loaf left over when they finished!
That night Jesus told us to leave in the boat and go to the other side of the lake. He tried to slip away from the camp to pray but we were so excited about the day’s events that before we left, we followed Him. He turned and asked who the crowd thought He was. One said John the Baptist, another said Elijah or one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked us who we thought He was and without hesitation I said, “The Christ of God.” After all, who else could He be?
