Matthew 14:13-21 Commentary

Our text begins with “Now when Jesus heard this…” What Jesus heard was not good news. What Jesus heard was that John the Baptist had been executed. Upon hearing such sad news, Jesus withdrew by himself, presumably to grieve and to pray. Wanting to be alone is a common reaction when someone you care about has died, so it is very likely that this is what Jesus is doing when he gets into a boat by himself.

As discussed in the Textual Point below, each of the gospels has a version of this story, but only Matthew says that Jesus goes away by himself. In the others, he invites the disciples to go with him to a deserted place. And in the very same verse, Matthew tells us that the crowd also “heard” and they decide to follow after Jesus on foot. This too is different than the account in the other three gospels. Mark, Luke, and John all depict the crowd as following Jesus and the disciples because of the miracles they had been doing. Matthew’s Greek is a little more ambiguous and it’s not completely clear if they heard that John the Baptist had died, or that they heard Jesus went off on his own.

On my better days, I like to think that the crowd followed after Jesus in order to keep him company in his grief. That their presence was what they had to offer to a hurting heart and so that’s what they gave. It’s a little like that scene in the 2007 movie Lars and the Real Girl when the church ladies come over with their needlework and casseroles “to sit” with Lars in his grief (even over a pretend life-sized doll). Because, as the ladies say, “That’s what people do when tragedy strikes. They come over and they sit.” Or, maybe it would be more accurate to think about the crowds gathering at a community vigil, standing in solidarity with those who mourn—even if for a complete stranger.

To think that the Compassionate One might have received some compassion from us humans is a little spark of hope. Not because it proves anything about us, but that it proves something about the power of compassion to bring people together. And, in the way that Matthew tells the story, we don’t get any sense that the crowd rushes Jesus or presses upon him. Instead, Jesus is described as seeing the large crowd as he exits the boat and steps back onto dry land. Like we’ve witnessed from Jesus before, he sees the crowd and he feels compassion towards them, and he sets himself to work enacting that compassion with healing work.

It is only then that we hear any mention of the disciples. Presumably, they have come up with the crowd; they know the distance that these folks have travelled and they have a sense of the size of the group. Almost in contrast to Jesus’s compassionate response, the disciples take a pragmatic approach. Jesus has spent a good chunk of time doing his healing thing, and fast falls the eventide. They approach Jesus and advise (literally command) him to send all the folks away because it’s dinner time and there’s nothing out here for them. No corner stores, no fast food deliveries, no food trucks. If you ask me, what they do have—two fish and five loaves—doesn’t seem like enough food for 13 grown men!

But like Jesus did the last time he looked at the crowds and felt compassion, Jesus enlists his disciples in the mission and task, saying, “You give them supper.” It is interesting that the disciples have gone out on their own and worked their own miraculous healings in Jesus’s name, but the thought never crosses their mind that they might also ask Jesus about making enough for dinner.

I wonder if the prestige of healing went to their heads a little. Realizing and experiencing that they could do great things, they are oblivious to the more mundane or normal “miracles” that are right in front of them. After all, being healed from a sickness lasts a lifetime, but a full stomach will be gone by morning. Fifty years later, you’re more likely to remember the person who performed a miracle than a person who shared a meal with you and thousands of other people out in the countryside.

But Jesus works miracles of all kinds, from the memorable and other-worldly to the quotidian and forgettable. Jesus works miracles that people don’t even know they are participating in—do you think that anyone besides the disciples actually knew where the food was coming from?

That’s because compassion isn’t about recognition. If it was attached to any sort of response, recognition, or reward it would not be compassion. What we see from Jesus here, and throughout the Scriptures, is that God’s compassion has no limits or demands but instead is an outpouring of love in tangible ways.

When Jesus takes the fish and the loaves from his disciples, ordinary things that he does extraordinary things with, Jesus does the same thing he will do with the bread and the wine during his final meal with the disciples. Jesus takes them, blesses them, breaks them, and gives them to others for their good.

And what seemed like not nearly enough to the disciples becomes 12 baskets of leftovers. The connection that most exegetes make is to the twelve tribes of Israel. But there’s another obvious connection to a group of twelve: the disciples who told Jesus to send the hungry people away. As the disciples gathered the leftovers and stood looking at one another, each holding an overflowing basket, I wonder what they thought. I wonder what they learned. I wonder what they said to Jesus.

I wonder if they asked Jesus about being part of more of his ordinary miracles.

Textual Point

The feeding of the 5,000 is part of all four gospels, but the details and circumstances of the setting don’t align completely. Though Mark also depicts the miracle as occurring after John the Baptist’s death, the narrative is structured with more focus upon the disciples’ return from their mission. Likewise with Luke, but Luke adds a pinpointed location, Bethsaida. In the gospel of John, a timestamp is given: the Passover meal was near.

Illustration Idea

In 2014 I had the privilege of going on a study trip to the Middle East. While in Jordan I purchased this handmade mosaic of the five loaves and two fish at the Mt Nebo Mosaic Shop. Mosaics like this are found throughout the region’s archaeological sites, on both sides of the Sea of Galilee. Though some of the sites use the presence of these mosaics (usually from around 300 AD) as part of claims to be the historical place the miracle took place, I wonder if their purpose was more universal than that. Could it be that this miracle carried significance and hope for the church gathered? Could it be that this story was a meaningful waypoint in the catechising of believers? Could it be that visual depictions of God’s compassion through physical provision was a prompt for hope?