The previous division of Book III, the Kingdom, ended with Jesus saying that scribes trained for the Kingdom would be like house-holders who bring out of their treasure things new and old. The whole of this next book is in fact a demonstration of that: we see Jesus, Himself the Chief Scribe so to speak, bringing out of the treasure of the Old Testament things new and old indeed, and hardly any story will better illustrate that than the feeding of the five thousand. Paul later reflected that until we read the Old Testament in the light shed on it by God's revelation in Jesus, it is as though we read it with a veil over your eyes. (II Cor. 3:14-15)
Matthew begins by noting that when Jesus heard of the murder of John the Baptist by Herod, "He withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart."
Three times in his gospel, Matthew notes such 'tactical withdrawals' by Jesus:
1. At 12.15, when the Pharisees went out and took counsel together how they might destroy Him.
2. At 14.13 here, after Herod has slain John the Baptist; how is one to know now if any prophet now is safe?
3. At 15.21, after He has thrown down the gauntlet to the Pharisees who came down from Jerusalem to discredit Him.
It looks on the surface as though Jesus withdrew each time because He had no stomach for a fight - as though they were cowardly retreats. But that does not fit with His attitude later. When He finally sets His face to go to Jerusalem, nothing deters Him. It looks then as if He were spoiling for a fight. If it was not cowardice then, what was it?
This, I think, is Matthew's way of alerting us to something John noted repeatedly in his gospel: Jesus more than once said that "His hour was not yet come," meaning that He was not yet ready for the Cross. The Lord steered His progress to the Cross; it was a managed thing. He had it all under control from first to last. He chose the time and the place of His final confrontation with His enemies. Luke remembers that He said once, "I go my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem." (Luke 13:33) Peter will later say that Jesus "was delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God"; it was no less true that He was delivered up by His own determinate counsel and foreknowledge, shared with God. Had He fallen into His enemies' clutches too soon, the whole plan of redemption would have miscarried. Discretion sometimes really was the better part of valour.
It teaches us that whilst in our readiness to meet hostility without retaliation, rejoicing to suffer at our enemies' hands as the Scriptures urge because we know that such suffering is love's pathway to victory, we must not go looking for it, or provoke it needlessly, any more than Jesus did. We need a wisdom that is from above to know when to 'roll with the punches' and when to stand our ground.
Another arresting feature of our Lord's withdrawals is that each of them is followed by a remarkable deed which reveals Him in a new light.
1. Following the first one, He heals a blind and dumb demoniac so that the people are left wondering whether in fact He is not the promised Messiah (12:23);
2. After this one He feeds the multitude in the desert the way God had done by Moses in another desert in Sinai; and that suggests that He is indeed the 'prophet' whom Moses had promised God would raise up among His people to be their Guide into all truth (Deut. 18:15);
3. After the next one, He heals a foreigner and feeds another multitude in Gentile country; and that suggests that He is Saviour and Prophet, not for Israel only, but for the world.
Every apparent defeat leads to a fresh unveiling of His power to save and to lead. When Jesus backs off He advances!
v. 13 "He withdrew to ... a lonely place apart, and the people followed Him on foot from the towns."
The word is 'desert place.' In this way Matthew prepares us to see Jesus as the One of whom Moses was a 'type,' for it was in the desert into which the people followed Moses "on foot from the towns" of Egypt that God had sustained His people with manna, the "bread from heaven." Now Jesus will sustain those who follow Him into the desert with bread from Heaven.
v. 14 "As He went ashore He saw a great throng, and He had compassion on them and healed their sick."
That shows how 'others-orientated' He was - not simply because it shows Him responding to need (Matthew has adequately demonstrated that already), but because of the circumstances in which He did so. One reason, surely, why Jesus wanted to get away and be alone after John had been killed was that He grieved for him. It would have affected Him, deeply. He would have wanted to 'get away from it all' for a little while. People in grief have a need not to be crowded, a human condition Jesus surely shared fully with us. But try as He might, He could not. They would not leave Him be. He would have had every reason to dismiss them. "Leave me; I need to be alone." But great as His own need was, He sank it to respond to theirs. He put other's interests before His own.
It is a lesson we all have to learn. Often in my ministry I have wanted desperately to be alone, to get away from people and their incessant demands on my time and attention - even to do a bit of adequate sermon preparation. Times I have cried out to God, "Spare me." And He has not. I have complained bitterly, and He has simply ignored my complaint. And I have had to learn to turn from my own wants and needs and attend to other peoples'. If we are going to be Christlike we have to learn to do it. But learning it is not a nice experience. It rips and tears. Learning to be generous is not at all the same thing as feeling generous!
"As He went ashore, he saw a great throng; and He had compassion on them and healed their sick" ... then! He did it readily, willingly.
vs. 14-16 The spotlight shifts now so as to focus on the disciples.
The disciples said, "We are a long way from anywhere here and it is late. It isn't late-night shopping tonight either, and if you don't let the crowds go now they won't even find a MacDonald's open."
Jesus said, "We don't need to send them anywhere. You feed them."
Matthew's theme in this section, remember, is the Church. What Jesus says to the disciples here He says to the Church: "You feed them."
"Lord; that's not reasonable. There are so many of them, and their needs so real and pressing. What can we do? This is Your ministry, Lord."
And the Lord says: "I have made it yours."
Later that night He will say to Peter, "Walk on water!" But here, earlier in the evening, He says, "Meet the needs of the masses."
How can we do either? It is impossible.
"Is it?" asks the Lord. "You must learn not to say that."
Then He said, "Bring them here to me." That is how we are to do it. The Lord means the Church to meet the needs of the multitudes by bringing the multitudes to Him. It is our task, as well as His; it is a shared task with Him. He has the bread; but He puts it in our hands to share out. Without us He does not do that.
Here we should be alert to a sub-theme that runs through this Book IV: 'little faith.' The dominant theme is the Church; but this runs along underneath it.
• The disciples lack the faith to believe there is anything they can do to feed the crowd;
• Peter lacks the faith to believe that he can keep on walking on water (14:31);
• Jesus will rebuke them for their little faith when He talks to them about the empty religion of the Pharisees (16:8);
• He will rebuke them again when they recoil from the threat of suffering (16:23-24);
• He will rebuke them yet again for the inadequacy of their faith when they are confronted by the epileptic in the valley (17:20);
• and in the discourse that follows He will challenge them to increase their faith so they find themselves able to forgive "unto seventy times seven." (18:21-22)
"You do it!" He says.
"I can't," we say.
"You can," He says; "With me, you can; believe Me. The little that
you have in your hands is enough - if, having blessed it, it is what
I give to you. Bring to Me the little that you have, and we shall
lift it up together, you and I, to the Father with thanksgiving. He
will bless it, and then with Me to direct you, you shall give it to
others. You will give and give and give it ... on and on. You would
not believe how far the little that you have there in your hands will
go, if it is from My hand you received it." It will be bread, real
bread for people.
Finally, this desert miracle linked the experience of God's people of old with the experience they had then, and with ours today. The people follow Jesus into the wilderness - the way they had once followed Moses into the wilderness - the way we all have to follow Him into a wilderness still.
It means many things, that following Jesus into the wilderness.
(a) That is what it feels like at first when we have to turn our back on the old familiar world to do it. We have to go to Him 'outside the camp' where He bears reproach.
(b) The wilderness too is the place of temptation. For God's people of old it was that. It was for Jesus Himself. It will be too for us. But God has bread to sustain us there. He always has had, and He always will.
The wilderness is the place where you prove God, and grow strong.
How the little congregations in Judæa
to which Matthew addressed his Gospel must have identified with this
incident, in their congregational worship especially. Persecution was
common. They had so little. They were so alone, driven in on each
other's company with Jesus in the midst the way the crowd was that
day in the desert. But how they must have felt, every time they sat
down to the Lord's Supper, that it was all happening again:
... sitting in their pews in orderly rows, just the way the crowds
had sat in the wilderness that day;
... the bread their presiding elder took in his hands at the table,
holding it while He lifted up his eyes to heaven and blessed God on
their behalf for His provision which it symbolised: bread for their
bodies and bread for their spirits;
... the way the elder broke it in his hands and gave it to the
deacons to bring to them: just the way Jesus broke it that day and
gave it to the disciples to take round; the same way He broke it,
too, at the Last Supper.
... just bread; but bread He had blessed. And He gave Himself to them
with it. It would have seemed to them that it was from His hand they
were receiving it again;
.. and always there was enough for all, enough and to
spare.
God's provision is always ample.
And remember: the disciples themselves fed on what they shared with others.
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