Luke 9:10-17, 37-43

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Dean, School of Christian Studies, University of Mobile

CHRISTIANITY 103: MEET NEEDS
Luke 9:10–17, 37–43

Feed the Hungry (9:10–17)
From their first mission the disciples returned with glowing reports. That they “told” Jesus all they did means they “related their stories from beginning to end.” Jesus led the Twelve to a deserted place near Bethsaida Julius, a city on the northeast side of the Galilee. The crowds followed. Jesus did not send them away but spent the day preaching the “kingdom of God” and healing the ill.  

To submit to the authority of God as revealed in Jesus Christ was to enter the kingdom of God. The Jews looked for the kingdom to come way out at the end of history. Jesus said it had arrived in a real but limited sense when He came. No one has to wait until the end times to get into it. The kingdom of God is available here and now. Of course, Jesus also taught that the kingdom of God is still yet to come in its final and full sense when the King comes back.

When the day drew to a close the Twelve asked Jesus to send the throngs away so they could find hospitality, i.e. places to stay and food to eat, in that isolated place. “You give them something to eat,” He told the disciples. This plan did not seem workable. All they had at their disposal was five loaves (each about the size of a silver dollar pancake) and two fish (each about the size of a sardine), just enough lunch for a hungry boy (cf John 6:9). It would take more than that to feed 5,000 men, plus women and children. To go find and buy food for this mob would have been expensive and difficult at this late hour, to say nothing of the logistical problem of getting the supplies back to this out-of-the-way location.

Jesus ordered the disciples to seat the people in groups of 50, then took the little lunch, blessed it and broke it for the throng to eat. The disciples served everyone. All ate till they were full and the Twelve gathered up a dozen baskets of left-over fragments.

That this is the only one of Jesus’ miracles all four Gospels record shows its great importance. The miracle functioned on three levels. 

First, the feeding demonstrated Jesus’ compassion on hungry people and suggested Jesus’ ability to supply men’s needs and more.

Second, the event hinted that Jesus was the Messiah. On the basis of certain Old Testament prophecies (e.g. Ps. 132:15, 17b), the Jews looked for a messiah like Moses who would feed Israel again in the desert with bread from heaven as in the Exodus. On this day Jesus fed the crowds supernaturally with bread in the desert, as Moses had. In fact, Jesus outdid Moses. No one could keep manna (Ex. 16:19) but the bread Jesus gave could be left over.

Third, the miracle suggested Jesus is God. Every year seed is sown and there is increase. Pagans credited the harvest to Ceres or another Corn-King. Every year fish reproduce by laying and fertilizing eggs. Pagans said Genius and Poseidon multiplied fish through “natural” processes. But one day in one year only the incarnate God sped up the “process of nature” to show it is He who multiplies bread through the annual harvest and multiplies fish through reproduction. He, not the gods of the heathen, is in charge of nature.

Deliver from the Dark Lord (9:37–43)
After the glorious experience on the mount of transfiguration (9:28–36), Jesus and the inner circle — Peter, James and John — descended into the valley where a large crowd met them. One of the men in the crowd begged Jesus to cure his demonized son. The lad cried violently, convulsed and foamed at the mouth. The evil spirit gave him little rest. “Torturing” him may also be translated “bruising or crushing” him, i.e. damaging him by throwing him to the ground. To make the matter more serious, the rest of the Twelve had been unable to cast out this demon. Previously they had great success but that power seems not to have been maintained.

The Lord rebuked and cast out the unclean spirit and returned the boy to his father. All were astonished at the mighty power of God.

Jesus is the Stronger Man with power to bind the Strong Man (Satan) and take back the booty (demonized men and women) the Dark Lord has seized (Matt. 12:29).