Behind the 5000

Have you ever considered how difficult it is to pack the magnitude of that event into one children’s talk? For me it’s always been a simple children’s talk, there was a need and Jesus provided for that need on a massive level. I mean that’s it, right?

Well, not quite!

Firstly, out of five thousand people, only one young boy chose to share his food with Jesus. One. In five thousand. That’s 0.020% of the crowd. Not even half a percent. I think it would be illogical to assume that out of a throng of 5000 people who flocked to hear Jesus speak, that no one thought to grab some supplies. So it’s fair to assume that some of the crowd there also had food. Yet one single young boy offered up what he had to Jesus.

The poignancy of this is two fold. Firstly it can be likened to the gifts, talents and abilities that we as Christians are bestowed. Many of us have abilities and gifts that we could and should use to further God’s kingdom, yet we keep them to ourselves. We don’t want to commit ourselves to giving up our time to lead and outreach. We don’t want to share our musical abilities or our culinary abilities because perhaps we are self conscious, or again we don’t want to give of the time it takes to practice and work at using our talents for the greater good. Perhaps we squirrel away our riches, loathe to share with those less fortunate, just in case there’s a rainy day or some unforeseen circumstance. I’m sure those folk who had food with them were cautious with it as they didn’t know how long they would be waiting, and they wouldn’t want to run out. It’s pretty understandable really, to be careful with what they had, but they discounted one major factor, which brings me to my second point. They overlooked the very reason why they were gathered. Jesus.

When we give our all to Jesus, like that young boy did, then Jesus takes our offering and blesses it. That young boy could have kept a loaf and a fish for himself and handed over the remaining fish and four loaves. He didn’t though. He handed it all over because he felt moved to. He listened to that small voice that guided him and he gave Jesus his all. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to sell your house and give everything over to your church, but if we could be a little more like that young lad and in the moment that Christ requires of us, we give Him the best that we can.

When we put Jesus at the heart of everything we do, He takes what we have and multiplies it far beyond what we could imagine!!

Another point of note was the fact that out of all the crowd, that consisted of many different types of people, there were people of many ages. There would have been well educated people among them. Perhaps even the Pharisees who would have had an intricate knowledge of the texts detailing the coming messiah would have been found among the crowd. Yet who was the one to put his faith in Jesus?

A YOUNG boy.

Now we all know Jesus himself holds our young folk dear to his heart, we all know how he rebuked the disciples for turning children away, saying that theirs was the kingdom of heaven. That’s pretty profound right there! The kingdom of heaven belongs to our children! We are told to be childlike in faith. Yet sometimes in our churches and in our communities we fail to recognise the importance of developing our youth. Imagine if the disciples had intercepted that young lad? Imagine he couldn’t get through to Jesus? Five thousand people would not have been fed. People would have stayed shorter times and not had as much opportunity for Jesus’ ministry and souls may not have been saved.

Perhaps if we open the doors to our young folk, welcoming them and involving them in church life, we could be enhancing their journeys of faith, and we may be surprised to find that they also enrich our lives and faith.

The last part of this wonderful miracle was how after all were fed the disciples gathered up the leftovers and filled twelve baskets. Nothing was wasted. No morsel was too small. Just like nothing we give Jesus is too small. Nothing we give Jesus is wasted. Even if we feel that the little talent we have or the little gifts we have are not enough, when they are brought together with the little gifts of others, with Jesus at the Centre we are more than enough!

If we put Christ at the centre of our lives then nothing is impossible!