Mark 8:1-10
1 In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, he summoned the disciples and said,
2 "My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.
3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance."
4 His disciples answered him, "Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?"
5 Still he asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" "Seven," they replied.
6 He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd.
7 They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also.
8 They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over--seven baskets.
9 There were about four thousand people. He dismissed them
10 and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
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Christ did the "loaves and fishes thing" twice. On one occasion four thousand were fed, with seven baskets left over. On the other occasion five thousand were fed, with twelve baskets left over. There are people out there who think of these and other miracles of Christ as symbolic or figurative.
My answer to that is … why do people seem so willing to put bounds on what Christ can do? There are so many out there who can accept some of Christ’s teachings, but when it gets to demonstrations of divinity (ie, the miracles), they just can’t accept it, and look for other semi-plausible explanations.
Christ’s teachings are like that. There are many, many things that people just can’t accept, and they either look away or they try to turn his teachings into something they can accept. Doing so is trying to draw a box around God, and trying to keep him within the confines of what you are willing to accept. I think to some extent many of us do that in our lives. I know I did until I finally looked up one Sunday and told God I wasn’t afraid, and that I was giving myself completely to Him.
All I can say is that great, great things have happened since I’ve taken that step.
