Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 speaks of the compassion of Jesus, but also of the grace and power of Jesus. And it was clearly intended to confront both His disciples as well as the crowd with who He was. On the question of the power of Jesus John MacArthur writes:
As we look back on the scene from our two-thousand-year vantage point, it seems impossible that even when Jesus said to His disciples, ‘They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!’ the idea of His feeding the people miraculously did not enter the disciples’ minds.
Seeing no further than their own resources, they replied, ‘We have here only five loaves and two fish’. It would seem to have required so little faith and to have been so natural for the disciples to expect Jesus to feed the crowd. But they were like a person who stands in front of Niagara Falls and asks where he can find a drink. They were face to face with the supreme power in the universe and yet were spiritually blind. They knew it, but they did not know it. Had anyone asked them if Jesus could do such a thing, their answer would have been an unhesitating and unanimous, ‘Of course He can!’ But even when prompted by Jesus’ suggestion, they saw their own lack instead of His sufficiency.
We are tempted to think that, had we been there, our first thought would have been to ask Jesus to feed the multitudes, as He had proved Himself capable of doing hundreds of times. What could have been a more obvious solution than to have the Son of God create food to feed this crowd, just as He had created wine for the wedding guests at Cana? That would hardly have been an impossible challenge to the One who healed every sort of disease, raised the dead, cast out demons, walked on water, and instantaneously calmed a fierce storm. Yet, how many times has every believer faced a crisis that seemed overwhelming and insurmountable and failed to consider the Lord’s power?
Despite two years of walking with the Lord, hearing Him teach God’s truth and seeing Him demonstrate miraculous power, the twelve were too spiritually dull to see the obvious. They were looking only with their human eyes and only at human resources.
He was saying, in effect, ‘I knew that you did not have sufficient food or money to feed the people, and I knew that you had no way of getting it. I never expected you to feed them from your own resources or by your own power. In asking you to feed them I was asking you to trust Me. Without having to tell you, I was giving you the opportunity to bring to Me what little you had and trust Me for the rest.’
How is He still saying the same thing to you today? How does this impact the way you approach Him today in worship, and as you walk with Him into the unfolding week ahead?