Lunch for Five Thousand

Jesus and his friends were tired, tired to their very bones. They had been giving and giving, and now they only wanted to rest. So they climbed into a boat to find a still, empty place, just them and Jesus.

But the people saw where they were going.

And they ran. All around the edge of the lake they ran, mothers carrying babies, old men leaning on sticks, children skipping ahead. By the time the boat touched the shore, there they were already, waiting, more than you could ever count.

Jesus did not turn the boat around. He looked at all those hungry, hoping faces, and his heart went out to them. They were like sheep with no one to lead them home. And he loved them, every single one, as if each were his only one.

So he taught them, all day long, while the sun crossed the sky.

But the day grew late, and the friends grew worried. "Send the people away," they said. "Let them go and buy food. There is nothing out here."

And Jesus said a strange thing. "You give them something to eat."

Us? They almost laughed. There were five thousand men, and women and children besides. Not in a whole year of working could they buy bread for so many. What they had was far too little for what was needed.

Then a boy stepped forward. Just a boy, with his lunch in his hands: five small barley loaves and two little fish, the plain kind of bread that poor folk ate. It was hardly enough for the boy himself.

"What is this," said a friend, "for so many?"

But Jesus took it. He took the little lunch into his own hands, gently, as if it were a treasure. And he looked up to his Father in heaven, and he gave thanks.

Then he broke the bread.

And he broke it again. And again. And it did not run out. The friends carried it through the grass, basket after basket, and everyone ate. The babies ate. The old men ate. The children ate until they were full and warm and glad.

And when it was over, they gathered up what was left. Twelve baskets, brimming. More at the end than at the start.

Long before, in the days when God's people wandered a wide dry wilderness, God had sent bread down from the sky to feed his hungry children. Bread called manna, fresh every single morning. But the manna always ran out, and every morning they needed more.

Now, on a green hillside, stood Someone greater than the manna. The Bread that comes down from heaven was breaking the loaves with his own hands, and this Bread does not run out. Not ever.

For Jesus himself is the Bread, the one who fills the deepest, achiest hunger inside you, the hunger no dinner can reach.

That evening, more people than you could count went away full and warm and glad, five thousand men, and women and children besides. Yet this hillside supper was only a first small taste of a greater feast: a long table set, every chair filled, and Jesus at the head of it, handing you the bread himself. On the next page, he will tell you what that bread truly is.