I am no mathematician. That is a given.

Checkbook – never look at it, just write those babies out – and know that Yahweh provides. I could not balance it, if I tried. It’s called faith, some call it stupidity!

Algebra was ok. Geometry was fine. But Calculus, not so much.

Multiplication is at the heart of this miracle.

My chest is getting tight, just thinking of those old multiplication tables.

It has been said that this is about elementary math – I am not so sure.

I am flabbergasted at how well people do with this stuff.

Let’s see how well you do:
A million times one is how much?
A million times two is how much?
A million times five is how much?
A million times ten is how much?
A million times twenty is how much?

Don’t laugh…now…

But I always get stuck on a million times nothing.

A million times nothing is how much?

Did you know that a million times a morsel is one gigantic feast?

For me, it would have been a lot easier if Jesus had just created a lavish sit down banquet from scratch, including a heavenly desert cart with mints and ice cream and Moses as an after dinner speaker.

But, Jesus was not into “parlor tricks.”

As in all things – this was nothing more than a visible lesson that people could remember and talk about later.

And talk about it they did.

The feeding of the 5,000 is told in all of the gospel accounts.

My head actually hurts when I think about how Jesus took the meager loaves and fishes from the poverty of the people, blessed and broke them and then, gave them back in more-than-satisfying superabundance.

A lot of scholars have said that most of us “over think” this gospel story…like some kind of mathematical equation.

Five barley loaves (incidentally – barley loaves were poor people’s food; they were cheaper than wheat bread).

Plus two small fishes and then, 12 full over-flowing baskets left over – after everybody ate…
Just how in the heck do you arrive at that amount of left-over’s?

How do you feed that many people from so little?

Some have said that this is Jesus telling us to come to him in our want. Bring our meager scraps of faith with us – and sit back and watch as he turns it into a feast of fulfillment. Have the confidence to surrender a short, cramped mortal life and he will give you back an immortal life of endless joy.
This was one big impromptu picnic scene, if ever there were one!

Jesus was offering up his bounty that was bottomless. Food enough to go around and then some…

This is Jesus at his finest.

He doesn’t ask much.

He asks only that we come as we are, bringing what we have…our struggling faith and our flawed love for others.

What we give to him will be blessed and miraculously multiplied on a cosmic scale.

By his grace – we, who are never satisfied, will be satisfied beyond our wildest imaging.

Too many of us see the feast of salvation as something that lies over some kind of distant horizon or up in the clouds somewhere.

Jesus was not here to take reservations for a banquet in some far off future.

Nope! I am convinced that we need his grace right here, right now.

Here is where we struggle. Here is where we need to be fed.

Here is where it is tough going. Here is where we get weary.

Here is where we need sustenance and here is where we need strength the most. Here the struggle is real. Here we never quite know what is coming our way, next.

Right here, right now, in his word, in confession, in absolution, in forgiveness, in our worship, in the music, in the prayers, at his table, in our fellowship, in our outreach – this is where we are fed.

All he asks is that:
We bring our meager scraps of faith with us – and sit back and watch as he turns it all into one huge feast of fulfillment.

With God, all things are possible! Come to him!