How Are Onions Like the Bible?
Onions are one of my favorite vegetables. I could eat them like candy. A few weeks ago, we were at my sister and brother-in-law’s house for a mother’s day cookout and I was given the task of slicing the onions. This is not something I’m good at. Evidence for God’s existence is in the fact that I left that day with all my fingers.
Cutting a round onion is hard work for some of us. It’s much easier to peel the onion apart layer by layer, but then you don’t have the nice flat rings to put on your hamburger. You’ll be stuck with really curvy pieces. Slicing the onion is the way to go if you’re having hamburgers. But if you want to savor the different degrees of flavor, you peel it and eat a little at a time. The whole onion is good, but as you get to the core, its flavor gets stronger and spicier or sweeter.
Scripture is like this. Each passage of Scripture has one meaning, but the meaning of a passage can have layers of depth and savoryness. The surface level meaning of a passage is usually not hard to discern, but as you peel away at the text, discerning its genre, unique vocabulary, repeated words, and other literary, grammatical, and historical features, the meaning becomes sharper and more pronounced. The “taste” of the passage becomes stronger and sweeter.
The Onion of the Feeding of the Five Thousand
I want us to have this in mind as we approach our text this morning. The passage we’re studying is one of the most well-known stories in the Bible. It’s the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. It’s been immortalized in children’s Bibles and storybooks. The miracle I’m referring to is Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand with only five loaves of bread and two fish.
When we hear this story, we might only think of Jesus as surrounded by hungry children and families. That’s certainly part of the story. But there are several layers to this story that we miss if our taste is satisfied by only a cursory reading of it. With any text, especially with familiar texts like this one, we’ll get the most out of it the longer we stare at it, the more we read it. I’ve encouraged Mason, as he prepares to preach next Sunday, to spend lots of time just reading the text. God has put wonderful and deep and savory meaning into each text of Scripture. It’s our job to peel back the layers to find it, enjoy it, apply it, obey it, and share it.
What’d I like to do this morning is read our text (Mark 6:31-44) then discuss the several layers of meaning that I think are present in it. I want to peel them back, enjoy them, and then keep peeling until we arrive at what I think is the overall main point of this text.
Two Dramatic Feasts
The first layer I want to point out is the contrast that Mark sets up between this text and the one immediately preceding it. Mark purposely puts this account of a feast in the wilderness right after Herod’s birthday feast (vv. 14-29). He puts two stories of dramatic feasts side-by-side to draw a contrast between them and make a point about the nature of Jesus’ ministry.
The first feast was hosted by Herod Antipas. The second by Jesus. The first feast was held in a fortress palace. The second in the open air on the rolling hills of Galilee. The first feast was for important and powerful people. The second feast was for anyone who wanted to come. The first feast had food prepared by professional chefs. The second feast had food prepared by Jesus. The first feast had exotic dancing for entertainment. The second feast featured the preaching of the Word of God by the Son of God. The first feast was given to strengthen Herod’s position with the people. The second feast was given to serve the needs of the people. The climax of the first feast was the execution of a man of God. The climax of the second feast was a display of the compassionate power of the Son of God. Herod’s feast was self-serving and deadly. Jesus’ feast was others-serving and life-giving.
Mark’s point is that Jesus is nothing like Herod or the rulers of this world. Jesus’ agenda and methods are contrary to the worlds. Jesus came to meet and serve and love people, any people, right where they were, at the point of their greatest need, and give them love and life through his word and work. Jesus is a new kind of King. “A love like his the world had never known.”
Jesus Is Not a Military Messiah
The contrast between Herod Antipas and Jesus is the first layer of meaning I want us to chew on. The next layer I want us to consider is how Jesus dismisses the crowd’s intent to make him their military messiah. This isn’t a primary concern of Mark in this passage, but there are several details here worth pointing out that show us Jesus denying the people’s attempt to make him their military messiah and leader.
Mark describes the account, though subtly, as the almost-beginning of a revolutionary uprising. This region, rural Galilee, was a stronghold for the Zealot movement. The Zealots were those who were zealous for the Jewish nation to defeat the Romans and rule themselves. Several freedom movements began in this region. It wasn’t uncommon for the people of this area to declare allegiance to a charismatic leader and start a rebellion against Rome.
This sentiment may’ve been stirring among the crowd that day. Notice a few things from the text. Mark makes it clear that it was five thousand men who were fed (v. 44). The eagerness of such a large group of men to run along the shore in order to meet Jesus at a remote area may be the result of their desire to persuade this charismatic leader to take up the role of military leader for a popular uprising and insurrection.
Another clue that this may’ve been what was happening is when Mark says that “they were like sheep without a shepherd” (v. 34). The Old Testament uses this exact phrase to refer to Joshua-like military leaders who muster Israel’s troops for war (1 Kgs. 22:17). It’s a metaphor for military leadership and authority. Why does Mark, following Peter’s testimony, describe the scene like this unless this sentiment was present in the crowd?
Verse 31 says that “many were coming and going,” perhaps suggesting a clandestine movement spreading among the men of that region. When they realized where Jesus was headed they “ran there on foot and got there ahead of them” (v. 33). There was great commotion among the people of that region. This could be attributed to the general popularity that Jesus experienced wherever he went (except Nazareth). Or could it be something more?
These clues in the text suggest that the people wanted to make Jesus their military leader. They’re confirmed by John’s explicit statement, at the end of his account of the feeding of the five thousand. He says, “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (6:15). John says explicitly that the crowd wanted to make Jesus king that day.
The reason this is important as a layer of meaning in this text is because it tells us what Jesus was not interested in doing that day. He was not interested in marching to the beat of populist sentiment. He was not interested in being a military shepherd of the sheep.
The crowd that day had expectations for Jesus, just as we do, that didn’t conform to the reason he came into the world. He did not come to fight. He came to serve. He didn’t come to be whatever we want him to be. He came to be a suffering servant. He didn’t come to rescue us from the physical oppression of Rome. He came to redeem us from the spiritual oppression of sin and Satan.
Jesus Is the New Moses
The shepherd this crowd in the wilderness needed was not a military messiah to fight for them, but a Moses to teach them. This leads us to the next layer of meaning I want us to see. Notice the parallels between this account and the account of Moses and the people of Israel in the wilderness. Mark mentions the “desolate place” that this feeding took place in three times (vv. 31, 32, 35). This is best understood as an uninhabited place, not a desert, hence the “green grass” of verse 39. It recalls to mind the wilderness that Israel journeyed through on the way to the Promised Land.
The multiplication of loaves of bread in verse 41 reminds us of the manna from heaven (Ex. 16:14-15). Jesus as a shepherd figure reminds us of Moses as the leader of the fledgling nation of Israel. Like Moses (Ex. 18:21, 25), Jesus divides the people into groups (vv. 39-40). In verse 37, the disciples are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem, just as Moses was when he was confronted with Israel’s need for food in the wilderness (Num. 11:13, 22).
These parallels are meant to remind us of God’s miraculous provision for Israel in the wilderness and teach us that Jesus is the new Moses who came to bring bread from heaven to the people of God. Jesus makes this connection himself in John’s Gospel. He says, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn. 6:49-51).
Just as God used Moses to supernaturally provide for his hungry people in a desolate place, so he uses Jesus to do the same. Jesus is God’s manna from heaven given to satisfy the spiritual hunger of everyone who comes to him. He says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (Jn. 6:35). Jesus is the Servant-King who came from heaven to give his life for everyone who trusts in him.
Jesus Is the New Elisha
Another layer of meaning in this text is the parallel that it has with one of the prophet Elisha’s miracles in 2 Kings 4:42-44. The only person who performed more miracles than Elisha in the Old Testament was Moses. Our text is saying, not so subtly to those who know the Old Testament, that Jesus is greater than the greatest miracle workers in the Old Testament. Elisha fed one hundred men with twenty loaves of bread. Jesus fed five thousand men with five loaves of bread. Jesus is the new and greater Elisha.
We know Mark had Elisha’s miracle in mind because of the similarities between the two accounts. Both stories have a hungry crowd and a lack of food. Both stories mention the command of the leader to the servants to feed the crowd (2 Kgs. 4:42; Mk. 6:37a), their surprised question in response (2 Kgs. 4:43; Mk. 6:37b), the satisfying of hunger and food left over at the end (2 Kgs. 4:44; Mk. 6:42-43).
Jesus Can Do A Lot With Our Little
In both instances the leader, Elisha and Jesus, involve their followers in the great work that they’re doing. The disciples suggest that Jesus send the crowd away to find food (v. 36). Our tendency is to send people away who need our help, farming them out to another ministry or a pastor or a counselor, rather than helping them ourselves. What does Jesus say to the disciples, “You give them something to eat” (v. 37a).
When Rosaria Champagne Butterfield met Jesus Christ, her church didn’t send her away to get help with her lesbianism and feminism. She says that her pastor and elders “knew that the church is competent to counsel.” What she needed, she says, was “faithful shepherding…in the Word of God.” She repented of sin and grew in Christ through the ministry of other Christians.
May we make every effort to bear each other’s burdens instead of sending each other away to some specialist. There’s a place for counseling and para-church ministries of all sorts. The point is that Jesus has called and equipped you, the church, to join him in his work of redeeming and sanctifying sinners. Next time a need comes your way, ask Jesus to help you address it, even if you only have a few loaves and fish. Jesus can do a lot with our little.
Jesus is the Servant-King who came from heaven to be bread for hungry people in the wilderness and who invites his followers to join him in his work of feeding hungry people.
The Lord’s Supper and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Another layer of meaning in our text is the way in which it foreshadows two other important meals in God’s plan of redemption: the Lord’s Supper and the marriage supper of the Lamb. Verse 41 uses the same four verbs as are used in the Last Supper. “And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body’” (14:22).
On these two occasions, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. In so doing, he’s giving us an enduring picture and symbol of what happened to him on the cross. On the cross, the Father took the bread of Jesus’ body, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his people. The feeding of the five thousand points us to Lord’s Supper, where we remember what God was doing through Jesus on the cross.
The Lord’s Supper also points us forward to another meal. After taking the bread and the wine, Jesus says to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (14:25). Jesus says that the Last Supper is a foretaste of another supper. In heaven, there’ll be a great feast and banquet held for all who’re married to Jesus (Rev. 19:6-9). This feast will be full of joy and glory. We’ll sit at Jesus’ table wearing Jesus’ garments of righteousness. Blessed is everyone who’s invited to this feast!
Jesus’ feeding of five thousand men in the wilderness foreshadows his Supper with twelve men in an upper room, which foreshadows his banquet in heaven for “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9).
Eating with Jesus in the kingdom of God is the great privilege of all who put their trust in him. And all who put their trust in him will “eat his flesh” and be satisfied forever. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn. 6:53-54).
A Beautiful Onion
As we’ve peeled back the layers of this beautiful onion of a text, I hope you’ve savored the richness and sweetness of all that God has done for us in Christ. Mark is forcing us to come face to face with the living Christ. He wants us to know Jesus, to get his identity right. This text has provided yet more clarity for us concerning the question: Who is Jesus?
Mark is telling us that Jesus is the Servant-King who came from heaven to be bread for hungry people in the wilderness, who gave his body and blood on the cross to save his people, who has gone before us to prepare a banquet for all who joyfully embrace him as King, and who invites his followers to join him in his work of feeding hungry people.
Unlike Herod, Jesus is the good and compassionate King who brought his kingdom through love and service, not through military force. He is the new and greater Moses and Elisha who does impossible things to provide exactly what his people need. He calls his followers to join him in his work of redeeming people and goes before them to prepare an everlasting feast for them.
The main point of the many layers of this text is that Jesus is the bread from heaven who satisfies the hunger of his people, that he is God at work among his people, doing impossible things to meet our deepest needs, and who’ll one day eat with his people again in the kingdom of God.
Unfortunately, as we’ll learn next week, the disciples are slow to understand all that Jesus is showing them (vv. 51-52). Their hearts were still hard and unable to believe and embrace Jesus for who he really was.
How are you responding to what Jesus is showing you here? Is your heart filling up with worship and love? Remember the promise of Jesus, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (Jn. 6:35).