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| Five Loaves and Two Fish pendant by Kerri W. |
What if the miracle actually took place in the hands of the disciples, the bread and fish multiplying each time they broke off a piece? Then, what if it multiplied as each person took it and broke off what they needed and passed it to the next person? What if it simply multiplied again and again, over and over in their hands exponentially until every person had more than enough to eat to the point where there were enough leftovers to fill up the twelve baskets as the Gospels claim?
I realize that this way of thinking about the feeding of the five thousand probably doesn't exactly follow the pattern of Jesus' other miracles which seemed to happen in an enormous and sudden fashion. Many of Jesus' miracles involve some form of participation on the part of those receiving healing or water being turned to wine or catching a huge load of fish after a futile night of empty nets. The feeding of the five thousand has some of the same elements of participatory faith, but the Gospel accounts of Jesus feeding the five thousand lack that Cecil B. DeMille flair of enormity and suddenness that Hollywood loves and that leaves me imagining five thousand individual miracles happening right in the very hands of the recipients.
The point I'm trying to make is that participation in the miracles of Jesus just might be a series of small acts rather than a big showy event. Maybe you can't feed five thousand people at once, but you can show acts of kindness and generosity to one person at a time. We can go through life being overwhelmed by the great needs of the whole world feeling that we can't make a difference, and that might be the reality. But we can make a world of difference in one person's life.
From him the whole body,
joined and held together by every supporting ligament,
grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
(Ephesians 4:16)
Peace, Love and Light!
Kevin (Cloud)
