The Adventures of Jesus Christ
Episodes from the Life of Jesus for Young Readers
by Vincent Cheung
[ Contents ]

Chapter 20. Jesus Multiplied the Food
I THINK I MADE WAY TOO MUCH

Jesus and his disciples slipped away to a remote place to be by themselves. However, the people discovered where they had gone, and a huge crowd began to gather from many towns. When Jesus saw the people, he had compassion on them and healed those who were sick. Healing comes from compassion. Any teaching that fights the ministry of healing is cruel. It is full of hate and selfishness.

Jesus spent hours healing the sick and teaching the people. When the evening came, the disciples said to him, “This is a remote place, and it is very late. Send the people away to the villages so that they can buy food for themselves.”

But Jesus said to Philip, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Jesus already knew what he was about to do, but he said this to test his disciple’s faith and understanding. He always wanted his disciples to increase in faith.

Philip answered, “There are so many people here. Even if we spend eight months of a man’s wages, it would not buy enough food for each one to have a bite!”

There were about 5,000 men there, and on top of that, there were many women and children. The total number of people could have been several times more than 5,000. This overwhelmed Philip. He was still thinking in terms of what was possible for ordinary people, and not what was possible for Jesus or for someone with faith in God.

Then Jesus asked, “What do we have?” Andrew, another disciple, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many people?”

Although we refer to them as “loaves,” they were probably more like small, flat pieces of bread, similar to pita bread. The fish were likely small dried or salted fish, probably similar in size to sardines. The boy brought the food for himself. It was not a lot of food even for one small person, not to say for more than 5,000 people.

As always, Jesus was confident. He instructed, “Bring the food to me, and have the people sit down.” He took the loaves and fish. Looking up to heaven, he gave thanks to God. Then he began to break the food into pieces and gave it to his disciples to distribute to the crowd.

As Jesus did this, a miracle happened. He kept breaking up the food and handing the pieces over to the disciples, and then he continued breaking up the food and handing more pieces to the disciples. He kept going and going, and he never ran out of food. The bread and fish kept multiplying, and everyone began to eat. They ate, and they ate, and they ate some more, until all of them were full.

Jesus took one portion of food that was barely enough for one person, and multiplied it so that it fed many more than 5,000 people. But there was more to the story. After everyone had enough to eat, the disciples gathered the pieces of food that were left over, and they collected 12 baskets of food.

Imagine that there was one burger in your hand. Then it became 5,000 or even 20,000 burgers. Many people probably ate two or more burgers, so there were probably many more than 20,000 burgers. And after that there were 12 baskets full of burgers left. This is the power and generosity of God through Jesus Christ.

God is interested not just in our survival, but our abundance. It takes faith to grasp this. At a later time, the disciples discussed among themselves about forgetting to bring food with them. And Jesus rebuked them, “You have so little faith! Why are you arguing about having no food?” Then he reminded them of the times when he multiplied food to feed tens of thousands of people, and still had many baskets left over. He said, “How is it that you still do not understand?”

They were still learning about Jesus and about faith. And they wrote down these lessons that Jesus taught them, so that we may learn them too. Eventually, they understood Jesus, and they understood faith, and they walked in great power and miracles, just like their teacher.

Most people who call themselves Christians still do not understand. And many religious teachers and leaders do not want to understand. How about you? How long will it take you to understand?