Matthew 14:13-21

Introduction

Just imagine if you will, walking along with Jesus for a few days. As exciting as that prospect might be for us, just think about how tiring, even exhausting all that traveling, teaching and healing must have been for Him. Over the last two Sundays, we’ve observed Jesus teaching in parables to His disciples and to the crowds which followed Him. Just look at the teaching He has been doing over these past two chapters: the parable of the sower, the parable of the weeds, the mustard seed and the leaven, the hidden treasure and on and on. THEN he goes to his hometown, to "g“ home" ”o to speak, and get away from the crowds and possibly, just maybe, to rest a little bit. However, that was not to be, for scripture says the people in Nazareth took offense at him. So, He left. NOW, the disciples tell him that Herod has just had John the Baptist beheaded and may be after Him too. Wow, I’m physically and mentally drained just thinking of what our Lord must have gone through. Just picture how you would feel. Can you imagine the stress, tension, and pressure Jesus is now under?

After all this we now arrive at our text for today, where it says: Jesus withdrew in a boat to a desolate place by himself. Can’t blame Him – can you? But what happens? The crowds follow Him anyway. They start pouring in from the towns as they bring along their sick to be healed by Jesus. Well, this really has gotten to be too much! I mean, if I were in Jesus’ sandals, I’d just tell the crowds to go away. “You don’t know how tired I am!” “You don’t know what I’ve been through today!” I just want to be left ALONE! But that’s not what Jesus said or did. Scripture says, he had compassion on them. Look at the 2nd half of verse 14 with me, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

This is only a prelude to the familiar and fantastic miracle where Jesus feeds the crowd of thousands with only 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. The miracle is not only the obvious one of feeding the people, but it is the miracle of wondrous and unselfish love. For we see the overriding theme of our text today is:

JESUS IS COMPASSIONATE!

I. He is compassionate with the people in the crowd.
II. He is compassionate with His disciples.
III. He is compassionate with us- today.

So first let’s dig a little deeper and see just how Jesus was compassionate with the crowd that followed him.

I

As we’ve seen, Jesus didn’t turn the crowd away. On the contrary, he welcomed them, loved them and he served them by healing their sick. In Mark’s gospel Jesus says the crowds were like “sheep without a shepherd”, and Luke tells us that Jesus started to teach them about the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ heart went out to these people, and he truly had compassion upon them.

Then as evening approached, His love overflowed. Listen to what His disciples said in verse 15, …the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” But Jesus didn’t send the crowd away to find their own food; he had compassion on them and he fed them all by performing a miracle. It was a miracle so great that our text tells us that they all ate and they were all satisfied and full. There was even food leftover.

Notice also that there was nowhere to get food, for they were in a desolate place. Even if they could buy food, the price for so many people to eat and be satisfied would have been quite expensive. But Jesus requires nothing of the people. He doesn’t require payment or work. Jesus takes care of their needs. He doesn’t require them to go away to someplace else simply to take care of themselves. No, Jesus just takes the 2 fish and the 5 loaves that are brought to Him and he blesses them and in an act of love, He feeds His people. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

The compassion of our Lord reminds me of our Old Testament reading where Isaiah writes: “Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Christ bids all people come, to be not only physically fed but in this case spiritually fed. And even though they have nothing, they need nothing. In these words from Isaiah and in this miracle of compassion for the crowd, Jesus gives us a glimpse of a greater miracle – that is His cross. For he will be the one who provides the food of salvation with His very own body and blood. He will be the one to pay the enormous price to provide the food and the drink in this miraculous banquet. He will be the one in a desolate place dying for your sins and mine. But as we read on, Jesus not only shows great compassion to the crowd, he also demonstrates understand and compassion with His disciples.

II

Jesus takes this opportunity to teach His disciples. When they tell Jesus that he should send the crowd away to the villages for food he tells them, “They do not need to go away, You give them something to eat!” “Oh, No!” they must have thought, “Now we’ve done it!” “How are we going to feed all these people?” “It’s just impossible!” Instead of saying, “Yes Jesus you lead the way and we will follow,” they made excuses – “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish for 5,000 men and all the women and children.”

Don’t we do the same thing when our Lord tells us - They do not need to go away – you take care of them? Don’t we lament and complain that God is asking the impossible. Does God realize just how many hours there are in the day? I mean how many of you have said or heard it said, ?
“Hey, that’s not my job; and I really don’t have time to help other people anyway. That’s why there are social services, right?” (or) ?
“Nothing I can do will really make a difference anyway.” (or) ?
“What have I got to offer, I’m not really that talented and I’m definitely not rich!

But Jesus tells his disciples – They do not need to go away – you take care of them. Jesus gives the disciples the opportunity to display their faith. But do they really understand who he is and the power he commands? De we? In any case, they bring their meager offering of 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Now, this is the important part because the disciples don'’ just go out and start distributing the fish and bread, they bring them to Jesus. Jesus tells his disciples, and us, to bring our offerings of money, energy, time, talents, and all that he gives us, no matter how meager and he will bless them. And just like the disciples, when things look impossible, we can have that sure faith and trust in Jesus to provide for all our needs. But read on, he didn’t simply take everything away from His disciples and have them go sit in a corner. For after he blessed the food, he gave it to them to distribute. He included them in this wonderful miracle. That’s what our great God does, he includes us also in this work of love and compassion. Our meager gifts and talents are used to do great things in His kingdom and because of Him we really can make a difference in the lives of people we meet. As you can plainly see, Jesus did show compassion for his disciples.

III

Jesus continues to show compassion to us today. In his great love he provides daily bread for us just as he fed the crowd of 5,000. Although we sometimes take all the “things” we have for granted, Christ continues truly to care for our physical needs. In times of flood, famine, and natural catastrophes, we see how frail and needy we really are. It is only by His hand that we have all that we need to sustain this life. For it is God who causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. As the psalmist says in our psalm for today, God’s love endures forever. He does wondrous things, he has created us, he takes care of us, and continues to feed all his creatures. He does this out of pure love and compassion for His creation.

But there is more that Christ does for us. Just as the crowds did not need to depart from Jesus out in that lonely place, we need not depart from Him either. We need to be near our Savior always; as we worship in his church, and stay in His word; as we come to him with repentant hearts and lay our petitions before Him in prayer. To intentionally stay away from our Lord is deadly. To be near Him and receive his gifts is life.

For Christ is here for you and for me in His church. He comes to us in the Word and speaks words of compassion and forgiveness to our troubled hearts. He also comes to us today in and under the bread and wine at His supper. In this meal he has fed millions as he feeds us in this miracle that forgives sins and strengthens our faith.

You see, Jesus loves you so much and has so much compassion for you that he willingly died for you sins. He went away from the Father on the cross and became sin for you so that you will never have to go away and be separated from God. As Paul asks the question in our epistle today – Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Paul’s answer? No One! …neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any power, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus in his great compassion says you need not ever go away. In His great compassion he wants you to remain with Him always. Through the compassionate love of God we can rejoice in our Savior who has made us made us heirs of an eternal kingdom.