Leftovers
One thing that will always fascinate me about God’s Word is how He can speak something new using the same old Scripture. Something that is the same is not known to change, but the wonder of God’s word is that it remains the same, yet He speaks something new and different through it each time we approach to hear Him.
I have read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand countless times before, but when I read it this past weekend, God opened my eyes to something new. My focus has always been on the miracle of the five loaves and two fish being multiplied to be enough for a crowd of over five thousand, but this time He led me to see the miracle of the leftovers.
“When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” John 6:12
I always understood the reason behind Jesus’ instruction to collect the leftovers being the one stated - that there be no waste. This time around I understood that it was important for the leftovers to be collected because through them, Jesus would give attention to the disciple’s needs. You see, according to Mark’s account (Mark 6:30-35), Jesus and the disciples had been so busy they hadn’t had the chance to eat. So, he had them travel by boat to a remote, quieter place where they could recuperate. Instead, a large crowd of people followed them, getting there ahead of them. When they landed, Jesus saw them and had compassion on them and so He began preaching to them.
This obviously threw off their plans of eating and resting. Instead, they had to serve the crowd. I had never before taken to consideration the fact that the disciples themselves had no time to sit and enjoy this miraculous meal because they were too busy serving. According to Matthew’s account (Matthew 14:19), Jesus gave the bread and fish to the disciples that they give it to the people. Can you imagine what it was like for twelve men to cater to a crowd of five thousand men and then some? And not just to give each man a piece of bread and piece of fish, but the Bible says until they were satisfied. If you've lived with an adult male you know that it takes more than one small serving for them to be satisfied.
So there the disciples were running between the groups of people, tired and hungry themselves, yet serving. You would think that Jesus would cut them some slack afterwards, but instead, he sends them to collect the leftovers. Now there is nothing exciting about leftovers. First of all, they insinuate being less in quality and quantity – a plate of leftovers hardly ever looks like the plate originally dished out. There’s also almost something humiliating about eating someone else’s leftovers. But because the disciples know well to listen to Jesus even when it feels uncomfortable (remember Luke 5:5), they went ahead.
“So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.” John 6:13
There was a miracle in these leftovers. First of all, the math here just doesn’t add up. How could leftover pieces from five small loaves (Mark 6:9) fill twelve baskets? It blew my mind that God’s leftovers are not any less than the original meal. This reminded me of the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20. The last workers to be hired in the eleventh hour didn't receive any less pay than those who were hired early on in the day and had worked all day. It also reminded me of Ruth who went picking after leftover grain (Ruth 2:2) and ended with an ephah (more than the the usual grain anyone could glean since stalks were intentionally pulled out for her and left for her to find).
So, like the disciples, we need to trust God when he doesn’t attend to our needs first. We mustn't fight to be first, we mustn't panic, God’s resources do not run out (no matter how late it might appear to be for us). Instead, we need to serve others whole-heartedly, even when they’re enjoying what we’re longing for. We need to believe that God has good plans for us too, that He intends for us to walk away with a basket full of provision and not just one sit-down meal. Like Peter in Luke 5, we need to allow Jesus to use our boat to minister to others before He can fill it with the fish we were so desperately searching all night for.
.png)
Comments
Post a Comment