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Mark 8: In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” Mark 8:1-3
Jesus’ has us considering food and hunger and with that, we’ll consider all things regarding the body.
Think of something that is hurting or something that is not working well with your body. Now think of something that is hurting or something that is not well with the body of someone you know and love.
Hearts, blood, brains, joints, bones, muscles, eyes, ears, etc.
And now, hear this: Jesus has compassion on the body. Jesus loves your body and the body of the others you are considering.
Jesus’ Heavenly Father created your body through Him. The Father breathed life into your body as He did Adam and Eve.
Jesus took on flesh and bone and blood and muscles and heart by becoming incarnate by the Holy Spirit and dying with His body, rising with His body, and ascending with His body.
We believe in the Holy Spirit who promises us the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
Our Lord before His death is constantly having compassion on the body. Healing hurting bodies, cleansing leprosy from the body, giving sight to the blind, and here we consider how Jesus feeds the body of a huge crowd that had been with Him three days and had nothing to eat.
Jesus does not say, “They heard my Word for three days and have stayed with Me hearing the Words of eternal life, so now they better go find something to eat.” He is considered about their bodies because if they leave Him now, they will faint on the way, and some of them have come from far away.
The disciples ask a question that we do well to consider: How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?
Our Lord loves the body and it does us well to consider how our bodies keeping going. How do we keep breathing?
How does the heart keep pumping blood?
How does the kidney keep doing whatever the kidney does?
How do we keep eating?
How does medicine work?
How does surgery work?
How do we so often keep getting better after we get sick?
How is our body being protected from dangers from other bodies who want to harm our bodies?
How in the world do billions of bodies keep going every single day?
The disciples help us consider this because they recognize that there are no resources around to feed this huge crowd. And we do well, especially when we are surrounded by resources like food, drink, clothing, doctors, scientists and the like of Who the Source is of all these resources. It is the compassion of Jesus. I have compassion on the crowds.
After questioning Jesus what the source is going to be, Jesus rather humbles them by asking them: How many loaves do you have? 7 was their answer. That ought to have reminded them of the time Jesus fed an even larger crowd with 5 loaves. 7 loaves should have seemed plenty of resources because they were with the Source.
But after humbling them, He uses them. He doesn’t personally distribute the bread and fish. He’s the source, but He uses His disciples as resources to provide.
That’s a humbling thing for us. God provides for many through you. God provides for you through others.
The disciples as simply hands that were distributing gifts from the Giver must have kept looking at their hands and looking at Jesus and thanking God that they weren’t the Source and being humbled that God was again using them to have compassion on others.
But as we meditate on the body, we must also recognize the reality that there are times when people are not fed.
There are times when people bodies don’t get healthy again.
There are times when bodies are not protected from other bodies that wish them harm.
There is something wrong with the body in that it can die. That is not how God created us. The wages of sin is death.
Sin also hurt the soul, too. One of the fruits of sin is that we sometimes love only the body. We can sometimes only seek pleasure for the body. We can sometimes think that the body is the only thing that has needs.
Here, our Lord would preach to us that the crowds were with Jesus for three days: hearing the Words of eternal life, feeding off the Bread who came down from heaven; praying Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done; not worrying about the needs of the body and their prayer for daily because they knew their Heavenly Father knew them, so instead they were seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, for all these things would be added unto them.
Our Lord does much better things than restoring your body when you have a headache, He restores Your souls today. Feed on those Words that the crowds fed on for three days and had their souls restored.
Our Lord does much better things than give you lunch in a couple hours, He gives your body and soul the food that endures. He is the living bread that came down from heaven that if anyone would art of Him, they would live forever. For the bread that He gives for the life of the world is His flesh.
He was able to save His body. He could have appealed to His Heavenly Father to send legions of angels to protect His body, but instead He chose to die in His body to save your eternal soul and promise you everlasting life in body and soul.
Our Lord knows the weariness of our bodies – He must feed the crowds lest they faint and grow weary on the way. He also knows the weariness of our souls.
He feeds our souls today lest we faint on the way, lest we get so caught up in the needs of the body we forget the one thing needful, lest we forget that this mortal body must die in order for the immortal soul to put on an immortal body.
Jesus is our source. Jesus is our Provider. Jesus is our home. In His compassion, we live, lest we faint on the way home. Amen.