FISH Sandwiches

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A long time ago there was a boy, and a big crowd of people, and Jesus, and his disciples, and they were all together in a far, far away place. And Jesus, as he often did, taught the crowd about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed it – he was good at those sorts of things. But it grew late, and the crowd had evidently not intended to stay so long and had not packed a meal, so the disciples were thinking that they should send everyone away to sort out their own food, everyone being in a far, far away place and all. But Jesus had a better idea: he wanted to feed everyone. He was good at that sort of thing too, providing whatever people needed – spiritual, physical, whatever. The disciples, of course, had no idea where Jesus would get enough food to feed the crowd of five thousand men, not to mention the women and children, even if they had enough money to pay for such a large meal in the first place. Andrew, one of the disciples, pointed out to Jesus a boy who had five barley loaves and two small fishes, but really didn’t think Jesus could make that stretch enough to feed everyone. He was wrong. Armed with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus got his disciples to serve up more food than the crowd could eat. (Presumably, the crowd took the bread and fish and made fish sandwiches, but that’s just conjecture).

We love this story and reckon God must too, since he mentioned it in all four Gospels. There’s something of God’s grace in it – how Jesus provides for free what would have cost so much, and which the crowd couldn’t really buy anyway, being where they were, and how Jesus didn’t provide just enough, but more than enough.

And we think it’s really great how Jesus used what that boy had, as measly and inadequate as that was, to feed the multitude. That’s our hope for this site, because what we have to share here really isn’t all that much – it’s just what we have. We only know in part, we only see a poor reflection. So we’ll trust to God’s grace more than our knowledge, and to his Spirit more than our wisdom. Who knows? Perhaps God will do something miraculous like he did two thousand years ago with a boy’s five loaves and two fishes. He’s good at that sort of thing.