1. Jesus has crossed the Sea of Tiberias and has reached its eastern shore. Great crowds are coming in the same direction-some from the scattered ranks of the Baptist, some consisting of the pilgrims to the Passover at Jerusalem. Both are naturally drawn to Jesus-the disciples of the Baptist by a kindred association, the Passover pilgrims by a spirit of devotion. We should have thought Jesus would have grasped the moment as one eminently adapted to the spread of His doctrines. Strange to say, His whole interest seems bent upon something else. He thinks of the physical well-being of that crowd. They must already be hungry and faint with their journey. If they are to interrupt that journey to listen to Him, they will be more faint and hungry still. Accordingly, Christ's primal care is for their bodies, their food, their nourishment. He intends that before all things they shall receive provision for their temporal wants. But He is not content to achieve that; He wishes His disciples to go along with Him, to sympathize with Him. And so He starts a problem of political economy-How shall we procure food for this multitude?
2. It was to Philip that Jesus put the question. Philip answered Him, “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little.” This was an eminently practical answer. Philip was evidently a practical man. He was acquainted with the cost of things. He knew how much money the Apostolic brotherhood had in their scanty treasury. He decided at once that this generous thought of Christ's could not be executed. It would take too much money. Philip was a man who had some idea of money. What he would have said to St. Teresa's project, who started out, it is said, to build a hospital having two halfpence in her pocket, and saying, “Two halfpence with God can build a city”-what Philip would have said to that sort of financing we cannot say. At any rate, there is no mention of God here. The bread will cost so much money. We have not that amount of money; the plan cannot be carried out.
3. But Jesus was quite prepared. As John puts it, “He himself knew what he would do”-knew, that is, at first sight of the crowds as they came up the hill from the shore of the lake. When, therefore, towards the close of the day, the disciples-and Philip doubtless with the rest-came to Jesus and said, “Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves food,” Jesus had His answer ready: “They have no need to go away; give ye them to eat.” We can imagine the surprise that swept over the heart of Philip as he heard these words. Such a saying looked like urging them to do what they knew to be utterly impossible. He said that even two hundred pennyworth of bread would not suffice. Andrew supported Philip in this contention, for he added, “There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two fishes: but what are these among so many?” Yet Jesus did not swerve from His purpose. The multitudes were to be fed, and the disciples themselves were to do the work. His only reply to them was that they should bid the multitudes recline on the green grass and prepare for a meal.
Let us not forget Christ, as Philip did. That was the very heart of his failure, and the secret and explanation of his hasty and self-sufficient answer. He forgot Christ. We must remember Him. In all the difficulties that press upon us in our generation, some of them sociological, some of them theological; some touching the problem of poverty, some touching the problem of belief; some tempting us to hasty answer, others tempting us to a self-sufficient answer; let us find our refuge and our help in the sure word of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Herein you proudly erred,
Here may the source of woe be found,
You …
deemed that in our own heart's ground
The root of good was to be found,
And that by careful watering
And earnest tendance we might bring
The bud, the blossom, and the fruit
To grow and flourish from that root.
You deemed we needed nothing more
Than skill and courage to explore
Deep down enough in our own heart,
To where the well-head lay apart,
Which must the springs of being feed,
And that these fountains did but need
The soil that choked them moved away,
To bubble in the open day.
But, thanks to heaven, it is not so,
That root a richer soil doth know
Than our poor hearts could e'er supply,
That stream is from a source more high;
From God it came, to God returns,
Not nourished from our scanty urns,
But fed from His unfailing river,
Which runs and will run on for ever.1 [Note: R. C. Trench, Poems, 7.]
