Wednesday in the First Week of Advent, December 2, 2020

Matthew 15:29-37

At that time: Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up on the mountain, and sat down there. Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at his feet, and he cured them. The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the deformed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind able to see, and they glorified the God of Israel.  Jesus summoned his disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.” The disciples said to him, “Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd?” Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” “Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full. 

According to St. Matthew, the events described in today’s Gospel reading took place when he returned from his excursion to the coast of Tyre and Sidon in the land of the Gentiles north of Galilee.  He takes his Apostles back to the familiar country around the Sea of Galilee, where several of them were from.  The news of his return traveled quickly and crowds began to form, eager to be taught.  In order to accommodate the crowds, Jesus ascended a “mountain” — actually, something like a large hill that would have taken an hour or two to climb.  He taught them from the mountain for three days.  During this time, “large crowds” of  “the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others” were also brought to him and he cured them.  It is a great feast of mercy: first the teaching and then the healing.  Jesus would have spoken for a few hours at a time, and then healed the sick.  If we consider that the whole of the Gospel of St. Matthew can be read in a few hours, we begin to wonder at all that Jesus said to the people on this occasion.  Would it not be beyond wonderful to know what he said to these crowds during this time?  But the Gospel writers tell us nothing of what he said.

They do tell us how Jesus continued this feast of mercy by feeding the people after he had taught them for three days and healed their sick.  The Lord must have felt exhausted by then, and yet his only thought, as St. Matthew relates, is for the multitude: “I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.”  He himself must have been in a similar if not worse condition, but he does not speak of himself.  The disciples are dismayed.  They also are hungry and tired, and now the Lord wants to feed all these people.  But there is a practical problem: ““Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd?”  According to ancient tradition, this “deserted  place” was called Tabgha, just northwest of the Sea of Galilee.  It truly is a remote spot.  The situation must have seemed rather dire, but the Lord knew what he would do.  After taking stock of the provisions remaining to the Apostles, “he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.”  Now, seven loaves and a few fish would not be enough to make a decent meal for Jesus and the Apostles.  Yet Jesus calmly gave thanks, then broke the loaves, and gave the Apostles the job of distributing the food.  It is hard to envision how they did this.  Perhaps the two or three baskets they used kept refilling.  At any rate, more than four thousand people were fed: “They all ate and were satisfied.”  Matthew even records that the leftovers were gathered up, and these filled seven baskets.  How much does this amount to?  We can get an idea by looking at the Greek word translated as “basket”.  It is spuris, and it actually means “a large basket”.  How large?  We know from Acts 9, 25 that a spuris was big enough to smuggle St. Paul out of Damascus.  The amount of food leftover, then, was substantially more than what was there at the beginning.

The Lord will not be outdone in his generosity.  This miracle is a sign of his overwhelming love for us, that there is nothing he would not do for us, that he sets his own sufferings aside in order to serve us.  It is a sign of the superabundance of mercy poured out for us in his Passion and Death.  We should keep in mind when we look at the crucifix that in the suffering he accepted for our salvation he went far beyond what was needed.  As God and man, accepting a single blow in the house of Caiaphas would have proven more than adequate to make up for the sins of the world.  But the Lord wanted not only to redeem us but to reveal to us how much he loves us, and so died in the worst possible way.  The Lord never gives just enough.  He gives us more than enough: “A good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom” (Luke 6, 38).  It is a small thing to give the Lord our lives in return for all that he has done for us.