Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
— Matthew 14:13-21, ESV

The feeding of the five thousand is perhaps the most famous of Jesus’ many miracles.  It is the only one recorded in all four Gospels.  It brings us up to the peak of His popularity, after which the Lord’s refusal to be an earthly king resulted in a long, deliberate descent, all the way to the cross.  

In Matthew’s timely retelling, the miracle of the loaves and fishes is a love story about God and His people.  It defines for us the love of God.  It demonstrates some of the things God’s love can do.  And, since every miracle of Jesus is a parable of the gospel, it declares to us the one thing, namely salvation, that only God’s love can bring.

The Meaning of Love

Read this text over and over and you won’t find a Greek word translated into the four-letter English word “love.”  But you will find a word, in verse 14, that speaks very loud and lavishly about the agápē of God.  It is translated “compassion.”  

“Compassion” is a particular verb, an action word, found a dozen or so times in the Gospels.  It is always used to describe Jesus, or Jesus uses it to describe the Christ-like character in one of His parables.  It literally means to be moved on the inside, so much so, that it motivates you to act on the outside, on behalf of someone you love.  It is quite simply and profoundly, love in action.  

The word aptly describes our Lord Jesus Christ, from the beginning of His ministry to the end.  Everything He did, He did in love.  He pictures such love in characters like the Good Samaritan, who showed true love by his actions in rescuing a victim from a roadside mugging.  Love looms large in the Good Father of the prodigal son, whose love and actions redeemed his rebellious child.  Such love in action describes Jesus and it should describe every true follower of Christ (ref. 1 John 3:17-18).  

Note the various ways and means Jesus defines compassionate love in this passage.  The Good Shepherd was moved because He saw sheep in need.  They were scattered sheep who needed preaching and teaching (man’s greatest need!?).  They were hungry sheep who needed feeding (we desperately need both, spiritual food from preaching and regular food for eating).  They were wounded sheep who needed healing (something only Christ and the Apostles could do).  They were lost sheep who needed saving (stay tuned, for this is something only God can do).  

“Oh mirror in the sky, what is love,” sang Stevie Nicks.  Look at how Jesus is reflected in this text and you will see.  Whenever Jesus encountered people, He was always compassionate, always moved by love, always took redemptive action.  

The Look of Love

Love begins with a look.  This is true with romance, with commerce, and with Christianity.  The love of God makes you look in a certain way, a way beyond and above yourself.

Love makes you look at people, and for their needs and not your own.  We tend to look at people for our own needs.  We need their votes, we need their money, we need their attention.  We should look at their needs.  Do they need help, do they need food, do they need attention?  A man-centered view of man makes people objects.  A God-centered view, however, motivated by the love of God, is quite different.  At the end of the day, people should be looked upon as living souls who will spend eternity either in Heaven or Hell.  What can we do to make a difference?  What can we do to help them?  Could some earthly help lead them to finding eternal life?  This is the way Jesus, God incarnate, love incorporated, looked at people.

Love makes you optimistic about people, knowing with God all things are possible.  Critics are pessimistic, reporters are realistic, but lovers are always optimistic.  They see, think, and believe the best.  It takes love to overlook a spouse’s obvious faults and stay with them until death parts.  It takes love to bear friends’ burdens, believing that one day they will be there to bear your own.  It takes love to speak well of the leaders and members of a church in such a way that outsiders will want to attend.  It takes love to swallow gossip instead of repeating it because you believe the person in question is better than that, and so are you.  It takes optimistic love to connect with God, help other people, and hope that five loaves and two fish can feed thousands of hungry people on a hillside.

Love looks for ways to serve, love that turns into action.  Jesus looked, Jesus hoped, and Jesus served.  The people were blessed, filled, physically.  But as He always does, the physical miracle performed by Jesus pointed to a greater miracle, a spiritual miracle, a loving miracle that only God can do.

The Ultimate Love

We can do a lot of things to emulate the love of God, but there are at least a couple of things that only a loving God can do.  Only God can create something out of nothing.  And, only God can take something and transform it into something more.  

The Bible asserts that God made everything ex nihilo, or out of nothing.  The Creator, out of an honorable love for His own glory and an overflowing love for the people of His choosing, made the heavens and the earth, the seas and the land, the plants and the animals, and the prospect of every human being.  God would have been perfectly sufficient and sufficiently perfect to remain separate from any created things or person, especially the latter.  But, as only God can do, He created creation to surround the people He created, to show them His great presence, power, and love.  

Out of love, God made something out of nothing.  How do you think those five loaves of bread and two fish got there in the first place?  What about the young boy who brought them?  What about the disciples and the crowd around them?  At some point in some place on some day in some way, they and the scenarios they inhabit were created by a loving God.

Only God can take nothing and make it something, and only God can take something and make it more.  The miracle of the moment was taking the matter that constructed five loaves of bread and two fish, a meal made for one, and multiplying it into a dinner party for twenty-thousand, with twelve big baskets of leftovers besides.  God took creation and recreated.  God took substance that He had generated, and regenerated.  God made something more.

This is exactly the point of the parable.  This is exactly what God does in salvation.  He takes a human being and recreates him or her into a better, born again child of God.  Before salvation, we are about as lifeless as baked bread and dead fish.  But in the hands of God, we become more.  

The greatest miracle of all is the salvation of one’s soul by the resurrection of one’s spirit.  Only God can do it, and He does so by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone.  Why does He do it?  Because He “so loved the world.”  Put yourself in Jesus’ hands, like the lad did those five loaves and two fish, and He will make your life infinitely more.

In 1970 The Beatles broke up.  Thus began a rivalry between the two principles of The Fab Four, John and Paul (with apologies to George and Ringo).  John’s career got off to a fast start, but soon Paul became more beloved and his career more prolific.  

A jealous quote attributed to John said Paul only wrote “silly love songs.”  Paul took the quip and quickly developed it into yet another number one hit for himself and his new band, Wings.  What’s wrong with that?

Love isn’t silly at all, it is serious business, on earth, as it is in Heaven.  We need love to survive, socially, love for one another.  We need love to live, spiritually and eternally, God’s love that saves sinners by grace through faith in Christ.  If you have never experienced God’s love in this way, let me tell you it is as free as the lunch in this parable.  It is all of grace, and you can have it, now.  If you already have the saving love of God in your heart, make it your ambition to share it with someone this week.  There is no telling what the love of God can do.