St. Paul consistently stresses that Jesus is the Lord, is the Son of God, is the Savior. But St. Paul only met Jesus after the triumph of the Resurrection. Those witnesses of Jesus “according to the flesh” who are responsible for the gospels had to work out that realization over time. They knew him as “like us in all things” and came to believe that God had come to us in the person of Jesus only gradually. The Multiplication of the loaves and fishes was probably a pivotal moment in their faith. The context was one of grief. When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. Like all of us, when we lose a loved one Jesus had a broken heart that needed some time to heal. How human! When he is pursued by the crowds instead of doing a Garbo (“I want to be let alone”) he looked beyond his personal sorrow and saw their need. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them. How compassionate! Then he addressed their hunger by multiplying five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand men, not counting women and children. What divine power! The followers recognized that the Jesus they knew was someone worthy of believing in.
