Let’s say you have a 9am appointment at the doctors. You get there five minutes early, check in and told “have a seat. The doctor will be with you shortly.” Ten minutes goes by, twenty. At 9:30 you are frustrated enough to go up to the desk and say, “Perhaps I should re-schedule since the doctor obviously is too busy to see me at the appointed time.” We don’t like being made to wait. That experience helps us understand the miracle of the loaves the fishes. This story is told six times in the four gospels so it must have made a big impact on the first believers. The key to the miracle is when Jesus “ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.” Often when Jesus worked a miracle he would say to the one healed, “Your faith has made you well.” The miracles of Jesus were not like a magician with a wand performing a mighty deed. They were part of relationship, where the faith of the individual would share in the power of God which Jesus embodied. Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes because the four thousand had enough trust in him to sit down and wait on the Lord’s goodness to overflow.
