So let's go over it once more. The disciples told Jesus that He shouldn't be spending time organising a picnic for all the people.
"Send them off! Let them go on their way to find their own
food!"
Jesus' reply left them breathless. "You feed them! Go
on!" He said.
You can imagine their reply "With what? What can we do?"
Jesus suggested, "Go and see how much you can
collect?"
Mark tells that the disciples were flummoxed - they were totally at a loss when the food appeared and all were fed and satisfied.
But Mark is not saying we have to believe in magic or that Jesus was a magician before you can be His disciple. He doesn't say Jesus produced the food by magic; he simply says the people were fed. The disciples did not know how that had happened. It seems that they didn't ask Jesus about it either. Around this time they began to be afraid of Him because of what He could do.
It doesn't say that Jesus got all the people to share their own lunch baskets as some want to say although that's not so silly. Jesus does make us generous. He does give us our daily bread from the picnic basket of God's Kingdom, after all. This miracle shows that Jesus enjoyed arranging a picnic for a large crowd, and we have thought that some of them may have wanted to make Him their King and start a civil war.
But Jesus took the food provided by the lad, and fed the crowd. He was in control. I can't explain how He did it, and we should never pretend we can explain things when we don't know what was going on. To pretend like that is faking it and God does not want us faking it. That includes when we talk about what we believe.
Do you ever say "Yes, of course I understand!" or "You don't have to tell me that!" and really you say it because you are uncertain? Sometimes we worry far too much about what others think:
"That's easy-peesy! Anyone knows Jesus fed the 5000!"
Jesus' followers get into trouble when they can't admit they haven't the slightest clue. That's what happened here, I think. We need to stop pretending. Otherwise we are like the man in the story Jesus told - the one who built his house on sand. But we do know what happened when the tide came in, don't we? And we also know that God loves us. God created the heavens and the earth and Jesus died and rose again for God's people, rebellious people just like us …. we're not stupid to believe that. We know that left to ourselves we could never believe it. We know it and we believe it. Faith and knowledge are gifts from God just like any meal.
In this story of the miraculous picnic, Jesus taught that Our Heavenly Father cares for us, protects us from those who flout God's laws and drive us to despair. Jesus decided these people needed to be fed and sent off home. That's what He arranged. That was how He proclaimed God's Kingdom on this occasion. He dismissed the crowd and it dispersed. If there were any who were tempted to start a desert fast Jesus had other ideas. The crowd would not become a military target for the army of gutless Herod.
The sun had started to set. The day drew to a close. It was dinner time. Days, maybe weeks earlier, Jesus had sent His disciples to visit the towns and He had said that they should expect hospitality from the people they were teaching in their own homes. But here the people had come to Jesus. And here He received them and taught them. He treated them as His very own guests. He taught and fed them. He knew what was going on. He had not lost control. Mark tells us that Jesus cared for all of His disciples including the people in the crowd. He provided His closest disciples with provisions for the next few days. He took care of them. And then He sent them home. He had won their hearts.