Daily Lesson for February 4, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 8 verses 19 through 21:

19  “When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Most people know about Jesus feeding the 5,000, but we are less familiar with the story of him feeding the 4,000. This is probably because we are obsessed with numbers and growth and since the feeding of the 4,000 followed the 5,000 it is a letdown psychologically.  A lot of Biblical scholars assume the two feelings are basically the same story coming from different oral traditions, and that the writer Mark had heard both the 4,000 and 5,000 numbers and so included them both, though actually only one mass feeding of some kind took place.

But in not understanding about the two separate feedings and what they represent we miss something very important about the Gospel -- something that needs to be understood.

When Jesus fed the 5,000 there were 12 baskets full of bread left over. Our Sunday School teachers taught us the story and told us the number 12 represented the number of the tribes of Israel; they were right. But our Sunday School teachers didn't tell us about the feeding of the 4,000 and the seven baskets full left over afterward. What is that about?  Well, what would you think if I told you that there were 7 Gentile nations driven out by the Israelites when they came to inherit the Promised Land?  And what if I told you that the feeding of the 5,000 with 12 baskets left over was in Jewish territory, but the feeding of the 4,000 with 7 baskets was actually across the Sea of Galilee amongst the Gentiles?  Suddenly they don't seem so much like the same story, but rather two stories coming together to tell a bigger story.

And what is the bigger story?  The secret is the number nine. Nine is the number of completion and fulfillment. Five plus four equals nine.  5,000 plus 4,000 equals 9,000 -- 9,000 representing the complete fulfillment and satiation of all people -- Jew and Gentiles alike.

The first war in the Bible is in Genesis 14, when four kings went out to do battle with five others. It was a war for territory, boundaries, and goods in a world of scarcity.  That is the history of war human destruction. But Jesus comes to reverse this history.  He comes to bring five and four together, making a world of scarcity, hunger, and tribal warfare into a world of boundary crossing, sharing, feeding, and abundance.  He fed 5,000 and there were 12 baskets full left over.  He fed 4,000 and there were 7 baskets full. In other words, he fed the multitudes -- both Jews and Gentiles, his own and others -- and there was more than enough. 

Do we now understand?