Imagine going away for a long time and returning home. Your friends greet you. Then you are your friends think about hosting a bigger party so the other people in your home village who want to welcome you can all come together. You offer to buy some drinks, and cups, maybe enough for twenty people. No, no, your friends say. There might be far more than that coming. Now you have to start thinking of hosting a party in somewhere where people can buy their own drinks, like a bar. Maybe you buy drinks for closest friends and family. Maybe some would pitch in to feed and get drinks for the others, but most likely the others would have to buy their own. Now think of how Jesus had crowds following him, thousands at a time. Did he think, or his disciples think that the crowd would have to feed themselves? Jesus thought of something else. It was not just his crowd. The Father who sent him had given it to him. It was the Father who wanted these people to believe, to hear, and to follow Jesus. The Father, therefore, would feed them. A miraculous feeding would be how the Father would let it be known it was He Himself who was feeding the crowd because it was His teachings Jesus was giving them, and His Christ (Anointed, Chosen One) He was showing Jesus to be. Jesus knew the Father well enough to know God, the Father, would pitch in like this. So he told the disciples not to send the people away to buy food but to find a little food like a seed for the coming miracle he knew God would give him. Five thousand were fed from five loaves and two fishes. Then baskets and baskets were gathered of leftovers once everyone had eaten enough. Just think if five loaves could feed five thousand when God made it so, how many could be fed with baskets and baskets. The Father wants not just five thousand hearing Jesus, and being provided for as they do so. It is for all the world.
