Broken Pieces–Mark 6: 35-44, Part 1
By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch, St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX
The Lord’s Supper
July 15, 2012
Jesus’ disciples want to send the crowds home to get something to eat. Instead, Jesus tells his disciples “You give them something to eat.” He has them organize the thousands present in groups of hundreds and fifties, as were Roman army units, and they pass out the bread.
And somehow, everybody has enough.
We call this the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, but the Bible doesn’t say it’s a miracle. Scholars will argue forever about whether the food somehow multiplied like bunnies or if in fact people there really had brought food with them, and decided that rather than hoard it, they would share it with the members of their group. We aren’t going to solve that mystery today, and that’s not what I want to focus on.
What’s interesting is that Jesus tells the disciples to give the crowd something to eat, but the disciples don’t really do anything special. They organize the people and they hand out the food. That’s it.
And then, they gather the broken pieces.Read More »Broken Pieces–Mark 6: 35-44, Part 1