The multitude is fed.

 Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them.

 He took the five loaves and the two fish: Jesus took the little that they had (first mentioned in Luke 9:13) and He thanked God for it. It would be easy to think that such a small amount of food was worthless to feed such a large crowd, but Jesus used what He had at hand.

In John’s account (John 6:8-9) we learn that these five loaves and the two fish came from a young boy. The small amount of food they started with was borrowed from a young man who brought the food with him.

 In 2 Kings 4:42-44, Elisha fed one hundred men with some barley loaves and ears of grain – with some left over. The feeding of the 5,000 shows us that Jesus is greater than both the prophets and Moses (under whom a multitude was fed in the wilderness).

 Looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them: When Jesus blessed before the meal, He wasn’t blessing the food. He blessed God for supplying it. The idea of praying before a meal isn’t to bless the food; it is to bless – that is, to thank – God for blessing us with the food.

Though it wasn’t much, Jesus blessed the Father for the food that He did have. He may have prayed a familiar Jewish prayer before a meal: “Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth bread from the earth.”

 He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude: This miracle displayed Jesus’ total authority over creation. Yet He insisted on doing this miracle through the hands of the disciples. He could have done it directly, but He wanted to use the disciples.

 No one knew where this bread actually came from. Jesus showed that God can provide out of resources that we cannot see or perceive in any way. It is easier to have faith when we think we know how God might provide, but God often provides in unexpected and undiscoverable ways.

 So they all ate and were filled: Jesus miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes, until far more than 5,000 were fed. Seemingly, the miracle happened in the hands of Jesus, not in hands of the disciples – they simply distributed what Jesus had miraculously provided.

If someone left hungry, it was either because they refused the bread from Jesus, or because the apostles didn’t distribute the bread to everyone. Jesus supplied plenty for everybody.

The assurance that Jesus can provide – even miraculously – for all of our needs should be precious to us; it was to the earliest Christians. On the walls of the catacombs, and other places of early Christian art, loaves and fishes are common pictures.

What we have in ourselves to give others is insignificant, but when we put it in Jesus’ hands, He can do great things with our seemingly small gifts and talents to touch the lives of others.

Note: In the performance of this miracle Jesus got his disciples to participate in it. This would not be the last time that we see the disciples partaking in a miracle. In John 11:1-44 you can see Jesus directing the efforts of the disciples in the raising of Lazarus from the grave.