The foods of 5,000

Can you imagine if we never had the story of when Jesus fed the 5,000?

Think about it. What has that story meant to you over the years? Has that story made your faith something that it is? What would your relationship look like if you had no historical evidence that Jesus could take the nothing that you had, and multiply it to do something you could have never done with it?

I love this story (and it is in a couple different gospels. One says it was 5,000, another says 4,000 I think. Either way, that was not including women and children and it is WAY more than what 5 little loaves of bread and two little fishes should be able to feed). I love this story for a couple different reasons.

Go read it now, in Mark chapter 6.

I love how Jesus makes them admit how LITTLE they have. Look at verse 38. They respond “Five loaves and two fish.” Just previously they had asked if they should go spend 200 denarii to feed these people, which I guess is equivalent to like 200 days wages. So the disciples now know how much it could take to feed these people, they know what they have, and they know that beyond a shadow of a doubt they have come up short.

But Jesus takes the little that they have anyway.

I also don’t think that he took it in a pitying way, either. Not a “Oh, well nice try anyway, you little pitiful, miserable human who can’t do anything.” No, I don’t think so.

Jesus took the overflow that they didn’t have, and thanked God for it.

THEN, and this is something I have never before noticed, after giving thanks, he set those same five loaves and two fishes down on some type of “buffet” and let the people come.

They came. All 5,000+ came, and they were satisfied (vs 42). But it was the SAME five loaves and 2 fish. There was not all of the sudden some huge spread laid before the masses with coolers and hot boxes brimming with more behind the table.

Nope.

Still just five loaves and 2 fishes.

And then you know what happens? The absolute craziest thing!

There were leftovers .

Just bits and pieces here and there. 12 baskets full of bits and pieces.

Which, if I am doing my math correctly, is more than what they started with. Did anyone else notice that? The leftovers were more than the beginning.

Isn’t that the most beautiful thing?! All of our nothingness. Our poor, miserable lack of what we need, or lack of what the situation needs, when we give it to Jesus he gives thanks for the lack, and then does more with it than the sum of all the parts.

What if Jesus had never done that? I am so thankful he did. It builds my faith to know that he cherishes the little that I can give, and that he can make something out of all that nothing.

~~~

And speaking of feeding 5,000 people, I have never done that.

BUT I did feed dessert to 450 people at a fundraiser two nights ago (which might I add raised something like $175,000 to stop babies from being aborted….yay God!!).

(It's not real champagne, mind you)

And then the next morning I came home and was like, “I never want to see chocolate mousse again and I have to have something savory NOW.”

The actress Debi Mazar and her husband, an Italian man from Tuscany---Gabrielle--who pretty much worships the ground she walks on, have a cooking show and on it they shared a recipe for something called Pepperonata. Pepperonata is pretty much pepper and potatoes cooked to almost-smithereens in tomato sauce, and then slathered on garlic bread, which has resulted on numerous occasions with me leaning my head back, closing my eyes, and proclaiming that I may never leave the dinner table.

Well yesterday morning I didn’t make pepperonata. I didn’t have any peppers.

But I did take some potatoes and cook them almost to smithereens in tomato sauce, along with onions, ham, and an egg on top which just kind of steams if you put a lid on it.

Let’s just use the word “Fabulosity.”

Did I also mention earlier that I topped it with fresh cilantro (because fresh basil does not exists in this climate this time of year) and two little rounds of buttered rosemary toast on the side made by a wonderful friend?

Consider it mentioned now.

Go. Go make yourself some savory eggs and thank Jesus in Heaven for such things as Pepperonata knock-offs for breakfast.