26.04 | The Arithmetic of the Kingdom
Mark 7:31-8:21
‘“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.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.”
‘And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”’
Mark 8:19-21
It’s basic arithmetic.
Sometimes Jesus taught His followers through parable; sometimes through example; sometimes through plain teaching; sometimes through having a go.
Today, we find Him teaching them through simple mathematics.
The scenario is this. The disciples are in a boat with Jesus. Twelve hungry guys, likely in their late teens to early twenties. My guess is that these guys have big appetites. One loaf really isn’t going to work. You can imagine the stress levels rising.
Jesus’ response to them is to get them counting.
When there were 5,000 people, and we had 5 loaves, we had 12 baskets of leftovers.
When there were 4,000 people, and we had 7 loaves, we had 7 baskets of leftovers.
In other words, think about the previous times when we didn’t have enough bread:
We fed more people with less food and with more leftovers.
Sometimes less truly is more when it is placed in the hands of Jesus.
What’s Jesus trying to do?
He’s teaching them to see things differently. He’s teaching them, through confronting them with the numbers, that the resources available are vastly different to the resources in their hands. They are looking at one loaf, wondering how it will feed twelve of them. Jesus points them back to what they’ve seen in recent days, where counting how many loaves they began with was a futile metric for assessing what was about to happen.
This speaks to us so deeply, because it is so every easy for the miracle of yesterday to remain a part of yesterday. It is so easy to know that Jesus provided then, but it is so very much harder to hold onto that He will, also, provide today. It is so very easy to celebrate that testimony or that story or that memory, but so much harder, when hungry and uncertain and looking at that sad little loaf in your hands, and expecting that the God of all power will show up again today.
This speaks to us in every moment when we feel too poor or too unskilled or too unintelligent or too isolated or just too darn tired. It invites us to a different kind of maths. It invites us, in our moments when we feel so fragile and small and exhausted and stretched, to lift our eyes, take a deep breath, and recall that the God of all resource is with us. And He is not rattled by your mission seeming greater than your resource.
In fact, if anything, these are the moments that seem to really get Him going.
Because when the numbers don’t add up, when we can’t do it and don’t know how and have no idea how it’s all going to come together, it gives us a choice.
To sit complaining, replanning around our new smaller vision of activity.
Or to bring it back to Jesus, telling Him your needs, and wonder what He might do when our little goes into His hands.
Those numbers may just become a story that’s really worth telling.
Reflect:
Where do I feel lack today?
Bring it to Jesus. Place it in His hands.
What am I asking Him to do?
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
There are too many times in my life when I’ve clutched onto my small resources,
Bemoaning my lack
And feeling stretched, anxious, and abandoned.
But here’s the thing.
I don’t want to live like this—
As if you weren’t with me;
As if my resources are limited to what I can count.
And so,
Loving Lord,
I bring you today what I have.,
And I place it into your hands.
I ask you that my stories of small resource
Would be transformed to tales of your glory
And your impossible arithmetic—
That my life be an adventure of faith
And my tales be of the magnitude of my God
In Your Name,
The Lord in my boat today,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
1 Samuel 1-2 | Proverbs 13:12-19