BLESSED AND BROKEN

"AND WHEN IT was evening, His [Jesus'] disciples came to Him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.  But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.  And they say unto Him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.  He said, Bring them hither to Me.  And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to His disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.  And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.  And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children." (Matthew 14:15-21).

 

"And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided He among them all.  And they did all eat, and were filled." (Mark 6:41, 42).

 

At least twice in His ministry Jesus took very small amounts of food and miraculously multiplied them in order to feed large crowds of people who might have found themselves in desperate situations otherwise.  In one case a crowd of over 5000 people had been listening to Jesus speak for the better part of a day without having eaten, and the place they were at was desert and away from any towns or villages.  Another time there were over 4000 folks who had been with Jesus for three days and had not eaten.  In both cases the concern was that these people could faint from the heat and from their hunger if they were sent home with empty stomachs.  There was a real need present and no apparent way to meet that need. 

 

Jesus' disciples were well aware of the problem and brought the matter to their Lord with the only possible solution that their finite minds could think of, which was to send the people away to the nearest villages where they could buy food for themselves.  Of course this was risky not knowing whether everyone had the strength to make it to the villages.  Jesus offered another alternative, however, telling them that it wouldn't be necessary for the crowd to depart, the disciples themselves could feed them.  I can imagine the disciples trying patiently to explain to Jesus that the only food available was five loaves of bread and two fish which they knew would not feed even a small fraction of that crowd.  Also, they reasoned that they didn't have the resources to go themselves and buy enough food to meet the need.  Jesus told His disciples to bring the food to Him, and then He did something significant.  He took the loaves and the fish, blessed them, broke them in pieces, and then gave them back to the disciples to distribute to the multitude.  That's when the miracle occurred and the bread and fish were multiplied enough to feed the entire crowd and leave 12 baskets full of fragments besides!

 

There are a number of things that strike me about both of these accounts that I mentioned.  First of all, the disciples had access to the food already, but it was not sufficient to meet the need that was present.  In their hands it was very little and barely sufficient to satisfy one or two let alone every hungry soul that was present.  At the best they could only offer each one a crumb of what they had, and even then it wouldn't be enough for every person to have even that much.  What was needed was for bellies to be filled and strength restored to each one!  This is true also of all our natural talents and abilities - they will always fall far short of the need that is present.  What we have at hand always seems too small compared to the need.  Everything must first pass through the hands of Jesus in order to be of any spiritual value.  It is the Lord's blessing on what we surrender to Him that makes it sufficient to meet the needs that we see around us.  "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, Who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant." (2 Corinthians 3:5,6 ESV).  Everything that we do for the kingdom of God must first come through the hands of Jesus or it is of no eternal value to God.  It almost seems too obvious to state, but we need the reminder constantly lest we fall into the habit of depending on our own wisdom and natural abilities. 

 

The Bible is full of examples that teach us this important lesson.  Abraham is the classic example of this principle.  God promised him a son, but waited until he and his wife Sarah were too old to conceive before He fulfilled that promise.  All Abraham had to do was trust and leave it all in the Lord's hands.  At one point, however, Abraham got impatient and had relations with his wife Sarah's handmaid, Hagar.  Hagar did give birth to a son, but he was not the blessed seed and heir that God promised.  Hagar's son Ishmael became the father of all the Arab tribes that have opposed the Jews down through the ages and are today the enemies of Israel and of Christianity.  All of this was a result of Abraham wanting to "help God out" by doing things in his own strength and ability, and not relying on the Lord to work the miracle.  On the other hand, God spoke to Abraham concerning Isaac, that he would be a blessed seed.  God said that every nation would be blessed by this promised son. "And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 18:18; Acts 3:25). Abraham only had to wait on God to fulfill what He promised He would do.  In His time God did send Abraham that promised seed and, indeed, all the families of the earth have been blessed.  

 

The second thing that strikes me about this story is that Jesus, after He had received the bread and fish, blessed them.  Everything that comes from Jesus' hand is blessed.  This is easy to say, but much harder to believe.  It takes a humbling to acknowledge to God that what we have is useless without His blessing, and then to surrender it freely to Him.  It's humbling also to then see God use that very thing to accomplish something that we, in all our efforts (or wildest imagination), could never have done on our own.  We are blessed and comforted right along with those that we minister to, though, knowing that we have laid aside the natural in order to touch the divine.  Who can say how our acts of faith and obedience to the Lord will touch the lives of others, not only today, but in generations to come.  Abraham's actions are still affecting people many millennia later.  Jesus, the ultimate seed of Abraham, is still saving and blessing people from every nation and kindred.  It is ourselves that we must bring to Jesus and place in His hands.  All that we are, and all that we possess must come the way of Christ, His cross, and His resurrection.  It is not enough for us to simply know and quote Bible verses, we must allow the life of Jesus Christ to be manifested in our lives, and this can only happen by having an intimate, daily, personal relationship with Him. Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life." (John 5:39, 40).

 

The last thing that I find striking about this story is that Jesus, after blessing the food, then broke it.  It is one thing to know and believe that everything that comes through Jesus' hand is blessed, but can we also believe and embrace the idea that everything that comes through His hand must be broken also.  Breaking a loaf of bread may mar and ruin the loaf, but it is necessary if it is to be eaten and shared.  A beautiful, fresh-baked loaf is nice to admire, but it can't satisfy anyone's hunger until it is broken.  Likewise, our very lives must be broken of selfishness and pride in order to reflect the essence of our Lord and Savior.  The story of the woman who brought the alabaster box full of precious ointment to Jesus illustrates this principle of brokenness.  The ointment was costly and had a beautiful fragrance, but it could not be used or shared until the alabaster box was broken open.  Our lives are like that box – we count the container as precious, but it is what’s inside that is the real gift.  Once we are willing to give up the external, then the internal can come forth.  The reliance on our will, our wisdom, and our ideas are all part of the outer box and of no real value eternally.  When we let the box be broken, than the life of Jesus can flow out from within us and minister to the hunger that we see all around us in the world.  Like the kernel of wheat that Jesus spoke of which could only produce real life if it was buried and died, so also we must be broken of all our reliance on self in order for the germ of Jesus’ life to spring forth in all its newness and glory. (John 12:24, 25). 

 

If you study the lives of the "heroes" of faith in the Bible, you will discover a common theme: they all had to be broken in order to be truly useful to God.  Abraham was asked to leave his country and his family to go to a strange land, and then he waited 25 years for the son to be born which God had promised him.  Through his trials, he learned to trust God perfectly and was willing in the end to offer up his son to God if necessary, reflecting God's own love for the world that He would one day show by offering His only Son, Jesus.  Jacob also was forced from his family because he tried to fulfill God's promised blessing in his own way.  He labored unjustly for 14 years for the woman he loved, and lost his beloved son, Joseph, to his other son's jealousies.  In the end, though, Jacob became the trusting servant of God that he was always meant to be.  Moses’ story follows the same familiar theme too.  God put in his heart a love for justice, but he went about dispensing that justice according to his own purposes, and not God’s.  It ended up getting him into serious trouble with Pharaoh and he was forced to leave the life that he knew in Egypt to spend 40 years in the wilderness being molded into a vessel that would respond to God’s will, and not be so quick to follow his own.  We read of Joseph's arrogance when he was young and sharing his dreams with his family, only to see him refined by 22 years of captivity and able to reflect the unconditional love of his heavenly Father to the brothers who had so cruelly wronged him.  It was then that Joseph was able to see God's plan for his life and how his brokenness was ultimately for the salvation of his family.  All these men came to reflect the nature of God in their lives by becoming both blessed and broken.  We could site many other examples from the Word of God, but I think these should suffice to illustrate the need for brokenness.  Jesus Himself is our supreme example, however.  Just before His crucifixion, He broke a loaf of bread before His disciples and said, "This is My body which is broken for you." (1 Corinthians 11:24).  He then gave Himself willingly so that we might be saved!

 

Jesus told the chief priests of His time, "The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?  Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." (Luke 20:17, 18).  It appears we only have one of two choices in life.  Either we fall, or throw, ourselves on that Stone, which is Jesus, and learn to become broken; or we wait for the stone to fall on us and become ground to powder.  I know which I prefer.  Which will you choose?

 

Once Jesus blessed and broke the loaves and the fish, He placed them back in the hands of the disciples and that's where the miracle occurred.  As they distributed them to the people, they were multiplied in their hands.  This is the real essence of ministry.  We must first come to Jesus with all that we have, both good and bad, and receive the redemption and forgiveness that is contained in His sacrifice.  We must receive His blessings and promises for a better, enriched, and abundant life - trusting that He means the very best for us.  Finally, we must learn to become broken in His hands, allowing Him to sculpt us and mold us into the beautiful works that He sees us to be.  The trials that we encounter in life can have this effect.  Michelangelo once said of the amazing sculptures that he carved, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.  Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."  God, the Great Sculptor, sees the masterpiece inside all of us, and seeks to discover it and set it free!  There is a lot of marble that must be broken away, though!  What an amazing God He is!  Make no mistake - God knows exactly what He's doing in each of our lives!