Mk.6:39-41 – And He ordered them all to recline by groups on the green grass. They reclined in groups of hundreds and fifties. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food and broke the loaves and He gave them to the disciples again and again to set before them; and He divided the two fish among them all.
It’s funny how we take things that are really significant and let them casually pass us by. In today’s passage Jesus took the bread and the fish and He blessed it. Now praying over our meals is quite common but this puts praying over our food in a whole different light. Jesus blessed the food and broke it and distributed it. Everything changes when there is the blessing of God on something. You could labor for years with very little result but when God puts His blessing on something there is a sudden change. This is what prayer is all about. We come to the place that we realize we have no chance to change our life and circumstances without the blessing of God. That was the lesson Jesus was teaching His disciples that day, there was no way to meet the need of these desperate people without the blessing of God. Here is how Matthew Henry describes this scene.
“A blessing was sought on the food: He looked up to heaven, and blessed. Christ did not call one of his disciples to ask a blessing; he did it himself, and by the power of this blessing the bread strangely multiplied, as did the fish, for they all ate and were filled, even though there were five thousand of them. Christ came into the world to be the One who feeds people as well as heals them. In him there is enough for all who come to him. No one is sent away empty from Christ except those who come to him full of themselves.”
The Pulpit NT Commentary describes the blessing like this.
“He blessed. He may well have used the blessing that is still used over bread (“Blessed art thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world, that causes bread to come forth from the earth”); for this can be apparently traced to the second or third century A.D., and is probably much older still.”
Maybe that is the spot you find yourself in today. Could it be that these present circumstances are there for a reason? Maybe the Lord has brought us, like the disciples, out into the wilderness that we will realize how much we need the favor and blessing of God. Without blessing we are stuck depending on our own limitations. With the blessing of God all things are possible.
