Compassion for the Crowd

I. The Compassion of Christ.

A. Much had occurred lately.

1. Christ and the disciples had been busy ministering to the people. Matthew doesn’t record it but both Mark and Luke tell us that the disciples had been sent on a short term mission trip to the surrounding cities to preach the gospel just before this event. Matthew does allude to that in chapter 10, but doesn’t go into the detail that Mark and Luke do. Scripture says that they preached that men should repent, they healed the sick and cast out devils.

2. A funeral had just been performed. John the Baptist had been killed. This was the cousin of Jesus. The forerunner of Jesus. The voice in the wilderness had been silenced. The miracle child of Zacharias and Elisabeth had been snuffed out. Brutally murdered, shamefully treated. The greatest born among women had been treated as if he were a useless dog. This obviously affected Christ as He departed to a place of solitude immediately after John was killed.

3. We could not blame Christ if He simply quit. At first read one might wonder if He is about to. He gets into a ship and begins to cross the sea. Why wouldn’t Christ quit? All this preaching, so little repentance. All this healing, so little gratitude. Truth being taught by a prophet like John and a Savior like Christ, but few are interested in the message. It would be no surprise if the Son of God knocked the dust of this earth off of His sandals and left us to perish in our sin.

B. Christ is pursued.

1. The people don’t seem to care about the disciples, or Christ. Mark 6:2 says they had no time to rest or even eat. They were tired. They needed time alone, but the crowd didn’t care. They just started spreading the news, telling the direction that Jesus and the disciples were headed.

2. The motive of the people generally speaking was completely wrong. John 6:2 says they saw His miracles. It would have been one thing if they followed Him because they saw His glory or His worth, or saw their sin and their need. No one was running along the shore shouting “I need forgiveness Christ!!!” They were shouting “I need healing Lord!” People can be so shallow. They think it is a greater miracle for the Lord to say “Take up your bed and walk” than it is for Him to say “Your sins are forgiven”. People settle for temporary healing of the body rather than eternal healing of the soul.

3. People are passionate about the earthly. So passionate that they leave everything behind to chase after Christ to meet a physical need. Mark 6:33 says that some of the people beat Jesus over to the other side. Some are coming to watch Him do miracles. Some are coming because they need a miracle; some are carrying someone to receive a miracle from Christ. A few want to follow Christ but most are there for the wrong reason. And we are talking about a serious crowd here. 20-25,000 people probably (21).

C. Christ has compassion on the people despite their motive.

1. The word literally means “moved in the bowels”. It carries the idea of strong emotion. God is moved by the state of humanity. He cares. He wept at Lazarus funeral (J 11:35). Jeremiah the prophet said of God’s people “My soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears” (Jer. 13:17). Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet and he was simply a prophet of God. We can assume that God cares far more for us than a prophet has the capacity to. Peter tells us of Christ “He careth for you”.

2. The miracles of Christ were borne out of His compassion for people. That’s why He healed people. He didn’t say “I’m the Messiah, watch me levitate!” or “I’m the Son of God and I’ll prove it by making Peter’s ship disappear.” He saw the pain of a leper and healed him. He saw the shame of a woman with an issue of blood and healed her. He saw the broken heart of a parent that lost a child and resurrected that child. Compassion birthed the miracles of Christ.

3. It was compassion that birthed this miracle. It is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels so it must be important. It is unique also in that it impacted so many different people. Usually the sick were healed, the dead raised or devils cast out. In those cases only the sick, dead, and afflicted were impacted directly. In this case everyone partook of the miracle. Everyone ate the food that was miraculously created. Mark says that Jesus was moved with compassion because the people were “as sheep without a shepherd”. That is they were helpless, hungry, & hopeless. So Jesus fed them spiritually by teaching them and fed them physically by performing this great miracle. On top of that He healed the sick.

II. The Disciples Were Not So Compassionate.

A. They are ready to send the crowds home.

1. It was getting late. Look at what the disciples say in verse 15 “Send them away”. We are in the middle of nowhere, it’s getting late, and they are hungry. The disciples were saying “We have done enough Lord”. They thought they had put their eight hours in and that was enough.

2. There was probably some resentment in the disciples as well. I can almost hear them saying to the crowd “Let us grieve, we just buried a friend” “Let us rest we have been working hard to meet the needs of others”. Rather than seeing the hurts of the people they began to see their own hurts. Rather than see the needs of the people they began to see their own needs. Was Christ tired? You bet. But He looked beyond His fatigue and saw the needs of the people. It really is selfishness that causes us to see our needs above the needs of others.

3. The disciples are tired of serving. Notice that they want the crowd to fend for themselves. See that in verse 15 “that they may go into the villages and buy themselves victuals”. Mark says the disciples wanted the crowd to go and buy their own bread. It’s clear the 12 thought they had served enough and the crowd needed to do a little on their own. As the church we have to be careful here. We can use our busyness, our past service, the ability of others and a host of other things to excuse our lack of service. Sadly we may not send the crowds home, but we go home sometimes leaving the crowds to take care of themselves. Service is just that. It is service. We cannot say we serve the Lord if we do not serve His people. Too often our understanding of the Christian life is “Serve us” rather than service. We grow weary of service when we lose compassion for those we are serving.

B. Jesus tells the disciples to feed the multitude.

1. Jesus tells them there is no reason for the crowd to go home. He says “You give them something to eat”. Now we know this is a test because John tells us so in his gospel. When God tells us to do something we should take it seriously. He isn’t trying to embarrass us. He isn’t trying to frustrate us. He is stretching us, testing us, revealing our faith, love and level of obedience. But He is also giving us an opportunity to prove Him true.

2. Immediately the disciples have their excuses. We don’t have enough, five loaves and two fish, we don’t have enough money (six months wages wouldn’t be enough), and there are too many people. I mean they have more excuses than they have fish! I’ll tell you what they really lacking. They were lacking compassion. And when we give God our excuses for not ministering to a hungry world it is because we lack compassion as well. If our child was starving would we give up so quickly? Our mother? No, we would do whatever we could to fill the need. Excuses are merely proof of compassionless believers. Because when we feel the need we will fill the need.

3. In essence the disciples said “No” to the Lord. He told them to feed the multitude but they said they couldn’t. God doesn’t tell us to do things we can’t do. Could you imagine asking a man to give you a drink of water when that man is standing in front of Niagara Falls and he says “I don’t have any water”. You would think “No, but there is an unlimited source of water right in front of you. Fill me a cup from that source!” That is what happened with the disciples here. They had everything they needed in front of them to feed this crowd. But their own weariness hid that from them. They couldn’t see the answer to the problem because their self pity was like a shroud covering their eyes. They needed rest and that’s all they could see.

C. Jesus calls the test to a close. Needless to say the disciples failed it.

1. He tells the disciples to bring Him the bread and fish. “Bring them to Me!” How easy was that? What did they think He meant? Did they think He wanted them to go get six months wages or go back into town and get the food, or perform some miracle of themselves? No! He just wanted them to come to Him and say “Lord we can’t feed these people but you can!” When Christ tells us to do something he never expects us to do it out of our own resources.

2. He tells the disciples to make the people sit down in groups of 50 and 100 (Mark tells us this). This would have been a job with over 20,000 people. The disciples make their way through the crowd instructing them. It must have been an amazing sight to see. All of these groups of people with tiny rows between them. This was about to be the first dinner on the grounds and only one little boy brought a dish.

3. Jesus performs the miracle. He says a prayer thanking the Father for the food and He begins to break it and separate it to the disciple. The disciples would take their basket and disperse it among the people. Then they would come back and the Lord would fill it up again. This happened until everyone had eaten as much as they wanted. Bread that had never been baked. Fish that had never swam. Perhaps this is a picture of how God will provide food for us in heaven. Notice this however. The disciples were tired but Jesus still had them working. They brought the bread and fish to Him, they separated the groups and they gave the food out. Don’t be surprised if when you start complaining about needing a break if the Lord gives you more work to do. Jesus is a compassionate Savior but He is moved more over a lost soul than He is a weary saint. We should be as well.

III. The Compassion of the Savior Led to Blessings for all.

A. God wants to show His compassion for people.

1. That is clear in this story. The people were fed. Let me ask you a question. “What does God want to do for people?” There are lots of answers to that question. But know this. He wants to do that through you and me. He could have just created the food out of thin air or took the fish from the boy Himself. He could have seated the people. He could have given out the food. But He used the twelve. Why? Because he was leaving and He was teaching a great truth we need to learn. We are the arms, legs, ears, eyes, etc of Christ.

2. God can make us compassionate servants. Have you ever thought that God can be both repulsed by our sinfulness and compassionate toward us at the same time? He is every day! That means that we cannot allow the sinfulness of the world to cloud out our compassion for people. Sure people are self centered, un grateful, un willing, sure people come to God for the wrong reasons. But we can still love them and serve them through the compassion that comes from viewing them through Jesus eyes. An example of this is the Apostle Paul. He was rejected by his people, an outcast by Rome and the Jews. But he still said in Romans 9:2-3 “That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish myself to be accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh”.

3. God wants us to give to the multitudes what He has given to us. Look at verse 19 and you will see that. God has given us compassion. We ought to give the multitudes that. God has served us. We ought to serve the multitudes in His name.

B. We can do this.

1. That is one of the most important lessons here. We too often see our weakness, our lack, the enormous size of the task. That’s what we see. Then we see our fatigue and our worldly pleasures and goals. And we convince ourselves that we have done all we can do. God is calling us all to do things we cannot do in and of ourselves. Know that. So if all we are doing is what WE can do then we are not doing what God has called us to do. God calls us to do BIG things. That’s why we need Him.

2. The task He calls us to will have something to do with the multitudes. Because Christ is still broken over the multitudes. Our churches need to be broken, moved with compassion over the lost people we encounter. Christ wants to feed them and lead them. It looks impossible. Especially when you are a small church (like 12 disciples) and have a small budget. Especially when you are not an eloquent speaker or an extremely gifted person (like the 12). But Still Christ wants to use us to administer mercy to the crowds. We could say “We don’t have enough”. But we would fail the test. Or we could come to Christ and say “Lord we know you want to feed these people. Here is what we have. Use it, please”.

C. The most important thing we should do is take our compassion for the multitudes to Christ.

1. Take Him what we have. Maybe it is a heart void of compassion. Ask Him to give us compassion. Maybe it is a terrible past. Maybe it is weakness, lack, failure, a wasted life, etc. whatever you have, just bring it to Him. Don’t stand there saying “All I have is some bread and fish” as if God can’t use it!

2. Go to Christ for instruction. God will give you vision and strategy. Just as he told the disciples to separate the crowd in groups of 50 and 100. Ask God “How do you want me to reach the multitudes?”

3. Go to Christ for provision. The disciples would take what Christ gave them and when they ran out they would return to Him. What a principle. The resources of Christ are unlimited. We just have to keep going back to Him. And we cannot help but notice each of the twelve had a basket for themselves. If we will stop wallowing in self pity and focus our compassion others the Lord make sure we have more than we need.