superfeed

Mark 6
30 The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught.

31 Then Jesus said, "Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile." He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat.

  32 So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. 33 But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. 34 Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

  35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat."

  37 But Jesus said, "You feed them."

  "With what?" they asked. "We'd have to work for months to earn enough money* to buy food for all these people!"

  38 "How much bread do you have?" he asked. "Go and find out."

  They came back and reported, "We have five loaves of bread and two fish."

  39 Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.

  41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. 42 They all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!



Think about this...

5000 men were fed that day.

if they had families w/ them, then there were at least 5000 women there.

that makes 10,000 people, total

then let's say each man had 2 children with them - I would think there would be more than 2 children in each family, but for the sake of conversation, there were 2.

that's 10,000 children.

that makes the total 20,000 people.

verse 44 says "a total of 5,000 men AND THEIR FAMILIES were fed from those loves.



Philips Arena in Atlanta is where the Atlanta Hawks basketball team plays their home games.

know what the capacity of the room is?

18,238

so, Jesus fed more people that day than can be seated in Philips Arena.



I went to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta a few years ago, back when it was smaller than it is today. There were 8000 people there that year.

We had boxed lunches from Chick-fil-a.

It was a HUGE undertaking - getting the 8000 boxes there took quite a few vehicles, then there was the putting of the boxes out, serving them, gathering the trash, & cleaning up.

it was no small task - for the 8000 who were there.



Jesus fed twice as many as that.



Imagine feeding everyone in Philips Arena - 18,238 - giving them a boxed lunch from Chick-fil-a - the transport, the serving, the trash, & the clean up.

Gargantuan!



That's how many people Jesus fed that day, & then some.



If Jesus can pull something like that off, don't ya think He can take care of you & me?