5000 men, plus...

Matthew 14 

13 As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. 14 Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

15 That evening the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”

16 But Jesus said, “That isn’t necessary—you feed them.”

17 “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish!” they answered.

18 “Bring them here,” he said. 19 Then he told the people to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples, who distributed it to the people. 20 They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. 21 About 5,000 men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children!

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Let's think about how many people were probably actually there that day.

5000 men.

I've never been to a religious meeting where men outnumbered the women, but for the sake of conversation, let's say there were as many women as men.

5000 men + 5000 women = 10,000 people

Now, what about children?

We know there wasn't any daycare, so the women probably had their kids in tow.

We know that couples had kids often, because there wasn't many choices in birth control, infant & child deaths were high, & there was a need to have lots of kids to help with whatever work the parents did.

But for the sake of conversation, each woman had a couple of kids with her.

5000 men + 5000 women + 10,000 children = 20,000 people

Having a hard time wrapping your brain around how many people that is?

Have you ever seen on TV or somewhere a college or professional basketball game, or say a professional ice hocky game?

Those stadiums usually are designed to hold around 20,000 people.

Yeah...

I once went to a conference in Atlanta where there were 8000 people in attendance.

The conference had Chik-fil-a provide us with a box lunch.

it was a GARGANTUAN task.

That's 8000 boxes of food.

Lots of trucks hauled them in.

There were lots of stations for us to go by & pick up a box lunch.

Then there was the issue of something to drink for each of us.

We all sat down & ate.

THEN, there was the issue of cleanup - can you imagine the trash left over by such a meal?

But Chik-fil-a had it all under control. It was pretty kool.

That was for 8000 people - Jesus fed 2 1/2 times more people from 5 loaves & 2 fish.

He fed as many people as you'd see in one of those sports arenas.

Think about that... 

With 12 baskets of leftovers.