Walking on the sea.
The wonderful feeding of the thousands produced a great effect, rousing the multitude to enthusiasm, so that the people actually tried to three on an insurrection in support of the kingship of Jesus, and so that he had to dismiss them with haste, sending his disciples across the sea, and retiring to the mountains for prayer. Then it was that the sudden squall fell on the lake, and the need of his disciples called him to their aid.
I. JESUS IN PRAYER.
1. He was much in prayer. No doubt he thus obtained spiritual refreshment after the toils and vexations of the day. Here he found the joy of communion with his Father without distracting influences. To Jesus prayer was a necessity; it was also a joy. He could not have treated it as a formal duty. If Christ could not live without prayer, is it possible for the Christian to be healthy in the neglect of it?
2. He prayed in solitude. He hated the showy prayers of the religious people of his day, ostentatiously offered up in the marketplace, primly uttered in the synagogue. He hungered to be alone with God. He found God among the mountains.
3. He prayed at critical moments. E.g. at the grave of Lazarus, in Gethsemane. Now there was great danger of an insurrection which would wreck his plans. To him, too, the third temptation may have returned, and he may have sought strength to overcome it. Prayer is most valuable in the soul's hardest struggles with temptation.
II. THE DISCIPLES IN TROUBLE. Away from their Master they were overtaken by a tempest. It would seem that they were rowing up north in order to take Jesus on board at a spot further along the eastern shore. Therefore it was for his sake that they were facing the contrary wind, for had they turned directly homewards they would have been able to run before the gale. Trouble may come upon the servants of Christ in their very efforts to keep near him and to serve him.
III. THE COMING OF CHRIST. In that wild, dark night, while the wind lashed the sea to fury, it must have howled with fearful blasts among the rocks of the wilderness where Jesus stood alone in his prayer, and then he must have recognized the danger this would mean to his disciples. He was never selfish in his devotions. It was his habit to permit the interruption of his most sacred hours of retirement by some cry of distress, some appeal for help. So he came down to his disciples on the sea. It must have been an act of faith on his part to venture on the black, boiling waters. But faith was working through love. The sea must be risked in an unheard of miracle to save his friends out on its waste of waters. It is not surprising that the disciples could not believe their eyes, and mistook their Saviour for a spectre. Sometimes his deliverances are quite as unexpected, and almost too good to be believed. It is difficult for our faith to keep pace with his far-reaching grace.
IV. ST. PETER'S ADVENTURE. This singular sequel is quite true to the character of the apostle. His impetuosity, his enthusiasm for Christ, his failure to measure his own weakness, are all in accordance with what we know of "the prince of the apostles." But perhaps in the incident we may detect a touch of humour. There was no necessity for the apostle to walk on the water. Yet Christ indulged his whim and permitted it to be a means of revealing Peter's weakness, and of introducing one source of strength. Foolish, needless, and even ridiculous adventures may be turned to good ends. We learn to know Christ even by means of the follies of which we are heartily ashamed.—W.F.A.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER
The ruin of reckless rashness.
Note, in introduction, that in an historic point of view this stretch of verses, numbering twelve in our Gospel and seventeen in St. Mark's Gospel, is remarkable for the way in which it gives the information with which it is charged. The same way is identically followed in the parallel of St. Mark; and one not dissimilar in its leading feature in that of St. Luke. As regards the two former, the narrative, starting from tile fact that Herod is startled by the growing notoriety and repute of Jesus, continues (until, indeed, it finds its end) by glances at two several retrospective passages of the history (an ill history) made by him. These two retrospective glimpses concern Herod's first and second dealings with John the Baptist—how, first, he was tempted to put him in prison, and yielded to the temptation; and how, secondly, he was snared on by his own sin, in first, second, and third degree, till he put him to death by beheading him. Notice this career in its simplest steps of sin.
I. A MARRIAGE ALLIANCE INCESTUOUS, ADULTEROUS, AND AT THE EXPENSE OF A HALF BROTHER.
II. A GOOD MAN IMPRISONED FOR HOLY TESTIMONY AGAINST THIS, MADE IN THE UNDENIED DISCHARGE OF HIS DUTY AS A PROPHET OF RELIGION.
III. BY THAT IMPRISONMENT, NOT ONLY CRUEL PRESENT INJUSTICE DONE TO THE VICTIM, BUT THE WAY PAVED FOR THE PERPETRATION OF YET WORSE CRUELTY AND INIQUITY.
IV. UNDER THE STIMULUS OF DEBAUCHERY, A BOASTFUL AND RECKLESS PROMISE MADE.
V. UNDER THE BLINDEDNESS OF DEBAUCHERY, A SNARE LAID, WHICH TOO EFFECTUALLY FITTED IN WITH RISKS ALREADY SELF-HAZARDED AND SELF-CHALLENGED.
VI. THE SNARE ENTERED WITH VAINLY HEARD, VAINLY UTTERED REMONSTRANCES OF CONSCIENCE.
VII. IN THAT SNARE A TERRIBLE FALL; AND IRRETRIEVABLE HARM BOTH DONE AND TAKEN.
VIII. LATER ON, CONSCIENCE CALLING ON A VERY FAITHFUL ALLY CALLED MEMORY, STARTLED AND GALVANIZED INTO LIFE BY CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, AND EVEN EASILY MIGHT HAVE BEEN, ALL MATTER OF INTEREST AND JOY—CREATORS AND STRENGTHENERS OF PEACE INSTEAD OF DISTURBERS AND DESTROYERS OF IT.—B.
Matthew 14:13-21.—The sacrament miracle. Distinguish this miracle of the feeding the five thousand, so glorious in all its incidents, and with its full fourfold narration, from that of the feeding the four thousand, recorded by Matthew (Matthew 15:32-39) and Mark (Mark 8:1-9) only. Lead to the consideration of this miracle by dwelling briefly on—
I. THE MOTIVES OF THIS MIRACLE, There was one leading motive—a kind human compassion, a condescending memory of the bodily want of the multitude of people, and a gentle consideration of the same. We may imagine that the mixture of "women and children" among the repeatedly mentioned "five thousand men" will have added to the feeling of thoughtful pity in Christ. But beside this predominating incentive, it may well be that this occasion proffered itself, considering certain peculiar characteristics of the miracle (for which see next head), as a most fit occasion for such a miracle, as would be adapted to utilize itself, in the most direct moral service, like an acted discourse, for instance. It was a wide spoken discourse indeed for thousands upon thousands, who never heard so plainly as when they were now thus fed; nor were open to blame, in anything like all cases, for its being able to be thus said. This multitude scattered again from this sacred spot to their homes over wide stretches of their country, what sermons they would take with them, and what memories would again and again warm up in their hearts! And yet again, the occasion was one of special import for the small circle of disciples. Philip, for one, was "proved," and we need not doubt that all the other disciples were both proved and reproved, when they learned the truth to very reality of that word, "They need not depart; give ye them to eat." And forthwith, after the commission, were furnished with the means to execute it, and did execute it, and distributed that true shadow of a sacrament, to say the least of it, from the very fingers of the Lord of all sacraments.
II. THE MIRACLE ITSELF. There is a sense in which every miracle is not merely a wonder of Power, but an inscrutable wonder of power. We cannot pass from the limited finite power, over the border into the unlimited, without confessing that, though we gaze at or gaze into the unbridged abyss, it is an abyss, and we can nothing else than only gaze! But the character of some miracles lends itself to help our imagination, to guide and give strength to our weak power of thought. And we say within ourselves that a fever stayed by a word, palsy and paralysis cured, a blind eye, a deaf ear, a dumb tongue re-energized, and even water converted into wine, are wonders of power more easy to track than that a solitary loaf of bread find another at its side by an absolute fresh act of creation in a moment and by a word. This once seen through, the multiplication may seem to follow more easily on the level of some other miracles. But this is not to be "once seen through." Notice, again, of this miracle, that it was neither one of the absolute necessity of the heart of mercy allied with the hand of might, nor one of such very secondary character of kindness and goodness (it is said with all perfect reverence) as when for the purposes of a marriage feast water was made wine. Christ divinely and humanly pitied the fainting hunger of the men who had long lingered around him, and of their women and children; but when he made the water into wine we cannot say it was similar pity. Again, we are not told at what point the miraculous multiplication of the bread took effect—under the "blessing," and at the "breaking" of the five loaves and two fishes in the hands of Christ, or as the disciples distributed, or as the people ate. Though we are not told it, this is one of the untold things that we can scarcely find difficulty in supplying; and this without charge, or any self-charge even, of presumptuousness. We need not suppose unnecessary wonders, such as that the little original store and stock of material could be handled by those who distributed, when parted into several thousand minute portions. Even this would point to the increase as taking place in the blessing and under the manual acts of Christ. Again, we are not told of any expression either of surprise or of any other kind upon this subject, as made by any of the multitude either at the time or subsequently, or by any disciple, such as might give us a suggestion, or throw light upon it. Again, we are not told what time it took, or what sort of difficulty, if any, the disciples encountered in their work of distributing to some hundred companies of those set down, in parties of fifty each. That the large multitude were thus arranged speaks design of itself, and we can see the disciples threading their way with their distributing baskets, by aid of the passages, and, so to say, the aisles left. There were some eight hundred to be ministered to by each of the twelve disciples. Nor have we any statement as to how and where the "women and children" got their portions; the suggestion of our verses 19-21, nevertheless, would leave us in no practical doubt that they were grouped in the companies of the fifties and hundreds. With all these things untold, the miracle itself stands confessed in its simplest grandeur, in its irrefragable evidence, and for its welcome satisfyingness—some through it to acknowledge "that Prophet that should come into the world;" some to show tomorrow that they were thankless for the moral feast, even if they had eagerly partaken of the literal one; but some also, we cannot doubt it, and we know not how many, to remember it for days and years to come, and to speak of it far and wide with grateful heart and tongue.
III. THE MULTIFORM PARABLE THAT IS INCORPORATE WITH THIS MIRACLE.
1. It is a parable of Christ feeding the wide world.
2. It is a parable of Christ feeding that world by the human instrumentality of his servants, his disciples, his apostles, those some certain called from the mass, and called by him, and "sent forth" by him.
3. It is a parable of what effect Christ's "blessing" can have and shall have on his own appointments, his own appointed provision, his own appointed "means of grace," his own appointed methods of distribution, and his own ordering of his Church and its ministers.
4. To devout, thoughtful, reverent faith, surely it constitutes itself, it welcomely forces itself, into a parable of a sacrament—the sacrament in "one kind" for the fulness of time was not yet come—the sacrament of the food of the blessed body of the Lord himself! How many a time has the individual, humble, and praying believer lighted on what should seem some small morsel of Divine truth, and of the Divine Word, and as he meditated, how it opened, how it refreshed his fainting state, how it filled his eye, and feasted his highest powers of feeling and of imagination! And how many a time have the true ministers of Christ, the bishops and pastors of the flock of God, begun to think and begun to speak upon what seemed a word, a sentence, a verse, but it has increased under meditation, under prayer, under the familiar, common, sometimes despised "preaching" of Christ's last charge and commission, and under the realization of the priceless "blessing" of his last promise, while multitudes have listened, been divinely fed, learned to love and to adore and to live a new life, and the human feeder and the fed all been satisfied!—B.