Jesus Feeds The Seeking Crowds (9:12-17).
The wider nature of Jesus' mission having been revealed by the sending out of the Apostles to preach, Jesus now demonstrates to the Apostles their further responsibility. In the light of the establishment of a new covenant community they are to ‘feed' the people. Thus He arranges for the miraculous provision of food in a similar way to Elisha before Him (2 Kings 4:42-44). But it is necessarily here in greater abundance, for He is the greater than Elijah. He is the Messiah of God (Luke 9:20) and the Bread of Life (John 6:35). It comes as the guarantee that He is able to meet the needs of all His people as the Bread of Life, dispensed through His Apostles. What He has brought is not only for His own disciples. It is offered to all who will follow Him. It gains even more in significance with the threat of death hanging over Him, a threat also made clear in John 6, where the threat of death is also linked to the Judaisers (who are in league with the Herodians - Mark 3:6).
It is no accident that Luke puts this covenant meal immediately before their recognition of His Messiahship, and the commencement of His set purpose to go to Jerusalem. It is because of what the meal symbolises in the formation of a ‘new Israel' that He is going there. Matthew makes clear the same point when he tells us that Jesus declared, ‘on this rock I will build my new covenant community (church)' (Matthew 16:18). But Luke wants his readers to see it as applying to all believers, both Jew and Gentile.
The passage may be analysed as follows:
a The day began to wear away, and the twelve came, and said to Him, “Send the crowd away, that they may go into the villages and country round about, and lodge, and get provisions, for we are here in a desert place” (Luke 9:12).
b But He said to them, “You give them to eat.” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fishes, unless we should go and buy food for all this people” (Luke 9:13)
· For they were about five thousand men. And He said to His disciples, “Make them sit down in companies, about fifty each.” And they did so, and made them all sit down (Luke 9:14-15).
· He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed them, and broke, and gave to the disciples to set before the great crowd (Luke 9:16).
· They ate, and were all filled. And there was taken up that which remained over to them of broken pieces, twelve baskets (Luke 9:17).
Note that in ‘a' the disciples make clear that it is impossible to feed the multitude of people and in the parallel that they did all eat and were filled. In 'b' He tells the disciples to feed the people, but they demur, and in the parallel they feed the people because of His provision. Central to the whole was the great size of the crowd.