"SEND THEM AWAY"
"Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging because we are in a remote place here." (Luke 9:12)
The remote place to which Luke referred was near Bethsaida, a town on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and the twelve had gone there to rest and do some catching up, but it was not to be. Word of their whereabouts spread and a crowd gathered, many of them caught in the crosswinds of disease and illness. Compassionate always, Jesus began teaching and healing.
As the sun faded, the disciples were ready to call it a day. They asked Jesus to send the crowd away so they could find food and lodging. The men were puzzled when Jesus told them to feed the mass of people. "All we have is five loaves of bread and two fish." To their credit, the apostles were not unmoved by the crowd's circumstances. Their remedy, though, was to let them fend for themselves.
Jesus used the moment to teach, among other lessons, that sympathy includes responsibility. His wondrous multiplication of the bread and fish is the only miracle besides his resurrection that is reported in all four Gospels.
The miracle also highlights the difference between compassion and pity. Compassion is recognition of another’s distress with a desire to alleviate it. Compassion includes responsibility. Jesus made that clear by saying, “Give them something to eat.” Pity, on the other hand, implies a mildly condescending sympathy and evokes the response, “Send the crowd away.”
The Lord urges us to go where our sympathy leads, but not just to family and friends. Most of the people who gathered in that isolated place outsideBethsaida
The remote place to which Luke referred was near Bethsaida, a town on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and the twelve had gone there to rest and do some catching up, but it was not to be. Word of their whereabouts spread and a crowd gathered, many of them caught in the crosswinds of disease and illness. Compassionate always, Jesus began teaching and healing.
As the sun faded, the disciples were ready to call it a day. They asked Jesus to send the crowd away so they could find food and lodging. The men were puzzled when Jesus told them to feed the mass of people. "All we have is five loaves of bread and two fish." To their credit, the apostles were not unmoved by the crowd's circumstances. Their remedy, though, was to let them fend for themselves.
Jesus used the moment to teach, among other lessons, that sympathy includes responsibility. His wondrous multiplication of the bread and fish is the only miracle besides his resurrection that is reported in all four Gospels.
The miracle also highlights the difference between compassion and pity. Compassion is recognition of another’s distress with a desire to alleviate it. Compassion includes responsibility. Jesus made that clear by saying, “Give them something to eat.” Pity, on the other hand, implies a mildly condescending sympathy and evokes the response, “Send the crowd away.”
The Lord urges us to go where our sympathy leads, but not just to family and friends. Most of the people who gathered in that isolated place outside
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