Compassion for All


Mark 8:1-10
1In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, 2 “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3 And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 4 And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” 5 And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” 6 And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. 7 And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. 8 And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

As Jesus travels inside of Gentile territory, He duplicates the miracle performed among the Jews only days earlier (Mark 6). There is a large crowd of Gentiles who are following Him and the text reports that they have been with Jesus for three days. Food supplies have been exhausted and they people are hungry. Their need moves Jesus to compassion for them and He supplies with great generosity all that they need.

There are a couple of aspects of this story that deserve our attention.

  • This is not a retelling of the story of the feeding of the 5,000 that we read in Mark 6. This is a separate event.
  • I have already noted that Jesus is moved by His great compassion for everyone. This is a Gentile crowd but that matters not to Jesus. He feeds them just as He did the Jewish crowd.
  • The Disciples are the ones who actually hand out the food. Jesus supplies what is needed, but His Disciples are the ones whose hands distribute what He has given.
  • Jesus is pressing His Disciples to cast off all the “Gentiles are unclean” morays that were imposed upon the Jews by the Pharisees. His Disciples did not seem to balk at this work.
  • The amount of leftover food is stunning. “Seven baskets” refers specifically to Roman baskets. These Roman baskets were quite large, each able to contain 50 loaves of bread. That is a great deal of leftover bread! Jesus is beyond generous with His gifts – to a Gentile crowd.

As Jesus trains His Disciples, He is preparing them for their ministry to the entire world. His Gospel is for everyone. As I ponder that thought I am searching the Gospels for a place where the Disciples ever said, “but they are Gentiles” and I can’t find one (with the possible exception of Acts 10 where the Lord instructs Peter in a vision to embrace Gentiles as equal to himself in the eyes of God). Perhaps the Pharisees had far more trouble with that whole “Gentiles are unclean” thing than the regular folks. I don’t know. Just a passing thought. That moves me to lean more heavily upon the fact that Jesus had compassion on the people, no matter who they were. He never seems to take ethnicity into account. Maybe we shouldn’t either.

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