When the disciples followed Jesus up on the mountainside, their baskets were empty.
They’d already been on the road, ministering to others. They were weary, worn, and empty.
My backpack was full as I wandered through the Denver airport this week. I had a three hour layover, and I was ready to participate in the favorite pastime of all writers: people watching.
Maybe the disciples people-watched too as the crowds came to Jesus for healing. Perhaps they were as diverse as the Denver airport- all colors, shapes, and sizes. Certainly, their needs were just as varied.
I saw a little boy who had crumbled a whole can of pringles onto the floor and was grinding them into the carpet by crawling over them. I saw a woman in a dress as colorful and warm as the ones I had seen in Africa. I saw a group of three businessmen, dressed the same, sitting together over one laptop at a sushi bar.
When I finally sat down to eat a snack, instead of watching, I listened to the people around me. Some teen girls chatted in Spanish and laughed together. A baby cried. One man spoke angrily over the phone to his wife: “I don’t know what to do about that leak. Who is at the door now? Oh, look! I think it’s one of those born again Christians. Yeah, it is! He is wearing the white shirt and dark pants like they do.”
I wasn’t wearing a white shirt. What a sad misunderstanding of Christianity! When I finally turned and looked at the man, he was a businessman, unshaven and haggard.
Perhaps on that mountainside, there were some weary travelers on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover.
In any case, I don’t think the disciples were very excited when Jesus asked them where they could get enough food to feed all the people gathered there.
Their own baskets were empty. They looked around at the varied, harried crowd. They ignored Jesus’s question of “where?” and inserted their own of “how?”
Jesus was the where, however. He is better than all the airport Chick-fil-a’s there ever were. He multiplied one little boy’s lunch and made it enough for the entire Denver airport, I mean, the mountainside.
The people still willfully misunderstood Jesus. They’d seen His healing and His provision, but instead of bowing before the steadfast love of God, they rushed to make Him king by force. They wanted Him as King of their kingdom instead of really looking for the Kingdom of God.
I guess you might consider it a ministry failure, until you look at those twelve disciples, who had previously been empty-handed.
Now, they peered down into their baskets and saw the remnants of the bread and the fish. They overflowed. Perhaps they looked back up at Jesus with a dawning understanding.
The ancient Israelites had asked, “Can God spread a table in this wilderness?” But the disciples now had firsthand knowledge of His ability to do so.
So I walk through the airport with the assurance that I know where to get a meal that would satisfy all of the people. His name is Jesus.
Sarah Dixon Young 