Jesus and Motherhood: Feeding the Masses

Jesus summoned his disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
for they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
I do not want to send them away hungry,
for fear they may collapse on the way.”
The disciples said to him,
“Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place
to satisfy such a crowd?”
Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?”
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then he took the seven loaves and the fish,
gave thanks, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.
Matthew 15

As a mother, I can relate to Jesus. Everyone is always looking to him in order to be fed. That resonates in my bones. I have three children; my oldest will turn four in a few weeks. Since I am home with them all day, it naturally falls to me to feed them, and they often let me know with shrieks, and dramatic displays. The need for food runs deep and never really ends. Our children may stop needing us to feed them, but they never stop needing to be fed. The same is true for all of us. How wonderful a gift then, that we have a God know has known hunger. He has compassion, having suffered with us.

He does not want to send us away hungry.

He longs to feed us, with grace and with his very flesh. First we have to come to him, hungry. Just getting to the point where we have exhausted all our other means of “feeding ourselves” is a soul-draining process. We look to be filled by best online casino work, sex, food, money, power, entertainment. Anything other than God. Yes, you know what I mean? You maybe have experienced this too?

When we finally realize what we’re hungry for, desperation has set in. Or perhaps, humiliation at our own shortsightedness, the scales over our eyes. We dare to look at Jesus, to tell him of our hunger for true bread, our thirst for true drink.

He does not want to send us away hungry.

Just as we do not deny our children food when their bellies growl, God does not turn us away either. He longs to feed us, to bless us with abundance as the Gospel story above shows.

This abundance, this blessing, this feeding, it always begins with an offering. We are the offering. We offer up ourselves, the meager efforts we can make alone. Our small attempts at holiness. God will bless our efforts, as long as we make them. How can he bless what we do not offer? How can we be fed if we are not aware of our hunger?

Advent then, is the perfect time to pull back from the things that we think are feeding us, so that we can truly experience being fed. When we pull back from the work, and the food, and they money, and the entertainment, and create just a small space for God to dwell, he will take that meager offering and bless us beyond imagining.

He does not want to send us away hungry.