NOTES for Mar 6:30-45

"You give them something to eat!" These words of Christ are addressed not only to the apostles two thousand years ago, but to each of His disciples in every age. When we ask Him how He intends to care for the people He has created, He says exactly these words to us. Of course, we will not have to perform miracles in His place; He will multiply both the bread and the fish.

But for this our participation is necessary: our readiness to come to the aid of someone in need, to comfort someone who is weeping, to share love with someone who lacks it. All the puzzled questions addressed to God He redirects to us: "You give them something to eat; you be My presence in this world; you become channels of My love..."

The multiplication of food is spoken of more than once in the Gospel: in a similar situation events develop in a similar way. This repeatedly recurring situation seems to remind us that this is not simply a miracle; this is precisely the Kingdom in all its fullness. What, after all, is a miracle?

From our point of view it is always some disruption of the regular course of events, the intrusion of a nonsystemic factor into the chains of cause and effect that determine the course of events in our world. Meanwhile, in such a situation a question is always appropriate: is the factor we perceive as outside the system not actually part of another system interacting with the one inside which we find ourselves?

Perhaps in many cases a miracle is a miracle only for us, living in our little world separated from God, which seems infinitely large to us, while in God's great world, which we usually do not notice, miracle is the norm of life. In our fallen world, substances are not very obedient to the human will; here they are limited by their own nature. But that is true only here, while in the Kingdom substances are limited and determined only by the action of God's will, and there they are far more pliant to human will when it acts together with God's will.

There, dense water is possible, water that holds a person if he wants to step onto it, and doors that are absolutely permeable, becoming so if a person needs to pass through them, and an increase in the amount of food if what is present is not enough to feed everyone. There water too can become wine if the human will wants to see water as wine and not as water. Of course, what is meant here is the will of a person not wounded by sin, and Jesus is precisely such a Man. He does not simply work miracles; He makes the people who entrust themselves to Him part of the Kingdom, where miracle is the norm.

The fact that the event described by the evangelist is repeated again in an analogous situation testifies that what stands before us is not simply a repeated miracle performed by Jesus again and again. What stands before us is participation in another, new world, where the norm is also different, where what is possible in our fallen world only as an exception, as a miracle, is always possible. Thus Jesus accustoms those who followed Him to another, new norm: the norm of the Kingdom.

The event described in today's reading has always raised many questions, and many commentators and preachers have reflected and reasoned about it, trying to understand what actually happened then in the wilderness. Usually, when setting out on a journey for several days, travelers naturally took a supply of food with them. But this time the decision was evidently made so hastily that there was no time to get ready (v. 33). Judging by the fact that the disciples later had to cross to the opposite shore of the Lake of Gennesaret in order to get to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45), the events described took place on its eastern shore, in Transjordan, which in Gospel times was not a desert in the literal sense but a dry steppe. The eastern shore of the Lake of Gennesaret was a deserted place, and the nearest villages where food could be bought were not close. That is when the miracle took place, the one usually called the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. Nothing definite can be said about exactly how and at what moment it happened, since the Gospel text gives no details that would reveal, so to speak, the "mechanism" of the miracle. Only the result is described: five loaves and two fish were enough for several thousand people, and more than enough (vv. 41-44). The only explanation can be considered the blessing of the food by Jesus mentioned in the account (v. 41), without which no meal was possible for believing Jews, since during the blessing prayer those sitting down at the table call upon God, inviting Him to join them and bless the table and the food. In describing the miracle, the evangelist draws attention to the fact that Jesus' blessing was not an ordinary blessing, but one that allowed those present to enter directly into the Kingdom of God, where even the laws of nature do not work as they do in the ordinary world. Therefore hunger has no place there, and every hungry person is satisfied.

During close communion with Jesus, one can never say with certainty where the event is taking place: in the world not yet transformed or in the Kingdom. So it is in the account of feeding the multitude of people listening to Him with five loaves and two fish. Of course, the laws of the untransformed world do not allow this. But on the other hand, we are still dealing with ordinary people who are only listening to Jesus, and it is not yet known which of them will be ready to follow Him.

How, then, did they find themselves in the Kingdom? The answer to this question can only be the mention of the bread-breaking performed by the Savior. Bread-breaking is an ancient Jewish ritual whose roots go back at least to the exilic period, and perhaps to still earlier times.

This ritual was apparently always domestic, originally familial, and later, after the appearance of religious brotherhoods, both familial and fraternal. In every period it was understood as a continuation of the temple sacrifice, as its household dimension, complementing the communal dimension.

The original meaning of every sacrifice, even a pagan one, not to mention one in the worship of Yahweh, came down to communion with God. It was always and everywhere understood as a shared meal of God, or, among pagans, of the gods, and human beings. The faithful prepared a meal and invited God to the table so that He Himself would sanctify it and bless those gathered. This was so during temple assemblies, and it was also so during household gatherings. And now the One who has brought the fullness of the Kingdom into the world performs the bread-breaking.

It is no surprise that all who take part in it become, at least for the duration of the gathering, citizens of the Kingdom. With Christ, the presence of God is revealed in all possible fullness, and the Kingdom becomes the most certain reality. Of course, this participation is only the first step, only the beginning of the path. But the experience of it is very important, since it gives everyone who has lived through it the opportunity to understand what the Kingdom is, not in words but in deed, and to make a decision based not on someone else's words but on one's own experience.

In this passage we see the remarkable humanity of Jesus. Being fully human, He understood well how much people need rest. In the Gospel one can find places where Christ withdraws into the mountains to pray and be alone with the Father. Therefore He sends the disciples to a deserted place where they could rest from the crowd, which was so large that they did not even have time to eat. The disciples go away, but the number of people needing help does not become smaller. Seeing these "sheep without a shepherd," the Lord had compassion and Himself remained beside them.

When our strength leaves us and we understand that we urgently need rest and solitude, it can be so frightening to leave those who need us and be alone with the Father. But if we nevertheless decide to do this, the Lord stands in our place and solves the problems for which our own strength is no longer enough.

In today's Gospel reading there is one small but rather difficult point, namely the words: and He wanted to pass them by. They are so hard to understand that in the parallel, later text of Matthew's Gospel they are omitted. Why did He want to pass them by, if it says that He saw them distressed in rowing, because the wind was against them? That is, He saw this and went to help them; why, then, did He want to pass them by?

The simplest thing in such difficult cases is simply not to notice the words that are unclear, as if they were not there. But not everyone will find such an approach acceptable. The author of the new translation "Good News," Valentina Kuznetsova, offers us one way to solve this problem: it looked as though He wanted to pass by them. That is, everything is very simple: it only appeared so to them.

It is hard for people untrained in philology to judge, but they can analyze different translations into modern languages, comparing the work of different translators. And nowhere else were we able to find the word "appeared." But how can it be that many different translators all omitted the same word in the same way?

Yet we are not at all frightened even by the degree of paradox present in the text without the word "appeared." Do we have the right to judge the Lord's intention? No. Therefore let us not try to solve what He actually wanted to do. There was some meaning in His actions, one now unknown to us. Let us look at the disciples' testimony: He wanted to pass by. Let us look, without any mental labor of our own, at the testimony in all its simplicity (especially since this is, after all, the Gospel according to Mark), and turn to our own life: does it not happen with us that we are in extremely harsh conditions, praying to the Lord for help, yet see only how help passes by us? It does not appear so to us; rather, we simply see with our own eyes that help is coming toward us, but we cannot make use of it.

Yet in the end the disciples were saved. As we too will be saved. Adding the word "appeared," however, shifts everything onto the unstable ground of unclear sensations whose relation to reality is unknown; and one gets the impression, precisely an impression, that such an approach is rather dangerous.

In the boat in the middle of the stormy sea, the apostles found themselves in the situation in which each of us individually, and the whole world together, constantly finds itself. It is the situation in which you search for human means to solve a problem that is beyond human power. And an encounter with God at such moments of life really does cause us fear, just as it caused fear in the apostles when they saw Jesus walking on the water. For what are these microscopic problems of ours to Him? What is our life worth before the face of the Almighty? For centuries humanity has been seeking an answer to this question and has agreed that our life is dust, nothing. This is all we are capable of inventing, and on such a miserable foundation we think that we ourselves can despise one another's value.

The Gospel, however, tells us the one and only hope, the first and the last. The Almighty Himself came to us and became one of us, because He so loved the world. This is the only thing that gives meaning to the existence of our race. When we ask Him tragic questions about what will happen to us, it would have been enough for us, as for Job, simply to receive answers to them. But the Almighty, instead of an answer, comes to us Himself and says: it is I; do not be afraid.

Today's reading, telling of another miracle performed by Jesus, continues the theme begun by the description of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. The connection between the two accounts is indicated by the evangelist himself, while also noting that the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves was not enough for the apostles to understand something very important about Jesus' person and His ministry (vv. 51-52). Today's passage speaks of an event that happened during the storm that arose when Jesus' disciples, leaving the Teacher on the eastern shore of Lake Gennesaret, set out for the opposite shore, wanting to reach Bethsaida (vv. 45-48). Storms on Lake Gennesaret can be strong enough to endanger relatively small fishing boats, and the apostles, caught on the lake in such a storm, found themselves in a difficult and dangerous situation.

And once again Jesus Himself completely changes the situation, this time by His very appearance (v. 51). Here, as in the description of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, there are also no details or particulars. Jesus simply appears, and the wind immediately dies down, as though He carries with Himself some other, new world with other laws that act in this world too, bringing it under their authority.

In describing what is happening, the evangelist in effect emphasizes that Jesus does not need to do anything for the miracle to take place. It is enough for Him simply to be present where His intervention is needed, and that is enough, because Jesus bears in Himself the Kingdom of God, about which He constantly tells everyone ready to hear Him. He not only tells, but also shows everyone ready to see what this Kingdom is like, where five loaves are enough to feed several thousand people, and where one can walk on water as on firm ground.

The parting of Christ and His disciples from the people looked like flight. Why such haste? The Gospel of John (6:14-15) gives the answer to this question. The people simply wanted to proclaim Jesus king, to treat Him as an outstanding human being. The people's actions are completely understandable: they did not know who Jesus was. A different attitude could have been expected from those who shared bread, shelter, and all the hardships of a wandering preacher's difficult life with Jesus. But strangely enough, the apostles' faith was very weak, especially when Jesus was not beside them.

After sending away the disciples and the people, Jesus went up the mountain to pray. Several hours later He saw the disciples in the boat in the middle of the sea, unsuccessfully trying to overcome a headwind. How helpless we are without Christ! No forces of nature can hinder the Lord's desire to be near His own. The disciples did not call Him, but they needed Him. Yet the appearance of Jesus walking on the water caused only fear and astonishment. They did not expect this from Him. Mark explains this reaction of the disciples by the hardness of their hearts.

As soon as Jesus and the apostles arrived in the land of Gennesaret, crowds of people in need of healing rushed to Him. The apostles had grown used to such miracles and were no longer surprised.

We are surprised by a miracle when it surpasses our understanding of the world around us or of the one who works the miracle. We may know little of God if His actions are unexpected to us, or if we react to His works with the question, "How did He do that?" For everything God does is wondrous.

Mark specifically notes the connection between Jesus walking on the water and the miraculous feeding of the people. He speaks of the second as something that should have "made the disciples understand," should have given them insight into something very important that they did not understand. This new thing was the Kingdom that their Teacher had brought into the world. For the disciples, however, all the miracles being performed were precisely miracles: a manifestation of God's power.

Perhaps a manifestation of God's love as well. But they were separate manifestations, and that is the whole point. They still had not seen the main thing: the world was no longer what it had been. Something new had entered it, something called the Kingdom. Meanwhile the disciples were still looking at the Kingdom in the old way. For them it was still an earthly Kingdom, though with a capital letter. With a capital letter because the Messiah, their Teacher, was to head it, and God would be chief in it.

It was earthly because it was supposed to be founded on earth, in every sense of the word. For them the Kingdom did not yet exist; it still had to be built, created, established. They were waiting for their Teacher to begin doing this, and to begin, of course, with a messianic uprising. Yet He keeps delaying, performing miracles and healings, attracting the people, but never declaring His messiahship. Meanwhile the Kingdom had already entered the world together with Him. The disciples did not notice this, which is no wonder, since they were waiting for something entirely different.

They did not understand that the miracles and healings performed by their Teacher were not simply manifestations of God's power connected with His person. They were nothing other than manifestations of the very Kingdom for which they were waiting. In the Kingdom, nature is not the same as it is in the fallen world; there it is not confined within itself. There nature is responsive to the action of God's will and God's breath, and to the action of human will as well, provided, of course, that it is not wounded by sin and acts together with God's will. If more food is needed to feed a multitude of people, then there will be more food.

If a person needs to walk on water, then the water under his feet will become firm, or resilient, in short, whatever it needs to become in order to support a human being. There is no storm in the Kingdom at all; it remains in our fallen world. This is the Kingdom the disciples needed to see, but they were not yet ready for such a vision. They were ready to see the Messiah in their Teacher, but not ready to see the Kingdom He had brought into the world. Not ready at that moment. The time would come, and they would understand everything. But that time would come later.

The Evangelist speaks of the hardness of the disciples' hearts: they “did not understand about the loaves.” For them, the encounter with Christ amid the raging sea almost became a “hallucination” or a fantastic vision from the spiritual world. Yet Christ, who came to them walking on the water, was and is absolutely real: He tells them, “It is I!” That same hardness of heart often prevents us from seeing Christ's action and real presence in our own lives. He is—as always—real. He is near. Especially during a storm, when we most need His gracious help. Our task is to learn to see Him amid our everyday storms, to recognize His presence by faith—the presence that can calm any tempest and overcome every triumph of death.