NOTES for Mat 15:32-33

Why does the Lord, who so often says when performing miracles, "Go and tell no one," perform such an obvious miracle, one that will certainly become known to everyone, and even a second time? After all, in order to reveal the authority of the Son of God over creation, it would have been enough to feed five thousand with five loaves...

The question as posed is off the mark, and this matters. It is not at all evident that the Lord consciously planned this situation. The Greek verb in verse 29, unlike the English "sat down," conveys an unfinished action: "having gone up on the mountain, He was sitting there." And crowds came to Him... What the Lord certainly could not do was refuse them healing and the word of life, and therefore evening came unnoticed during the preaching. He did not create the situation for a miracle deliberately, but once it arose, the miracle itself became the natural continuation of Christ's overflowing mercy.

It is also important for us that the evangelist preserves the story of the second feeding of a multitude, giving us the opportunity to see important similarities in the way the miracle is performed. Unlike the first time, the disciples no longer say skeptically that even two hundred Roman monetary units would not be enough bread for such a crowd; they ask the Teacher, where are we to get so much bread? And Christ takes what is there and gives thanks.

This is the key word of the whole account of this miracle: thanksgiving to God. It is this action that brings a miracle into the world and erases the boundary between earth and heaven.