B (2:45)

That's right. And we're going to read about that here. So we read that for Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. By the way, Philip is only his half brother. So just so you know, just because someone is called their brother doesn't mean they have the same mother. But just worth pointing that out, given the episode we just talked about, because John had been saying to him, it is lawful for you.

A (3:15)

It is not lawful.

B (3:15)

And that's very important, isn't it? Yes. It is not lawful for you to have her. And though he wanted to put him in prison, and though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people because they held him to be a prophet. And of course, we've talked about this. John the Baptist was certainly very popular. We know this not just from the New Testament, but from the writings of Josephus, 1st century Jewish historian. And clearly the people are recognizing that something divine is at work in John the Baptist's ministry. But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Now, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, don't swear oaths. Right. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. And there's good reason for that. You can get yourself into trouble with rash oath swearing, which is what Harry does finds here. Yeah. And so he swore this oath, prompted by her mother. She said, give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter. Isn't that interesting? So, of course, disgusting, Right? Horrible. This is very dark, but there's food imagery here. So the feast turns into this really strange morbid image of almost a murderous feast. Right. And almost a kind of cannibalism, Although that's not. They don't eat him, obviously, but put his head on the platter. And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he commanded it to be given. He sent and had John beheaded in prison. And he had his head. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother and his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus. So there's a lot there.

A (5:19)

There is a lot there. You know, the first thing I'd say is here we have Herod having this great celebration, this great banquet, but that banquet is occasioned by his birthday. And in the Bible, we don't get too many birthdays. So the one salient birthday that jumps out to me in the Old Testament is the birthday of Pharaoh. So Pharaoh has a birthday, and interestingly enough, at the occasion of his birthday, someone loses their head, the chief baker. And so that's when Joseph is in prison, and Joseph interprets these dreams and the baker is taken out of prison and he is beheaded. And so here you have a birthday, you have a prisoner, and you have a beheading. And so these things all kind of go together. So what's the Bible saying about birthdays? That you have to be a megalomaniac king to have a birthday.

B (6:13)

Yeah. It doesn't bode well. By the way. Happy birthday. Anyway.

A (6:17)

It's not my birthday. It's not my birthday.

B (6:20)

Okay. So I think that's a very important Old Testament context to keep in mind. Old Testament allusion.

A (6:29)

We.

B (6:29)

One other that we might think of is the story of Elijah. Broadly right. Elijah, who is a prophet in the Old Testament, ministers at a time when there's a wicked king, Ahab. And it just so happens there was a wicked queen involved, too. Jezebel. Right. And that is not probably a coincidence because later in the gospel, in chapter 17, for example, the disciples are going to come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, and they're going to say, well, you're the Son of Man, but why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? And Jesus says, elijah does come first, and they did to him as they pleased. And then Matthew, just so there's no lack of understanding. Matthew's very clear. Mark is elusive. Mark is enigmatic. Mark is subtle. Matthew isn't any of that. Matthew just says at that time they realized he was speaking about John the Baptist. So John the Baptist is Elijah, is the new Elijah, so to speak. And we've already talked about that here. So it's appropriate that we have that illusion in play now. Oh, wait, let me. Do you have anything else? Because I've got.

A (7:48)

Well, no, I mean, so you get Herod here colored with two colors from the Old Testament. If you know these allusions. One, he's like Pharaoh. Well, that's not a good person to be like. You don't want Pharaoh to be Your typological correlation. And then secondly, you have Ahab. Then who is this wicked king of the northern province of Israel, the northern kingdom. And it's interesting. Herod rules. Herod Jr. Rules over the northern kingdom of Israel, much in the same area that Ahab did. And just as you made the point, just as Ahab had a wicked wife, Jezebel, who really sought to kill Elijah, I mean, she was out more than Ahab was to get Elijah. And so we have it here. It's Herodias who's really out with a vendetta, personally, to kill John the Baptist. And so she becomes the new Jezebel.

B (8:41)

Very good. Very good. Now, it's important to note that at the end of the story, they come and tell Jesus. And of course, John the Baptist's disciples come and they bury his body. We've already highlighted the fact that there are remarkable similarities between John the Baptist's preaching and Jesus preaching. And likewise, as Jesus will be buried by his disciples, John the Baptist is buried by disciples, too. And so we see in John, and especially Christ, Christlike figure, he's conformed to the image of Jesus. Now, that's important because we've just talked about John the Baptist as Elijah. Okay? And if you remember, in the Old Testament, Elijah was at the Jordan River. Well, Jesus went to the Jordan river. And of course, Elijah ends up being taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot at the Jordan. And at that time, his successor is there. And what he asks is, he asks Elijah, let a double portion of your spirit come upon me. And Elijah basically says, look, that'll happen, but only. Only if you see me being taken up. And so that happens. So a double portion of the spirit that's on Elijah falls on Elisha. Okay? Some people call him Elisha. Elisha, right. What's interesting about all this is Elisha is much like Elijah. You've already highlighted this. There's a sort of similar. Many similarities. Although Elisha actually performs more miracles and greater miracles, in some ways, you can count it twice as much as Elijah does. All right, now follow me. I know this is kind of complex, but I think you can stick with me on this. Elijah goes up to heaven. Elisha is a new Elijah. All right, now, in the Gospel of Matthew, we have a story where John the Baptist, the new Elijah, dies in a way that is quite memorable. And he dies a lot like Elijah does. And then immediately after this story, after telling us this story, Matthew then turns to recount a miracle of Jesus that sounds remarkably like one of the miracles of Elisha. Right. So we're going to see how John Elijah precedes Jesus as the new Elisha. Alright, so why don't we turn to this great story, the feeding of the 5,000, which is a remarkable miracle. It's the only one of the miracles of Jesus that we actually find in all four gospels, other than the resurrection. So, you know, it's important.

A (11:30)

Yep, very important.

B (11:32)

All right, so should we jump?

A (11:34)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I'll just read the next couple verses.

B (11:37)

Okay, great.

A (11:38)

So now, when Jesus heard this, so he hears that John, the precursor, has died. And of course, Jesus knows that John the Baptist is to prepare his way, and he prepares his way even in his death, Right? He's signaling the way of Jesus that the way that will end in the cross. So Jesus is going to mourn John, but he also has to reflect on his own imminent and upcoming death. Right? And there he withdraws to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd. Now, I would respond with anger, can't you just give me some time to mourn and reflect? And I want a quiet retreat. But instead, because Jesus is the Son of God and he's holy and filled with love, Jesus had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now, when it was evening, the disciples.

B (12:34)

Came to the end. Can we stop right there? Because one thing I want to highlight is an allusion to an important Old Testament book, and in particular, the book of Ezekiel. All right, so Jesus is moved to compassion and he shows compassion on the crowd, healing the sick. Now, in the book of Ezekiel, the prophet is given an oracle that is meant to target the leaders of Israel. The leaders of Israel, the shepherds have been unfaithful. And God explains judgment will come upon them. Then we have this line. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I will make them lay down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost and I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the crippled, I will strengthen the weak. These are all things Jesus has been doing right. He's been performing these miracles where he is taking care of those who are paralyzed. For example, I will strengthen the weak and the fat, and the strong, I will watch over. I will feed them injustice. So earlier in the narrative, we read about how in looking at the crowds, Jesus says in Matthew 9, they're like sheep without a shepherd. And I talked about this passage from Ezekiel. Then it's still in the background, because what God promises Is he's going to come. He's going to be the shepherd. He's going to feed his flock. And Jesus is about to do that.

A (14:13)

It's a great image. Of course, God being the shepherd is especially poignant because the shepherd was always seen as the king of Israel. And God himself is going to come down and rule and be king himself. And we're seeing Jesus as the Messiah, which means king, but also as God. So he brings both those traditions, those streams together.

B (14:36)

It's interesting because in Ezekiel 34, God says, I will be their shepherd. And then he says, my servant David will be their shepherd. It's like, okay, so wait a minute. Is God going to be the shepherd, or is the coming Davidic king going to be the shepherd? And the answer is yes, because God is going to come as the Davidic messiah.

A (14:54)

Yeah, that's so important. I'm glad you highlighted that, because that's. That's something that people don't. You know, there is this biblical tension in the tradition between those two things. And Jesus all of a sudden solves the problem. You know, he embodies the solution, literally. All right, well, then Jesus, you know, seizes the desolate place, and the day is now over. And the crowds, the disciples say, you know, send the crowds away to get food for themselves. But Jesus said to them, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. So Jesus commands his apostles to feed the crowds and the multitude. And they say, we only have five loaves here and two fish. And you know how much Peter eats.

B (15:40)

This is really funny to me because. Well, first, let's just note verse 15. Now, when it was evening. Now, of course, ancient Jews did not eat at night. We today think of nighttime. Okay, now we go out for dinner. That's because we have electrical lighting. In ancient times, you didn't eat that late. So the day is getting long. Right. They're really hungry at this point. And secondly, the only other time you would eat at evening would be Passover. We might talk about that later. But the other thing that's interesting is the desolate place. Well, literally, that's a desert place, Right? So they're in a wilderness place. Hmm. Does that remind us of anything in the Old Testament? Yes, of course. It reminds us when Israel was hungry in the wilderness. And, of course, God fed his people with manna from heaven and quail. We'll talk about the quail a little bit. And I love this. Jesus says, they don't need to go away. Give them something to eat. I can imagine you Know James going to Peter, I didn't know feeding 5,000 people was in the job description of being an apostle. Where were we prepared for this? You know, once again, Jesus commands what's impossible.

A (16:55)

Exactly. No, I'm glad you picked that up. Because again, Jesus doesn't say, see what you can do, do the best you can. He tells them to do what he knows they aren't equipped to do.

B (17:06)

Right.

A (17:06)

And that's the challenge of discipleship. When you follow our Lord, he's going to ask you to do things that are just plain too hard. And that's why we have to lean on him.

B (17:18)

That's right.

A (17:18)

And only by grace.

B (17:21)

That's right.

A (17:21)

Can we follow the will of Christ. But it's possible.

B (17:24)

And so of course, Jesus orders the crowds to sit down on the grass. And taking five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then Jesus always says grace for meals. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. And the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children. Now, what's going on here? Some people have. Now this goes all the way back to a old German deist, Heinrich Paulus, who argued, well, we really don't need to believe in miracles to accept the gospel story. So he would come up with all kinds of explanations for the miracles that required no supernatural intervention. And he said, what really happened here was the people were out there and they brought food, but they were hiding it. You know, they kind of stuck it in their clothes, you know, good kind of armpit sandwich, you know, tastes good at the end of the day. And then Jesus gets a little boy to share his loaves and fish. And everybody sees this happen and they say, ah, how can I keep this to myself? And so they all brought out their food.

A (18:45)

It's the miracle of sharing, right? I remember hearing a priest, God bless him, give a homily using Heinrich Paulus interpretation that it was the miracle of sharing that Jesus didn't multiply the loaves. It was actually people started sharing and another person shared, another person shared. And I went up to him after, after mass and corrected him. But I did it in a way that I thought, well, how can I correct him in a way that isn't just going to take this as I'm being some kind of fundamentalist, because he.

B (19:17)

Didn'T know where it comes from. I'm sure he didn't know where that interpretation comes from.

A (19:20)

Yeah. And so I said to him, I said, father, I have to tell you, I'm a little worried. First I greeted him. I had met him. He was a new pastor when I was studying at Duke. So I told him I was studying at Duke University. Oh, this is great. I said, father, I have to tell you, I was troubled by your homily, and you probably didn't intend it, but I want you to understand how it came off. I've never heard a more anti Semitic homily in my life. And he was like. It's like I punched him in the gut. He was like, what? Anti Semitic? I said, you're saying it was a miracle that Jesus got a crowd of Jews to share and that they would rather go hungry and keep their sandwich in their pockets and. And keep the food they had in their pockets rather than having to take it out and maybe having to share some of it with their neighbor next to them. I said, that is the most anti Semitic homily, and it's no accident this theory comes from Germany.

B (20:09)

That's exactly right. You read some of these sources?

A (20:12)

Yep. So the German biblical scholars at the time were very anti Semitic. And so this is an anti Semitic and also a naturalistic. Look, the author. The Gospel of the Matthew. The author of the Gospel of Matthew intends this to be a miracle. Jesus is divine. He is doing divine things. He is the God who is the shepherd to feed the flock. This is in the wilderness, which is like the Exodus, which reminds us of the manna in the wilderness and also.

B (20:38)

Reminds us of Elisha's miracle. Elisha's miracle as well, in 2 Kings.

A (20:43)

Yep. Elisha feeding a multitude and multiplying.

B (20:46)

Right.

A (20:46)

So clearly the author's intent is that this is a miracle. People who don't have supernatural faith naturalize this to try to explain away the problems. But look, you can't explain away Jesus by a natural interpretation. Either he rose from the dead or not.

B (21:05)

Right.

A (21:05)

And, you know, he's either a charlatan and a false prophet and a phony, or he's the Son of God. There's no middle ground here. You just can't say he's a nice teacher. Nice teachers don't deceive and lie to people. And so we have to come to terms with this Gospel claims that Jesus is doing miracles. Now he's going to be walking on water.

B (21:27)

The next story, you just knew where the rocks go.

A (21:31)

These natural explanations get harder and harder.

B (21:33)

And harder, especially when you get to the resurrection by the way in John's account, it's abundantly clear this was understood to be a miracle because at the end it says that they gathered up fragments. It says they gathered them up and filled the 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves. So the fragments came from the five barley loaves.

A (21:55)

That's a beautiful point from John's.

B (21:57)

They didn't come from other people's loaves. Right. That's not tenable.

A (22:00)

Yeah, that's beautiful.

B (22:01)

Right. Now I do want to say in John 14, Matthew 14, so this all happens, and of course, it's a miracle, as we've seen. And I do want to say, we don't want to deny that there's a sharing dimension about this miracle. Pope Francis has talked about the sharing dimension and John Chrysostom talks about the sharing dimension of the miracle that when.

A (22:20)

We receive, we're supposed to give.

B (22:21)

Right. It's just to deny that there's a miracle involved. That would be a problem. Right. But here we see in the story of the feeding of the 5,000, an event that points us forward to what's going to happen later in the Gospel. Right. In the Gospel of Matthew, once again, we have Jesus take bread, bless it and break it. When does this happen? At the Last Supper. At the Last Supper. There are many parallels. So what happens is in Matthew 14, when it was evening, in Matthew 26, when it was evening, it's unusual to eat at evening. Jesus reclined at table with the 12. In Matthew 14, Jesus. And we read and taking the five loaves. And in the Greek it's artos there. So it's literally the. The five breads, Right. And the two fish. He looked up to heaven and blessed, broke, gave the breads, the loaves to the disciples, the disciples gave it to the crowds. In Matthew 26, we read Jesus took. It's the same order. The words appear in the same order. Took the bread, right? Artos, same word in Greek. And after blessing, it, broke it. He gave it to the disciples. So we have all of these words repeated in order. So what Jesus does in the feeding of the 5,000 is meant to point forward to what happens in the Last Supper. And this is significant because as we talked about, the Gospels were likely ancient Greco Roman biographies. They were probably read within the context of a meal. What meal? I think it's. I think they're reading this within the context of the Eucharistic celebration of the church. And so what they're understanding is when you take. When Jesus takes bread and he breaks it and he blesses it and breaks it and gives it. A miracle happens. And what happens at the Last Supper also involves a miracle. Because he says, this is my body. And he says, this is my blood. That's the miracle that takes place. Not a multiplication, but something even more grand there in the Eucharist.

A (24:21)

I think you're exactly right. I think this is echoing the Eucharist. And Jesus is preparing his disciples. And I love how this miracle happens. Not by Jesus giving directly to the crowd, but he commands his apostles to feed the crowd. And Jesus blesses and breaks the bread and then hands it to the apostles, who then have to distribute. And so, in a sense, the miracle happens at the hands of the apostles. And the apostles, of course, are priestly. We've already talked about that before, with the cross of the grain field, that they have a priestly privilege. And so what is Jesus preparing here? He's saying that, you know, the priests, those who have apostolic orders, our bishops and priests, have this authority to distribute the bread in the name of Jesus. And so the miracle of the bread changing into the body and blood of Christ happens every Mass at the hands of the disciples. Just as right here, the first time we had the miracle with the bread happens at the hands of the disciples. Jesus is preparing us to see the priests, those of apostolic orders, as those whom he is going to miraculously bless what they break.

B (25:27)

And one more thing. Of course, reading the story in light of the Eucharist helps shed light on it. But we really don't understand what's going on in the Eucharistic celebration unless we pay attention, of course, to the Liturgy of the Word, which precedes the Liturgy of the Eucharist. One of the things the Liturgy of the Word teaches us is to read the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. Why fish? Fish? In the story, I get the bread, but why fish, you might be asking. Here's why. Because in the story in the Old Testament of Israel in the wilderness, and God gave them manna. He didn't just give them manna, he also gave them quail. But it's really interesting. In the Book of Numbers, we read where the quail came from. In numbers 11, we read that there was a wind from the Lord that sprang up and it brought quail from the sea. That's not a coincidence. Earlier, the people complained, and Moses said, shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them? I can't feed them with all the fish in the sea that's here. And so what does the Lord Do. He brings quail up from the sea. And the rabbis understood that the quail actually came out of the waters. So in Jewish tradition, the idea was the quail were actually some kind of like sea creatures. You actually see this in the Book of Wisdom too, where it talks about how the natures things were changed. And so the idea is when Jesus multiplies the bread, that's like the manna and the fish are an evocation of the sea creatures from the sea. And so in the Eucharist, what we do is we enter into the story of salvation history. God brought his people out of Israel and then he took care of them in the desert. Where are we? We're in the desert. We're on our way to the promised land. But in the desert of this world, God is giving us miraculous bread, the manna. Right. Jesus calls himself the bread from heaven. Psalm 78 calls the manna the panis angelicus, the bread of angels, which we apply to the Eucharist. We receive that bread from heaven in the Eucharistic celebration so that we can be strengthened in our journey, as Paul might say, appealing to the story in 1 Corinthians 10, our journey to the promised land, which is ultimately heaven.

A (27:36)

I don't know, Michael, it sounds fishy to me, but I quailed a 2 Kohner.

B (27:42)

I tried to scale it out as much as I could, but anyway.

A (27:48)

No, that's fabulous. And then we have the idea of 12 loaves left over.

B (27:54)

Oh, so important.

A (27:54)

Or the 12 baskets left over. 12 is going to be significant of the nation Israel. Right. And anything you want to add to this idea of the 12?

B (28:02)

Because this is of course.

A (28:04)

Yep, go ahead.

B (28:04)

Yeah, because earlier we have that allusion to Ezekiel's prophecy, which involves God going out and searching for his lost sheep. We talked about this in Matthew 10. Jesus is coming to restore the 12 tribes of Israel. And so the miracle points to, in fact, the idea that he will in fact, bring about restoration of all Israel. This takes place in Israelite territory too.

A (28:28)

So.

B (28:29)

So it's appropriate. We'll talk more about that when we get to the next feeding story.

A (28:32)

But it's the idea, the gathering up of the 12 baskets. Jesus is regathering the fragment, the remnant of the 12 tribes. And so it's a great regathering image. So we look at these two stories here in Matthew 14. There's more to cover next time. But we have the death of John the Baptist, who is the forerunner to Jesus. He prepares the way of our Lord. Jesus will die. Jesus withdraws to the wilderness and then he sees the multitude. He has compassion, he feeds them as the good shepherd. And just as we had a dark banquet with an anti banquet with Herod who is the false king who has John the Baptist slain, Jesus anticipates his own death by having a Eucharistic styled banquet that will cost him his life but give us his life so that our life is preserved through death. So it's a beautiful Just read, go back. Don't just listen to our Bible study. Go back and read these texts and think about what these things mean. We only want to help you to be able to read the Bible but we don't want to be a substitute for you reading the Bible. So use this for your prayer time. Read these texts and we just want to conclude by thanking all of you who support us at the Augusta Institute, all those who support us through our mission circle and all of our donors. We are able to do these Bible studies and have our mission because of you. Thank you all and God bless you. Take care.