Harvest
So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks. … They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them. So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. Mark 8:6-8
The Lord has knit into every form of life the ability to propagate more of its kind. This design provides a ceaseless supply of everything you eat or drink. But the prepared food itself doesn’t have the ability to increase. To make bread, living seed is pulverized before being baked in an oven. Fish out of water don’t live long. You can’t plant a loaf of bread in the ground or toss fish jerky back in the lake and expect to get more… unless you’re Jesus, who did even less, yet fed thousands. Jesus took food which was well-past dead and multiplied it as if it were still full of life. What a wonderful picture for His saving work among us who are dead in trespasses and sins: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Earthly food, prone to death itself, can prolong earthly life only so long: “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead” (John 6:49). But He who gave growth to ‘dead’ food, also offered His life for yours. Pulverized by whips and left to bake beneath God’s wrath, like a fish out of water, the Son of God’s final gasps for air sustain your soul unto eternal life: “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die” (6:50).
The risen Lord goes so far as to imbue you with the power to propagate new life in Him. He says, “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17). Just as Jesus put His disciples to work in feeding the multitude with bread and fish, you serve His kingdom in whatever way you help provide others with daily bread and whenever you open your mouth to be a fisher of men.
Lord, cause the work of Your word to grow and increase where it is preached and heard. Amen.