A toddler smells fresh-baked cookies and waddles into the kitchen to get one. Trouble is he can’t reach the countertop no matter how hard he tiptoes, stretches, and strains. Then mommy comes in. She takes a cookie and hands it to him.
Isn’t this the story of our lives? What we desire more than anything else is a taste of God’s love—his fresh-baked cookies. And there’s nothing God desires more than to meet this desire. Trouble is, we’ve inherited Adam’s limitations; we are not “tall enough” to reach the counter in God’s “kitchen.” Knowing this, God sent his Son to earth with a plate full of cookies to hand them out to “reaching” souls.
In today’s gospel selection we see Jesus in action (Mark 6:34-44).
“When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”
God could have sent Jesus to be the “executive director” of his sheep farm—or at least its administrator. Instead Jesus took on the lowly position of a shepherd. Sheep do not trust executive directors or even administrators. It is the dirty-footed, smelly-robed shepherd out in the field with them whom they trust. There is nothing more soothing, settling, and appealing to a sheep than the voice of the shepherd who cares for them.
Jesus’ shepherd’s heart swelled with pity when he saw so many lost and hungry sheep. Yes there was an “executive director”—Rome– who ruled over them and was doing a pretty good job in preserving the peace. And they had an “administrator”-Jerusalem-a well-organized religious system. These voices, however, only frightened and discouraged the lost sheep. They needed a shepherd.
We notice that the first thing Jesus did was to “teach them.” He wanted the sheep to hear his voice. Sheep recognize the strong and soothing voice of their shepherd. So magnetic were the words of Jesus that crowds flocked to listen to him, and they never seemed to get tired of hearing what he had to say. God spoke through the voice of Jesus and handed out the “cookies” of his love.
The next thing a shepherd does is to lead his sheep to pasture, so they can be fed. So, that was Jesus’ next step. It was now the disciples’ turn to help out. Jesus told them to feed the thousands who were gathered there. Yet all these men had were five small loaves of bread and two fish.
“Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people…They all ate and were satisfied.”
The bread was God’s merciful love. And though there was not enough human “love” to go around, there’s was plenty of God’s love. As the disciples began to give away the little they had, the bread began to multiply. Everyone ate and there were twelve wicker baskets full of fragments left over. And so these lost sheep were found and had more “cookies” than they could even eat.
Jesus, our Shepherd, is here now. He continues to share with us his voice and his bread—the incarnation of God’s love for us. Let us “waddle” up to Jesus, stretch out our hands, and ask him to fill our hungry hearts with the bread of God’s love.
“In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…” (1 John 4:10).
