Mission Impossible

I am sure all of you have heard of the miracle of the feeding of 5000, or the multiplication of loaves, or five loaves and two fish etc., depending on your perspective. This miracle is found in all four canonical gospels. For a while in the early 20^th century, scholars tended to demystify the miracles of Jesus. They tried to explain away his miracles with some scientific evidences. For example, some diseases were actually psychosomatic. Therefore, Jesus was no more than a faith-healer. In the case of this "5 loaves and 2 fish" miracle, the crowd were so touched/moved by the generosity of the boy who gave up his "5 loaves and 2 fish" that they shared the food they had brought along.  Therefore, Jesus was just a persuasive preacher.

I no long buy this kind of exegesis. These scholars did not think of the impossible mission of crowd control. Assuming that the 5000 was no exaggeration, it was indeed a miracle for Jesus, without amplifiers, "to speak to them of the kingdom of God ... in a lonely place" (Luke 9:11-12). It was not an indoor evangelization event held inside a concert hall with good acoustics but an outdoor open space. Moreover, how could you coordinate 5000 men with only 12 apostles, a ratio of 1:417, not counting women and children?
If you do not have any idea of how many people 5000 are, just imagine the morning assembly of a school of 1200 students. There are usually around 60 teachers, a ratio of 1:20 required by the Education Department of Hong Kong. So, 5000 people is similar to a joint morning assembly of 4 schools. If you think morning assembly in a school is a special case, let's take a look at another situation.
A search on the Internet for "deployment in crowd control" yields this information. 400 Massachusetts National Guardsmen were deployed to maintain public order for 2009 Boston Marathon in which there were 26,000 runners, a ratio of 1:65. These Guardsmen were deployed for security purposes only. There were other workers to manage the event so that the deployment ratio would be lower. These two examples are non-violent events like the gathering of 5000 men who gathered to hear Jesus speak of the kingdom of heaven. I don't have any experience organizing mass programs to entertain thousands of people. Those organizers are in a better position to prove me wrong or how to maintain peace with a deployment ratio of 1:400 plus. I still think that such a deployment ratio is really mission impossible, unless you have Jesus.

I do not blame the Evangelists for exaggerating the number of people. Instead, I meditate on the excitement of serving Jesus. I am sure the apostles would feel what I feel when Jesus told them to feed the crowd. At first sight, the situation would surely be an impossible mission, money-wise or management-wise. How would it be possible for 12 apostles to go into a sea of 5000 people to organize them into groups of 50? Altogether, the 12 apostles have to settle down 100 groups of 50 people each. Then they returned to Jesus and went out again to distribute the 5 loaves and 2 fish among these 100 groups of 50 people. Such is the miracle of the feeding of 5000. I would rather close my eyes to imagine the excitement the 12 apostles felt when they collected 12 baskets of leftovers, when the mission was accomplished.
Our task as servants of Jesus is to distribute his love among the needy, both physical and spiritual. The task is huge. The burden is heavy and looks impossible in many situations. But with Jesus, the burden will become light and the mission becomes possible. Unreservedly, Jesus gives himself totally to us. There is nothing to separate us from his love. What more can we demand?

Dear Jesus, serving You is my privilege. In serving You and my neighbour, I am enriched. Amen.