Matthew Chapter 14

Whenever I read this chapter in the past, my eyes would zoom into the key events:

• The Beheading of John the Baptist
• The Feeding of the 5000
• Jesus Walking on the Water

But today, when I was reading it anew, my eyes were drawn to the transition between the first and second main incident here:

¹² Then his disciples came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus.

¹³ When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. 

Do you see this? After John the Baptist was beheaded and buried, his disciples came to tell Jesus about it… and when Jesus heard it, he wanted to depart to a deserted place by Himself.

The Bible does not elaborate more but I was struck immediately that this must been a very painful and sad moment in the life of Jesus. His cousin, John – His forerunner, the one who baptised Him to fulfill all righteousness – someone who is obviously dear to him has now been killed in a most gruesome manner.

And like any of us, when we lose a loved one, He wanted to go away and grieve. Jesus wanted some time to mourn. But He never got it.

Instead, the great multitudes followed Him and being moved to compassion, He performed one of the greatest ever miracles in feeding 5000 with just 5 loaves and 2 fish.

When I realised how close the 2 events are – the beheading of John and then the feeding of the multitude, it gave me a new perspective. Jesus and His disciples must have been hurting and grieving. And the last thing they wanted was to be around so many people, or even do anything with them.

“Send the multitudes away….” said the disciples. Besides not having the resources to help, maybe they just wanted to be alone as they had planned initially. We may have done the exact same thing after losing someone close like that.

But Jesus did not.

Now matter how much it hurt, Jesus did not lose His love for the people and lose His mission while He was on earth. And when you read the rest of the chapter, you would see He continued on in His work of reaching out to the people and healing them (vs 34 to 36).

What does all this tell me today?

Jesus showed us the example of not letting His own needs be above that of God’s work. Many a times, because of our own circumstances, we easily give up doing the 2 main things that as Christians we ought to do… to love God and to love man (to preach and to pastor the flock). We justify our lack of actions or wrk with our grief or pain. Let us learn from Jesus today.

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