At the end of the last post, we left off with Jesus’ visit to his hometown, where the local people couldn’t see past what they already knew of him in order to grasp who he really was. As a result, they couldn’t open themselves to miracles such as he was performing elsewhere. As the parables of chapter 13 told us, the mere sowing of the good news does not guarantee that it will be received with joy.

And chapter 14 opens with a threat much worse than rejection in Nazareth!

Yes, Matthew gives us what we would nowadays call a “flashback” to explain the problem The immediate issue is that Herod’s suspicion of Jesus has been aroused, but Matthew has to take us back to the death of John the Baptist in order to tell us why. Herod’s job, as a local prince serving the Roman Empire, was to keep everything quiet. John, who had criticized Herod, had a large, enthusiastic following, and Herod tried to neutralize him without creating an angry backlash. But the internal politics of his own household tripped him up, and he wound up having John executed. Finding another popular religious teacher show up so soon afterwards reawakened both Herod’s guilt and his political anxiety. He had thought he was rid of this problem. 

Jesus and John, of course, were very different, as we heard in 11:16-19: the one an ascetic, the other mocked as a “drunkard and friend of tax collectors and sinners.” But both were immensely influential voices—and Jesus did miracles, too! Like their predecessors, the ancient prophets of Israel, they constituted an unpredictable influence on the public and were willing to challenge political power. Even though Jesus has said nothing against Herod, he looksdangerous. 

And Jesus just goes away again!

Yes, he’s not picking a fight, is he? But he keeps on doing more of what Herod was upset by: healings (14:14) and another astonishing miracle—the feeding of a crowd of maybe 15,000 people (14:21).

It seems like an odd way to count people: “about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Very odd by modern standards, but it’s an expression of something we’ve already seen: the dominance of the family as the basic social unit at the time. A “house” or “family” consisted, ideally, of a husband, one or more wives, and their children. The “father of the house” represented the family in public. Unmarried men, particularly eunuchs, didn’t count for much. And women and children had little or no public standing as such. Where we count individuals, people of Jesus’ time counted households. We’ve already seen that Jesus had objections to this focus on the family (10:34-39; 12:46-50; 13:54-58), but it was the normal way of thinking in his time and place. 

Well, it certainly sounds like a phenomenal miracle: five loaves and two fish feeding 15,000 people. Can we actually believe this? I know that some people think Jesus’ gesture of generosity just inspired the crowd to break out their lunch baskets and share with their neighbors. 

I’ll leave it up to you. Most people in Matthew’s time were not as skeptical as we are. But, even supposing that it’s a story of sharing, it’s still an extraordinary expression of Jesus’ gospel of love. No one in the crowd could tell whether their provisions would stretch far enough to feed both themselves and the people around them. So they could only have been imitating Jesus’ own generosity, inspired by a trust that this would all work out. That, too, is a miracle. And, either way, the final result was twelve baskets full of leftovers—far more than Jesus started with. This isn’t a mere sufficiency; it’s a superabundance. 

Were there precedents for this, or is Jesus the only person in the Bible to do this?

One precedent would be the manna in the wilderness in Exodus 16—a miracle performed by God directly. But there’s also another: the prophet Elisha miraculously fed a group of other prophets in need (2 Kings 4:42-44). And Elisha is a good example of the kind of thing that was making Herod nervous. Prophets don’t just preach. They have power—power to curse and bless, power to heal and feed and even raise the dead.

Matthew is big into miracles here: next we have the Walking on Water. Hard to think up an explanation for that that isn’t just silly—like Jesus knowing where the stepping stones were.

Yes, and here, too, there is at least a small precedent from Elisha, who made an iron ax head float on water—to the great relief of the man who’d borrowed it and then lost it in the river (2 Kings 6:1-7). But Jesus’ miracle here is more astonishing than Elisha’s—and less public.

People sometimes speak of the miracles as proofs of Jesus’ divinity. 

Yes, but I think, myself, that it really works the other way around. What you think of Jesus determines whether you find the miracles credible. But that’s a deep topic in its own right. What I find particularly interesting here in this story is the trouble that even the disciples have with this miracle. Jesus has sent them on ahead, and, without his guidance, they’re having trouble making headway. In fact, with the wind up, they’re in a dangerous situation. They don’t seem to do very well when left on their own. In fact, even in Jesus’ presence, they couldn’t imagine that anything could be done to feed a crowd with five loaves and two fishes.

And here Jesus turns up, walking right on the waves that the wind is churning up. Since this is clearly impossible, they conclude they’re seeing a phantom. Only then does Jesus speak to reassure them. and Peter is both excited by this and uncertain. He needs some direct connection with Jesus to make sense of all this and has the nerve—Peter is ever the impulsive one—to ask if he can walk on the water, too. When Jesus says, “Come,” Peter starts off well, trusting Jesus’ word to him. But then he realizes what a crazy situation he’s in: the wind is approaching gale force and the waves are heaving. And he starts to sink. Jesus has to grab him to get him back into the boat. 

The whole story is a kind of parable of the life of disciples, a continuing tension between trust and fear. When they are close to Jesus they are stronger and can even work wonders. On their own, they labor and sink. 

But then they give him a very lofty title, “Son of God,” and worship him. Was worshipping a human being allowed among ancient Jews?

The word translated “worship” means “to bow low,” even “to fall on one’s face.” It was a way of showing respect and could be used for important people as well as for God. But the phrase “Son of God” represents a big shift. The voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism called him “my son” (3:17), and the tempter said to Jesus, “if you are the Son of God. . .” (4:3, 6), and the demons in Gadara addressed Jesus as “Son of God.” But this is the first time human beings have come up with it. Jesus, after all, referred to himself by the much more humble term “Son of Man/Humanity.” 

It’s not clear, though, that the disciples have any particular notion, as yet, of what the term might mean. At this point it’s as much an expression of their amazement, befuddlement, and fear as anything else. 

Finally, the boat reaches land, and Matthew tells us yet again of Jesus’ extraordinary ministry of healing—something he never tires of reminding us about. And Jesus is back in Herod’s territory now. He doesn’t back off from his work at all. 

Next up: CONFLICT WITH THE DEVOUT ESCALATES FURTHER (15:1-28)