DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
St. John 6:5-14 (5/28) CHRIST IS RISEN! Gospel for the
Apodosis of Mid-Pentecost
The Fathers on the Feeding of the Five Thousand:
St. Augustine (AD 430 d.) observed that
“...the government of the whole world is a greater miracle than the
satisfying of five thousand men with five loaves; and yet no man wonders at the
former; but the latter men wonder at....For Who even now feeds the whole world,
but He Who creates the cornfield from a few grains?....The power, indeed, was
in the hands of Christ; but those five loaves were as seeds, not indeed
committed to the earth, but multiplied by Him Who made the earth. In this miracle, then, there is that
brought near to the senses, whereby the mind should be roused to
attention...that we might admire the invisible God through His visible works;
and being raised to faith, and purged by faith, we might desire to behold Him
even invisibly....”
“Yet,” the Saint adds, “it is not enough to observe
these things in the miracles of Christ.
Let us interrogate the miracles themselves, what they tell us about Christ.” Indeed!
Several of the Fathers reflected on the
Lord’s questioning of Philip (vss. 5,6). St. Athanasios (AD 373 d.) explored the question at some
length. “First then we must
put this question to the irreligious, why they consider Him ignorant? For the One Who asks, does not for
certain ask from ignorance....Thus John was aware that Christ, when asking,
‘How many loaves have ye?’ was not ignorant, for he says,
‘And this He said to prove him, for He Himself knew what He would
do’....From this instance we may understand similar ones; that, when the
Lord asks, He does not ask in ignorance,...but knowing the thing which He was
asking, aware what He was about to do....Therefore this is plain to everyone,
that the flesh indeed is ignorant, but the Word Himself, considered as the
Word, knows all things even before they come to be. For He did not when He became man, cease
to be God; nor whereas He is God does He shrink from what is man’s;
perish the thought; but rather, being God, He has taken to Him the flesh, and
being in the flesh deifies the flesh.
For as He asked questions in it, so also in it did He raise
the dead....” So, what then
was the purpose in the Lord’s questioning?
St. John Chrysostom (AD 407 d.) leads us to
understand the Lord’s purpose: “He knew which of His disciples
needed most instruction; for this is he who afterwards said, ‘Show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us’ (Jn. 14:8), and on this account Jesus was beforehand
bringing him into a proper state.
For had the miracle simply been done, the marvel would not have seemed
so great, but now He beforehand constraineth him to
confess the existing want, that knowing the state of matters he might be the
more exactly acquainted with the magnitude of the miracle about to take
place.” Let us receive,
remember, and record the Lord’s questions in our own hearts!
St. Ephraim (AD 373 d.) draws our hearts first
to the multiplication and then to the saving of the bread afterwards (vss. 11-13).
“When our Lord took a little bread He multiplied it in the
twinkling of an eye. That which
people effect and transform in ten months with toil, His ten fingers effected
in an instant. For He placed His
hands beneath the bread as though it were earth, and spoke over it as though
thunder. The murmur of His lips
sprinkled over it like rain, and the breath of His mouth was there in place of
the sun....The loaves of bread, like barren women and women deprived, became
fruitful at His blessing, and many were the morsels born from them. The Lord also showed the incisiveness of
His word to those who were submissive...in accordance with the hunger of those
who were hungry....His miracle therefore was measured by the hunger of the
thousands, and it was victorious over the number of the twelve baskets.”
O Christ our God, Thou dost bless and
sanctify all things. Unto Thee we
ascribe glory!