Mark is so terse. Though Thomas Jefferson called him a babbler, he’s so good at showing instead of telling, that when Jesus says, “Do you not yet understand?” I wonder hard if I’m missing something in the passage.

This miracle, multiplying seven loaves and a few fish to feed four thousand, contains a lot I might miss. However, here’s what I can pick up: Jesus shows Himself to be Jehovah Jireh, the Provider; He foreshadows the communion sacrament; and He probably chooses specific amounts of leftovers for symbolic purpose.

One of the greatest challenges God presents for faith is the challenge not to worry about our material well-being, concerning food, drink, and clothing. In this world, people starve to death—nature doesn’t care about us and will send us famine as soon as wink at us. With this miracle, though, Jesus not only demonstrates that miracles exist, and, therefore, God exists, but also that He Himself is God and thus has the authority to deal us such challenges.

The language Mark uses evokes the communion sacrament, which evokes the crucifixion. Jesus “breaks” bread and provides people with it, just as he allowed his body to be broken as spiritual sustenance for those he came to save. Paradoxically, Jesus tells us that God knows about our material needs while also telling us to pick up our crosses and follow him. God, at different times, calls us to prosper and calls us to suffer. It is hard for us to embrace the latter calling. What he never calls us to suffer, however, is any deprivation of his love and grace. When a believer does starve to death, He may feast on God’s presence, love, and joy. And we may be sure: when we are hungry—famished— Jesus has compassion on us as He does for this multitude.

Finally, what I only suspect: God loads reality with symbols. One can’t be sure, but can’t avoid suspecting, that Christ’s Socratic session with the disciples on the boat attempts to lead them to glimpse this symbolism.

“How many baskets were left over when I multiplied the five loaves?”

“Twelve.”

They stare blankly.

“And what about when I broke seven for the four thousand?”

“Seven.”

He raises his eyebrows. They frown.

“Do you not yet understand?”

I don’t think any account of these miracles says what they did with the leftover bread. Nor do I recall (or pick up here) any direct indication that the disciples themselves ate. But I can’t imagine that they didn’t get a heel or two themselves, or that they couldn’t have taken a husk if they’d have wanted to. When Jesus responds to them their fretting about the fact that they forgot food, He’s suggesting that they don’t need to worry. He could turn the boat into a floating ginger bread house for them, or cause a falafel stand to materialize on the waves. I think it’s significant that, the first time, there’s a basket for each of them; the second time, the number, though lesser, signifies perfection.

And He warns them to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod. Again, Mark does a maddeningly good job of showing and not telling. What is the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod? I take the Pharisees’ to be the spirit of religiosity, which thinks it can get God in its debt and force Him to provide for their good deeds. I take Herod to represent materialism, sensuality, and perhaps just plain over-eating. The Pharisees discredit God’s grace; Herod discredits His will. To keep Christ’s company is to be provided for, not paid, and to steward well, not glut.

I have to confess: Mark seems to string together a bunch of non sequiturs, or at least to make Christ’s life look more like  Don Quixote, a picaresque of adventures united only contingently by time and the hero’s character, rather than an intentional progression wrought by an Artist. But then again, I suspect myself of missing something—surely this blind man episode consists with the thematic unity. Though, if it didn’t, I suppose it wouldn’t really matter.

Jesus uses strange means to heal people. Here, He spits in a man’s eyes–twice, for some reason; on another occasion, He spits in mud and applies it to a dude’s eyes (though Jesus did that to break a specific law in the Mishna). Again, I must be missing something: why does Jesus have to heal the guy in two moves? Why not just one? You’ve done better, after all, Jesus.

This is just a weird episode. First, “they” bring Him a blind man and ask Him to touch him. He takes the guy out of the village—for a great reason, I’m sure. Then, He spits in the guy’s eyes—which actually makes me laugh—probably at something gravely serious, dignified, beautiful and over my head. Jesus asks him if he sees anything—always so Socratic! (You’d better believe—great teachers and counselors ask questions and let their learners and patients discover the truth themselves). The guy says what was surely Tolkien’s inspiration for the Ents: “I see men, for I am seeing them like trees, walking about.” What!

First of all, are there even any “men” around? And even if there were, wouldn’t they be standing around watching Jesus freaking spit in the dude’s face? It seems at first like the guy just has a murky view of his immediate surroundings. They’re outside of the village, and I can’t imagine crowds milling around as in a marketplace. But the guys sees men walking around like trees.  Which channel did Jesus tune this guy to? It’s almost like the transmorgrifier episode in Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin’s first few transmutations are less than suitable.

“Woops, blind man. Let’s try that again.”

I think not. I almost wonder if Jesus didn’t give the guy a glimpse into a spiritual reality for a moment. Maybe he was seeing angels. Maybe they were demons. Hell, maybe he showed him Fangorn Forest. I don’t know.

Then Jesus takes the guy and, like a 1950s dad, squatting in front of a television, smacks the side of the thing and tilts the antennae. Or not. Mark says He just “laid His hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly” (8:25). Sometimes, and perhaps more often than not, Christ heals us gradually. And while He has us in process, He shows us things He wants us to see that we would miss. But He does ultimately meet our needs.

Why Jesus tells the guy not to enter the village, I don’t know either—but I suspect it has to do with why He instructs the disciples not to reveal His identity in verse 30. And only now as I write this sentence do I realize the connection between the feeding of the thousands, the exchange on the boat, and the conversation on the way to the village in verses 27-30: Jesus is the best teacher, and His most important lesson is to make us realize the essence of His own identity. Again He uses questions (“Who do you say that I am?”), and again He doesn’t give the answer—they already have it: Peter says, “Thou art the Christ.”

Verse 30 teaches a strange truth. Once the disciples awaken to the highest truth—and really, Jesus opened their eyes to what they half-guessed—He tells them not to tell anyone about it. Obviously, at other times, He commands them to tell everyone they can about Him—indeed that would become their careers. The lesson He teaches them, then, is that He is the Master of timing, of Time itself, and He sets the time for His students to learn the truth. Not everyone is always ready–though that doesn’t mean we are to suppress the Gospel. But we must keep our audience in mind.

What are you student’s needs? Where are they in relation to the truth? Are they totally blind? Do their eyes need to adjust to the shadows before you set them in the sun? Do they not yet understand though they’ve been learning for a few semesters? Ultimately, you cannot force the learner to the moment of truth; he will come to it in his own time, which is God’s time.

I learned a lot writing about this passage. I’m tempted to pat myself on the back—but that would only prove how little I knew. Instead, I’ll thank God for his grace in teaching the truth, and I’ll ask Him to bring me to His knowledge in His time.