loaves and fish

Kevin Sorbo had this cartoon in his Twitter timeline but he does not say who drew it. Tineye provides 101 results and none of the ten or so that I checked have the cartoonist's name either. It is old. So old the cartoonist disappeared.

The original is a single frame. I added to it.

I re-read this portion of text about this incident, here (Bible Matthew) and here (Bible Mark) and there (Urantia paper 152). 

This occurs at the peak of Jesus' fame as healer. News of the cure of the lunatic Amos had already reached Bethsaida and Capernaum and people came out to hear him and to bring their afflicted to be healed. This is right at the point where Jairus the synagogue ruler came rushing to Jesus falling at his feet praying for Jesus to heal his daughter. On his way to Jarius' home a woman touched Jesus' robe and he stopped short, the whole crowd that was following stopped, and Jesus said, "Who touched me?"

The apostles were nonplussed. In that crowd pressing through the street, how is it possible to feel someone touch you with everyone closing in like this? Why take issue with it and stop like this? Why don't you appreciate the emergency? Jesus said, "This is a teaching moment." 

Jarius said, "Come on!" 

Jesus said, "I am telling you that someone touched me and I felt healing energy leave my body." Everybody was going, "What?"  A woman came forward and admitted her physical affliction and told him that when she heard him she formed the belief that if she could just touch the master's robe then she would be healed of her hemorrhage. "I did so, followed you, touched your robe and was made whole."

Jesus said, "Daughter, it is your faith that made you whole." 

Jarius said, "Come on!" 

Her faith was of the sort that laid direct hold upon the creative power resident in the Master’s person. With the faith she had, it was only necessary to approach the Master’s person. It was not at all necessary to touch his garment; that was merely the superstitious part of her belief. Jesus called this woman, Veronica of Caesarea-Philippi, into his presence to correct two errors which might have lingered in her mind, or which might have persisted in the minds of those who witnessed this healing: He did not want Veronica to go away thinking that her fear in attempting to steal her cure had been honored, or that her superstition in associating the touch of his garment with her healing had been effective. He desired all to know that it was her pure and living faith that had wrought the cure.

Jarius said, "Come on!"

The crowd reached the house but before entering a servant came running outside and said, "Don't bother. Your daughter is dead."

Jesus said to the Jarius "Fear not. Have faith."

They entered the house. The mourners were already making an unseemly ruckus. Jesus had them all put out. They were not being helpful. He told them the girl is not dead and they mocked him. He got things quieted down and told the mother her girl is sleeping. Jesus went to the child and said, "Daughter, I say to you awake and arise."

And she did.

Then the girl said, "Man, am I ever hungry. What does a girl have to do to get a nosh around this place?"

Jesus told everybody that he did not raise the girl from the dead. He told his apostles that too. He said the girl had a sickness and was out like a oil lamp but now she's back. But nobody believed him.

When they came out of Jarius' house there were two blind men led by mute boy who following Jesus to the house. Much like the bottleshop on Broadway, you come out, boom, there they are, right there waiting.

Jesus’ apostles, let alone the common people, could not understand the nature and attributes of this God-man. Neither has any subsequent generation been able to evaluate what took place on earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And there can never occur an opportunity for either science or religion to check up on these remarkable events for the simple reason that such an extraordinary situation can never again occur, either on this world or on any other world in this universe. Never again, on any world in this entire universe, will a being appear in the likeness of mortal flesh, at the same time embodying all the attributes of creative energy combined with spiritual endowments which transcend time and most other material limitations.

It was time to give it all a rest for awhile before entering Jerusalem. Jesus instructed his apostles to disperse to their families for one week, but things were getting intense, half of them would not leave his side and the multitude was increasing daily. They planed to make a break from the crowd to the other side of the lake for rest and to build up their strength but the crowd would not have it. The crowd hired every boat available and followed them.

Monday the crowd numbered a thousand and climbed to three thousand by late afternoon. There were no facilities. They just followed. There were not Portolets, no snack stands, no diaper disposal bins, no preparation, just a huge wandering crowd, and they continued pouring in up to the night.  Hundreds of people had predetermined to see and hear Jesus at Capernaum on their way to Passover and they would not be denied.

Wednesday the food ran out but the crowd would not leave. The crowd thought collectively that Jesus chose this place to avoid trouble with Herod and with Jerusalem religious leaders, as a good place to crown himself king and the enthusiasm for this spread.

Jesus asks, "What are we going to do with all these people?"

The apostles disputed. Phillip and Andrew fearing the whole king plot thing would strongly prefer all the people disperse.

Jesus said, "I do not wish to send them away. Can't you feed them?"

This was too much for Phillip. "Where are we going to buy that much bread around here, and were are going to get that much money needed to buy it?"

Jesus said, "I do not want to send these people off. Here they are, like sheep without a shepherd. I want to feed them. What food do we have with us?"

The Mark boy takes care of all that. He has five barley loaves and three dried fish. Peter interjects, "And we haven't eaten yet."

Jesus turned to Andrew and said, "Bring me the loaves and fish. And have the people sit down in groups of one hundred."

Jesus broke the bread and handed it to his apostles who passed it to their associates who distributed it to the multitude numbering now some five thousand people.  He did the same thing with the dry fish.

When the meal was over Jesus said, "Gather up all the little pieces so that nothing is lost or wasted."

When the remnant pieces of bread and bits were gathered the mass amounted to twelve baskets.

This is a real miracle. These were miracle-minded people in a miracle-minded age, and they did conflate a lot of coincidences, dreams, psychic events, premonitions, strong feelings, really weird things that happen, with reality, but this is a bona fide miracle, an expression of creator prerogative that reads as miraculous in the material universe. The creator of the universe wanted to feed the multitude so he did.

Now that Jesus fed the multitude. Now that his creator prerogative is expressed so clearly to so many at once, the urge among the crowd and among his own apostles to crown him king strengthened. The reaction that swept through the crowd was instant. These Jews were taught when the messiah comes he will cause the land to flow with milk and honey and they would be given the bread of life. Now it happened. They are gathering from throughout the Roman world, traveling to Jerusalem for Passover, they are a bit psyched up about religious-political happenings. When the crowd finished eating the miracle-food they had but one reaction. Here is our king. In their minds the power to feed like that brought the right to rule. At this point, the crowd that followed him to the shore opposite Capernaum wanted Jesus to be their king.

Jesus stood on a large rock and told everyone to settle right down and don't get rowdy. Having stunned them all by his stupendous demonstration of the miraculous he now tells the crowd they are material-minded.

He kept doing that, disappointing them, rather, they kept doing that, kept getting insanely worked up then crushingly disappointed.

 “You would make me king, not because your souls have been lighted with a great truth, but because your stomachs have been filled with bread. How many times have I told you that my kingdom is not of this world? This kingdom of heaven which we proclaim is a spiritual brotherhood, and no man rules over it seated upon a material throne. My Father in heaven is the all-wise and the all-powerful Ruler over this spiritual brotherhood of the sons of God on earth. Have I so failed in revealing to you the Father of spirits that you would make a king of his Son in the flesh! Now all of you go hence to your own homes. If you must have a king, let the Father of lights be enthroned in the heart of each of you as the spirit Ruler of all things.”