Jesus took the five loaves and the two fishes, and as he held them, he said a prayer of thanks to God. Then he broke the loaves, and gave the bread and the fish to the disciples and told them to pass the food around among the crowd. They passed it here and they passed it there, but they never ran out of food. Nobody could tell where it was coming from, but there was enough for everyone and some left over.
The people were hungry after their long walk and the hours of standing in the sun. They ate heartily. As they finished their meal, they began to think about what had happened.
"Where did all this food come from?" they began to ask themselves. "Where did Jesus get all that food?" "There were but five loaves and a couple of fishes and yet we have all had enough and to spare!"
The crowd began to talk in excited voices. "Jesus gave us this food." "A wonderful thing! He gave us food to eat, when there wasn't anything here!" "Why, this is just the man we have been looking for!" "There's the man to make the Jews strong and rich—he makes food out of nothing!"
The people were rising to their feet.
"Make him a king!" they started to cry. "Jesus is the man to be king of the Jews!" they shouted. "We want our king!"
But Jesus was not there any longer. Jesus had gone; he had slipped away through the crowd and disappeared. Even the disciples did not know where he was. He stayed alone in the mountains until long after dark.
Those foolish people! That foolish, foolish crowd! They did not understand him at all. Did they never think of anything except their stomachs?
Jesus remembered how the devil had once tempted him in the wilderness. What was it that the devil had said? "If you are the Messiah, make these stones into bread."