Introduction.
There were twelve baskets full of food gathered from this feast which Jesus made in the wilderness, and twelve are the wholesome lessons which I gather from it, and with which I feed you to-day.
1. Learn fervour and zeal for hearing the Gospel.
“The people,” we are told, “ran afoot out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto Him.” Behold their earnestness, and contrast it with your indifference. They came on foot, they came long distances, they came in great numbers, they outwent Christ and His Apostles, they came voluntarily and without having been summoned, they came oblivious of their bodily wants, bringing with them their wives and children. Faber draws a contrast between these people and his hearers, undoubtedly just, but certainly not flattering: and he applies to the latter the words of God to Ezekiel, “Ye pollute Me among My people for handfuls of barley, and for pieces of bread.”
2. Learn the various effects produced by God’s Word on different hearers.
Faber is singularly infelicitous in filling this basket. He observes that our Lord at one time drew near to the sea, but did not enter it; at another put off a little from land, but soon returned to it, and now in to-day’s Gospel crosses the sea, and having crossed it, performs the miracle: so does He shadow forth three kinds of Christians in His mystical Body, the Church: those who only approach the bitter sea of repentance, those who just enter it and again return to land, and those who traverse it and are found meet to sit down in green pastures at His heavenly banquet.
3. Learn the custody of the eyes.
Christ “lifted up His eyes” and beheld the multitude. He had them before on earth, not straying hither and thither; and so He teaches us to restrain our wandering gaze. His eyes meekly rested on earth; Eve’s, straying among the boughs, saw the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and those wandering eyes brought death into this world. So did the restless eyes of Potiphar’s wife light on Joseph, so did the unguarded eyes of David fall on Bathsheba, and the curious eyes of the two elders on Susanna. But we are not required to keep our eyes always fixed on earth, or closed; but to restrain them from idle curiosity, to avert them from dangerous objects, and to guard them carefully when we pray. There are, on the other hand, times when we should raise them, after the example of Christ. For the considering and relieving of the poor (John vi. 5), in giving thanks (Mark vi. 41), in praying (John xvii. 1), in giving instruction (Luke vi. 20), in seeking the glory of God in all our actions (John xi. 41).
4. Learn to ask God’s blessing on your food.