By Dr. Dale W. Barrigar
In Mark 6, we can read the story that is sometimes called “The 5000.” In terms of word count, it’s the length of a modern flash fiction.
Five thousand people come out to hear him. They listen all day. At night they are tired, drained, elated, and far from home. And they are hungry.
His twelve disciples are distressed. The very pressing question on their minds is, “How the h-ll are we going to feed all these hungry people?”
The Teacher does not get upset. Bring me what you have, he says.
They collect what they have. It consists of a few loaves of bread and a few fishes.
The disciples are now even more stressed. How will this ever be enough for all these people? Utterly impossible. And he tells them that they are fools to get concerned.
He starts distributing the fishes and bread to all the hungry ones.
And it turns out that there is enough.
There is more than enough.
Everyone gets enough.
Everyone is able to eat until they are full, and satisfied.
In the space between the impossibility and the outcome lies “the miracle.”
No one really knows what happened in that space.
Jesus was not the only miracle-worker of his time. There were many such. They roamed the countryside, visited the towns, and drifted through the cities all the time.
He was not the only miracle-worker by a long stretch. Back then, it was “a thing” they did, kind of like indigenous peoples in other places would transform themselves through shamanistic rituals and the use of drugs like magic mushrooms or peyote.
The lesson of the story is what matters.
And the lesson is this.
There is enough.
There is more than enough for everyone.
Modern science has proved this many times over.
It is not a matter of producing enough food and shelter for everybody.
The earth can provide, even now, when the population is 8 billion and climbing.
It’s all a matter of how things get distributed.
And it’s all a matter of what people want.
If people’s wants remain simple, and real, and if we all share what there is, there won’t be any problems any more.
Or at least there wouldn’t be the kinds of problems we see now: war, disagreement, stress created by greed, conflict created by desire. All of these things are rampant everywhere right now, from East to West, from North to South, and all points in between.
But there is enough, both materially and spiritually.
How we choose to use what there is – that is the message of the story.
He is the great messenger. But so is the anonymous writer, called “Mark,” who wrote the book of Mark. And so are all the ordinary people who came out to hear him. And so are all the readers of good faith who have studied his works and words over the centuries, no matter what their specific beliefs on other issues (like the afterlife) are, or were.
(Socrates said, “I believe in the afterlife because it makes me feel better to do so. If it isn’t there when I’m dead I won’t know it.
The end.”)
Saragun Springs 
Dale
The words “Merry Christmas” would mean nothing to a Dog (or Cat) even if she understood the language. The Dog is as moral today as yesterday and the forecast is the same for tomorrow. The Dog’s world view is consistent and can be described by the line ascribed to another, Mark– “If you always tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything”
People shove sharing and extending goodwill into little reservations, such as days of the year like Christmas. This proves we know that such things exist, but it also means that the average person is about 1/365th as moral as a Dog. Sounds bleak, but with one on the good side there is always a glimmer of hope.
Thank you for the fine post.
Leila
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Merry Christmas Leila!
Fascinating to consider that homo sapiens have been evolving for approximately 300,000 years, and it’s been six million years since a few brave and curious, furry creatures climbed down out of the trees and started walking across the ground instead and then running to escape the saber-toothed cats and packs of giant hyenas, not always successfully, but successfully enough in the long run so that the thing called “humankind” now dominates the earth despite the fact that octopuses, dolphins, monkeys, and whales are probably smarter (in many ways).
So we’ve been fumbling toward the light for a long time. 2,000 years since the birth of the one Robbie Robertson called “the prince of peace” is a tiny fraction of 300,000 years to say nothing of 6 million.
Maybe we really are struggling toward the light that existed before the world was born. If not, humanity has invented the light for itself and set it above itself as a divine glow. What a wonderful invention. Walt Whitman wrote, “No one will see the end…If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles.”
Thank you for carrying the light, Leila! Without the “saving remnant,” life wouldn’t be worth living.
DWB
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I believe that greed is one of the greatest problems in the world today.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.
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Hi Dale
Great and wise topic for Christmas Day! Jesus calms these doubting people time and again, and he’s still at it now. Jesus is such a cool dude.
I like how you point out these days of miracles, which I believe did happen. Mystics travelling the ancient dusty roads. The truth of The Bible has always convinced me. The literal truth.
Greed always gets in the way, and you make an excellent point that there is enough. But this nefarious greed and fear always gets in the way.
The logic of population control on one hand, but on the other, God said, “Be fruitful and multiply.”
War is such a worthless concept. These boundaries and rival governments do endless damage. “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Putin is such an evil force and another deeply dishonest person that always seems to rise to power.
Merry Christmas!
Christopher
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