They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. Matthew 14:20 (NIV)

The Crowd – The Meal Series – Part 6

Go to  PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4  |  PART 5  |  PART 6  |  PART 7

Sweat dripped down my back. Bodies moved, converged, thronged forward on either side of me. A tidal wave of flesh and blood and expectancy.

Hunger.

Hunger so thick and full that it roared from the pit of our souls.

I couldn’t find him. In the human sea that surrounded me, my eyes searched frantically for his back, face, hair… any part of him that bobbed above the water. There were so many in the crowd I feared I’d lose him forever.

Then I saw his blue robe and his mess of brown hair, I grabbed his arm, a little too tightly, and pulled him close.

I kneeled on the ground, looked him in the eyes, eyes full of wonder and fear, then drew his head next to mine.

“Achim, you must not leave my side.” I forcefully whispered in my son's ear, all the while never loosening my eagle-like grip on his arm and shoulders. Esa, my husband, had gone ahead of us to get a closer look at the teacher, eager to hear his words and witness the signs that we had only ever heard about second hand.

Achim said nothing. Instead, he clutched to me as fiercely as I held onto him.

He could feel it, too.

When we heard that the Rabbi, Jesus, was nearby, we left immediately without thought of what we left behind. And we were not the only ones.

The crowd was thousands strong. Some faces I knew, some I didn’t. Some made me cringe, others brought comfort. We seemed to emerge out of nowhere, an instant convoy of presence and expectation; an unlikely conglomerate of flesh and blood and breath.

Hungry. Fearful. Hopeful.

I prayed to the Father every step of the way that the Romans would not get wind of our gathering. Who knows what they may do with a crowd this large, this strong, this desperate…

The crowd had long since given up its diplomacy, and I could no longer see the teacher or his disciples. But I could hear noises: cries and wails, hollers and shouts, screams and groans. Laughter?

It was maddening.

Achim's eyes grew wider and his nails dug into my arms as we held each other tightly.

Suddenly, the crowd next to me moved, and out of the abyss of bodies, the Rabbi emerged. A man holding his daughter stood before him, crying and pleading, incoherent in his desperate request. Right before my eyes, the Rabbi Jesus kissed the girl on the forehead, whispered in her ear, and I saw the colour of her face change almost instantly. The father began to laugh and cry. Jesus laughed and cried with him, gripped his shoulders and touched his forehead to the overwhelmed father’s, and shared a moment of relief and tenderness that had become far too scarce in our lives.

A tear slid down my face as Esa appeared at my side. “It’s been like this all through the crowd,” he told me. And then we stood together, watching, unable to voice the feelings that danced between us.

Minutes passed, or maybe it was hours, and the Rabbi’s disciples came and interrupted him. There was a disagreement, some more talking, then the Rabbi's disciples started asking us to sit.

“Sit,” I thought? It was late in the day and there was no food for miles. We would need to leave soon before it grew too late to prepare the evening meal.

One of the Rabbi’s disciples asked our neighbours if they had any food, to which they replied, “Nothing.”

Before I even thought to stop him, before I remembered that I brought something with us to eat, all we had in the house, Achim grabbed the sack at my arm and ran toward the Rabbi. I reached to hold him back, but my arms circled thin air. I looked up to see my son hand the Rabbi the food we had brought.

And for an instant, I thought, “Now we’ll be hungry, too.”

Hunger roared with contempt in my body; the culmination of all I had seen and heard throughout the day; all my fears and hopes and worries and wants for the future; it all crashed and welled up within me like a furious fountain. I felt ready to burst with the emotion of it all, when I saw the Rabbi, Jesus, the one they called The Christ, take our food from Achim, hold it to his chest, and whisper words I could not hear.

Then I watched as he extended arms full of fish and bread. Not just the few we had brought, but much, much more.

“Do not fear, Talia,” Esa whispered to me, as he pulled my stunned body to the ground.

As I sat with the people around me, some I never imagined sharing a meal with, the food was distributed, peace blanketed the crowd, and our hunger was satiated.

In more ways than one.

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Go to Part 7 – Five Thousand Mouths »

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