Wartime Gospel

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” 

Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied. 

They picked up the fragments left over – seven baskets. There were about four thousand people. He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha. (Mark 8:1-10)

Mark wrote this story of Jesus for a Christ-community around the year 70 when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.  In year 66 a Jewish revolt broke out against Rome.  Devastation was the result by a punishing empire. Mark was a wartime gospel.   

We can imagine Jesus’ heart “moved with pity for the crowd” because Mark knew of this devastation in “this deserted place.” Perhaps Mark was comforting survivors and his community by reminding them of the three days [in the tomb]; their waiting those three days with nothing to eat; and the resurrection implying they would also be resurrected and rise again.

Mark’s repeated reference to the number seven, the 7 loaves and 7 baskets, perhaps was an allusion to Rome with its 7 hills.  My guess would be Mark implied and predicted that the seven hills, Rome, would be “broken” [like the loaves] by God and then “distributed” [dispersed] like the beaten and crushed people of Jerusalem.  

Mark and his community expected the second coming of Jesus soon.  Jesus would come to make things new; that is, to “pick up the fragments left over” of the Jewish people.  Perhaps the 4,000 people were the fragments.   

I base my guess on the fact that Mark was a wartime gospel.  Of course, there are other explanations, other educated guesses.  I prefer to place myself in the mind of an author having witnessed Jerusalem destroyed with thousands of crucifixions by a hostile, angry, and cruel empire.

Deacon David Pierce