Five Loaves and Two Fish

Compassion Is a Matter Repentance, Faith, and Discipleship

Dec 14, 2023

For the last couple of months, I have preached from the Gospel of Mark, a series called Good News. I gave the series this title because the very first verse in Mark says, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.”1

Of course, the good news or gospel involves the coming of the kingdom of God. According to Mark 1:14-15:

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.’”

This proclamation leads to an invitation from Jesus, calling people to come and follow him (1:17). So Mark is clarifying to us that participation in the kingdom of God involves repentance, faith, and discipleship.

More than just letting go of sin, repentance is a call for us to let go of our expectations and ideas of how we should live life so that we can make the turn of receiving the kingdom life that Jesus is calling us into. Such a turn requires us to not just believe in Jesus but believe what Jesus says and does so that we will learn to live like Jesus in our contexts. So our repentance, faith, and discipleship is an ongoing active learning. This is why I have stressed that Mark is written so that we will live as faithful followers of Jesus and thereby enter into the kingdom of God with Jesus.

The emphasis is on living or doing rather than just talking or studying about Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. As the late Dallas Willard so wisely said, “Doing and not just hearing and talking about it is how we know the reality of the kingdom and integrate our life into it.”2 Yet living and doing is more of a challenge than we often realize.

When Mark tells us the story of Jesus providing food to five thousand people in chapter six, we see a stark contrast between Jesus and his disciples. According to the text, Jesus saw the crowd of people and “had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things” (v. 34). Then as the day got late, Jesus tells his disciples to give the people some food to eat. Unlike Jesus, who has compassion for the people, the disciples only see the people as a problem that would take too much money to feed.

Having compassion requires vulnerable and sacrificial service but compassion is the way we follow Jesus as participants in the kingdom of God and thereby extend the kingdom as a blessing to others.

Jesus has compassion for the people but the disciples, not so much. What about us? When we see people in need, hurting, or struggling in some manner, do we have compassion or see the people as a problem—too much of a burden? Such a question calls for reflection and self-examination but for now, let’s just consider what it might mean to have compassion for people like Jesus does.

The etymology of compassion means to suffer with, which we see in Jesus. The word splagchnizomai, which is translated as “compassion,” implies having pity and sympathy. Such compassion in Mark 6 speaks to how Jesus cares for the people.3 More importantly, the compassion of Jesus results in the action of teaching and then feeding the people. Jesus is making the burden of the people his burden, suffering with them by acting for their good.

Jesus offers us an example of what it means to have compassion for others. Compassion is more than just feeling bad. To have compassion for people involves serving people and doing so even when it costs us our time, our emotional energy, and sometimes even our wages. Having compassion requires vulnerable and sacrificial service but compassion is the way we follow Jesus and thereby extend the kingdom as a blessing to others. So if we are serious about repentance, faith, and discipleship as participants in the kingdom of God, learning to have compassion for others is a must.

And by the way, Mark never tells us how Jesus was able to provide enough food from five loaves and two fish. All Mark tells us is that “They all ate and were satisfied” (v. 42). So instead of worrying how we might be able to bless people when we only have five loaves and two fish, let’s just trust that God can take what we have and use it to bless others as serve with compassion for other people.

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 1997, 137.

R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, The New International Greek Testament Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002, 265.