The first issue to observe is verse 36. After a long day that was supposed to be spent on vacation with Jesus the disciples seem to become slightly impatient with the multitude and tell Jesus to get rid of them, "send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat". Telling Jesus what He should do is an indicator that there is a lack of faith in Him and impatience, which Jesus deals with directly when He turns it around and says "you give them something to eat". We are all guilty of doing this from time to time. Others come to us knowing that we are Christians, and they ask questions and try to dialogue with us, because they are spiritually starving and they are seeking food, yet we give them a half confident answer and then try to send them over to someone who we think is more spiritually mature.
Where is the problem in that? Its in the fact that when they come to us there is a very real chance they will meet Christ, but we send them away not knowing if they will ever talk to the person we're trying to send them to, and we thus leave someones potential relationship with Jesus up to chance. The command of Jesus, "you give them something to eat", is then followed by another command when the disciples ask if they should go out and buy lots of bread when He says, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." The last part, "Go and see", is a call to remember and take inventory of all that Jesus has done for us and given to us. In the disciples case they found that they only had five loaves and two fish, which is far short of feeding five thousand; in our case the little bit we have (or what we view as a little bit) never seems to be enough to feed a starving soul, and in reality it isn't, just as five loaves and two fish will never feed five thousand. The truly incredible change in both instances is that when we and the disciples offer that little bit we have in faith to feed others Jesus works through that to feed five thousand people physically and hungry souls spiritually; it is not us or the disciples that truly feed anyone but Jesus operating through that faith which feeds and satisfies.
Think for a moment about how useless it would have been for the disciples to leave Jesus out of it and try to divide five loaves of bread and two fish among five thousand people. The same uselessness exists when we try to reach others and feed others without Jesus. The problem may seem obvious, but if so then why do we make that very mistake again and again and wonder why no spiritual growth can be felt or seen?
As obedient Christ followers who were once dead but now born again through Jesus we are the gates of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who comes to us will be able to come to Jesus if we open ourselves to them, extend the little bit of spiritual food we have to them, and allow Jesus to move through that to reach and connect to them, and finally welcoming them into the kingdom of heaven.
