Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.”  The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?”  Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”  Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.  Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children.  After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.

Who are these men and woman who have gone several days into the wilderness to see Christ?  They are those who are disillusioned with the world, the oppressed, the downtrodden, those who have grown weary of their wealth and seek a deeper meaning, they are the broken of body, spirit, or mind, they are those who are weary of sin, who thirst for righteousness, who know their hunger which can be satisfied only by God.  They are you and I.

But satisfaction does not come at once.  For days they were in the desert and now had no food and were considered by even their creator to be in a pitiable state.  Why wait so long Lord?  You who created the human soul and you who alone know it are aware of our need to follow, to seek, to persevere in our quest for our unspoken longing.  We are the hangers-on.  Those who missed the world have long since returned to it.  But we, to whom shall we go?  You alone Lord are the word of life.

But your word is a sword, separating bone from marrow.  And so our attachments to all the empty allurements of the world - ultimately to even our own ideas and conceptions of you - are cut away.  Our spirit is drawn to follow your voice into the wilderness.  Knowing that we will suffer and hunger, still we trudge on.  Out here there  is only you to feed us.  So we wait, and hope.  For you are the God of abundance.  And when you give, it is in such plenitude there are always leftovers.  And so you move deeper into the desert.  And so we follow.