A Desert Place
The Gospel of Matthew records the well-known miracle of Jesus feeding more than five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fishes. Generally, the focus has been placed upon the miracle itself; yet, for the sake of this article, I want to draw your attention to where the miracle took place.
According to the King James Version Bible, Matthew 14:15 calls the place where the miracle occurred a desert place. As I thought about the location of the miracle being called “a desert place,” my mind drifted to the thoughts of the hot and dry deserts that’s found in the southwestern states such as Arizona and Texas. States where there are an overabundance of heat, a lack of vegetation and water.
A desert can be a dry and desolate place. A desert place can become dangerous and life threatening without water, food or shade. A desert place will often leave one feeling physically estranged, all alone or cut off from the world.
Of course, desert places are not always physical places, for if we live long enough, life itself will drag all of us through some spiritual and emotional deserts. What a physical desert does to the body, a spiritual desert does to the soul, by making you feel drained and depleted.
In moments of spiritual deserts, one will often feel disoriented and alienated from God. St. John of the Cross referred to those times as “dark nights of the soul-times when we feel a spiritual drought and estrangement from God.” Those times when you are going through something and feel as though God and everybody else have left you all alone. You’re in a desert place. You’re experiencing some desert moments. Moments of loneliness! Moments of doubt and hopelessness! A desert place can bring about depression, fear and anxiety.
The good news is, in the midst of your desert moments is where Jesus is often found. Just look at what it says in Matthew 14:15. It says, as the evening approached, the disciples got worried and went to Jesus saying, “This is a desert place and it’s getting late. Send them into town so that they can buy some food.”
There’s a couple of things that I need to point out. First of all, I want you to notice that Jesus didn’t say that the multitude of people were in a desert place. It was the disciples that made such a claim. It was the disciples that looked at their situation through natural eyes and called the place a desert. The Bible says that Jesus looked at the same place with divine eyesight and saw something other than a dry desert, for Jesus saw what the place could produce.
Often times we overestimate the dry problem places within our lives and underestimate the power of Jesus that is capable of changing our condition. You may see what or where you are; yet, Jesus can see what you can become or where you can go. The Bible says, thing that are impossible with man can become possibilities with God.
Secondly, when the disciples saw the place as a desert place, Jesus saw it as a place to bring to forth a miracle. The disciples call it a desert: yet, Jesus saw it as a place to feed the multitude of people.
I want someone to know today that your desert situation is no problem for Jesus. It is in the desert of life where Jesus will often meet us. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 14:16. He said, “Don’t send them away; give them something to eat.”
I can hear the disciples saying with a doubting spirit, “We don’t have anything but five loaves of bread and two fishes.” In other words the disciples were saying, we don’t have enough to feed the multitude in this desert. I can imagine that there’s somebody facing a desert situation today, where as you feel as though what you have is not enough. Maybe your relationship or finances are in a dried up desert place. Just maybe your health is facing some desert moments because of a negative doctor’s diagnosis. There’s a lot of people or situations that are capable of driving you into a place that feels like a desert place.
Hope for all that finds themselves within a desert place, is found within what Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 14:18, “Bring the five loaves of bread and two fishes to me.” After which He instructed the disciples to sit the people down, took the bread and fishes, looked up to heaven, gave thanks and broke the bread.
Now! This is the part that I really like, for the Bible says that Jesus gave the bread and fishes to the disciples and the disciples gave it to the people and more than five thousand ate until they were filled. Not only were they filled, for the Gospel of Matthew says that there were twelve baskets of food left over.
It is important that you remember that Jesus didn’t asked the disciples to bring him what they didn’t have, for He asked them to bring what they did have no matter how insufficient it seemed. This says to me that our desert situations are no problem for Jesus. Bring what you have to the Master and He will multiply it. Jesus is not only a multiplier, He is a transformer, healer, provider and the good news is, He can do it all within the desert place of your life.
It behooves us to understand that those people who were blessed in the desert, were blessed because they were following Jesus. That’s what Matthew 14:13 means when it says, “That they followed Him on foot from the town.” This says to me, those that follow Jesus will lack nothing that they need even when in the midst of the desert places of their lives.
Following Jesus is a decision that we all should make. One songwriter best says it when he came out singing, “I can hear may Savior calling, take thy cross and follow me. Where He leads me, I will follow. I’ll go with Him-with Him all the way.”
When Jesus said to His disciples, “feed them,” He said it in order to test the disciple’s faith. Jesus already knew how He was going to feed the multitude. Jesus just wanted to check out His disciple’s faith and see if they could trust Him to make a way in the desert. Sometimes the desert places come to test our faith. A faith that’s genuine. A faith that’s grounded in Jesus requires letting go. Let go of your ego, let go of past mistakes or guilt, let go of your heart ache or pain, let go of the chains that are keeping you bound, let go of the sin and desert places of your life. Surrender it all to Jesus.
Excerpts taken from the sermon titled “A Desert Place” that was preached on March 1, 2020 at Third Street Bethel AME Church.