The Power of Sharing - A Forecast of God's Empire
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- Category: Jesus and the Manna Principle
In the wilderness of first century Israel, when thousands of people are hungry, Jesus asks his crew to share the meagre amount of food they have in their possession with their fellow countrymen. Not only do the five loaves and two fish prove enough for everyone, but after the multitude have had their fill, the disciples find there’s still food left over to fill twelve baskets.
And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
Mark 6:42-44.
- Yahweh, the God of the Slaves, brings his people out of the Egyptian Empire’s oppression, and starts them on a different kind of society where he rains down manna from the heavens to satisfy their hunger with a caveat that they not hoard it, but take only what they need and share with their neighbor.
- Much later, Jesus, the son of that very God, follows the same model and makes the people under the Roman Empire take the next step in that journey.
- As a matter of fact, he refrains from raining down food from the sky, which is something entirely within the range of his powers in light of the miracles he performs elsewhere.
- Instead, he asks them to share the very little they have with everyone else and then he miraculously amplifies the sheer power of that act of sharing, making that shared food good enough for all of them, with twelve baskets of left overs.
Those twelve baskets are a bit heavy on symbolism as they seem to represent food that can satisfy all the twelve tribes that make up the suffering people of Israel, which in turn depicts all humanity across the world that has been and still is in anguish under the boot of man-made Empires. This entire incident essentially points towards the restoration of humankind in the Kingdom of God, which is the main message of Jesus’ ministry (Luke 8:1).
In the first century, the shared food in the wilderness satisfies the hunger of a crowd mostly made of peasants, who are suffering under the heel of Caesar’s imperial Roman economy. Jesus promises them a better future where no one will go hungry.
Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh."
Luke 6:20–21.
So, how will this better future come to be? In the thousand-year kingdom of God, all of humanity are to be resurrected back on Earth (1Corinthians 15:21-22). But how exactly will their hunger be satisfied? There is a clue in the way these resurrected people are to be judged at the end of that kingdom. Their behavior during those thousand years will be used as a barometer. During the kingdom, Jesus will expect those who have food and drink to share with those who don’t, the very same ask he demands of his followers during the feeding of the multitude in the first century wilderness of Israel.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in'
Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?'
And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’
Matthew 25:34-40
Yes, only those who pass this test, will get the right to live on the restored Edenic Earth, which was the original inheritance prepared for Humans since Genesis. The people of Israel failed a similar test during the Trial of the Manna due to the indoctrination of their lives under Joseph’s Egyptian Empire, and all of humanity continues to fail that test even today under the hold of Empires of Men. But every human since Adam will get a chance to pass that test in the Kingdom, free of the influence of Men’s Empires, but under the guidance of the Empire of Yahweh. And that’s how humans will themselves ensure food security for all of their own under the leadership of God’s Empire. And there will be no more hunger! (Rev 7:16)
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