Returning from the region of the Canaanites, Jesus returned to the Galilee region, where He had become well-known. As He went up on the mountain from which He had earlier delivered extensive teaching to the disciples alone (Matthew 5-7), this time He allowed the crowds to come up to Him as well. As the disciples looked on, the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others were put at Jesus’ feet, and He cured them (Matthew 15:30). “At his feet” appears throughout the Scripture, referring to submission, surrender, and offering of oneself or one’s needs to God. In the stories of Jesus, it also refers to a posture of learning, as when Mary of Bethany who sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to His teaching (Luke 10:39). And so, in this situation, the crowd seemed to surrender their most challenging needs to Jesus, waiting upon Him for His Word and Spirit. And the results were remarkable.
However, just a short while later, Jesus’ own disciples forgot that being at Jesus’ feet is the spiritual posture of a true disciple. When Jesus indicated that, out of His compassion, He wanted to feed the hungry crowd, His disciples once again thought that it was up to them to make a miracle, just as they had done only recently in the feeding of the five thousand, told in Matthew 14:17ff. And so, the miracle of the feeding of thousands is repeated here, almost action for action, word for word. Perhaps the purpose of this repeat miracle is not only that there was another hungry crowd to be fed, and not only that the disciples were again reminded that Jesus can do miracles, but also that they needed to remember to submit all of their needs to God. In Jesus’ day, curing someone as sick as those brought before Jesus that day was clearly “His” work; however, making a meal seemed to be “their” work, and so they were anxious about getting it done. Jesus was reminding them that, in all cases — in situations seen to be so desperate that only God could do it, as well as situations where the disciples thought they could do it — in all cases they need to bring their needs to the feet of Jesus, to receive the power of His Holy Spirit, and to receive His Word that could help them to get the job done.
The things that disciples like you and me tend to worry most about seem to be the things over which we believe that we have some control. We’re happy to give God our hopeless cases (though we may have some difficulty trusting Him with them), but the challenging situations, in which we have a role to play or something to do, those are the ones where we tend anxiously to assume that it’s all up to us. We forget that, right in front of us, is our Lord, waiting to give us His Spirit and His Word, to shoulder the burden that we think is ours, to take the yoke that seems to be so heavy for us.
So today, having sat at Jesus’ feet as you’re doing now, don’t forget to keep bringing yourself and your needs, both great and small, to those same beautiful feet of His, surrendering, submitting, receiving, and acting, in His power and peace, as a real disciple.
