A New Devotion - Déjà Vu All over Again

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. It's based on the passage below. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

Mark 8:1-10 [Contemporary English Version]

One day another large crowd gathered around Jesus. They had not brought along anything to eat. So Jesus called his disciples together and said, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been with me for three days, and they don't have anything to eat. Some of them live a long way from here. If I send them away hungry, they might faint on their way home.”

The disciples said, “This place is like a desert. Where can we find enough food to feed such a crowd?”

Jesus asked them how much food they had. They replied, “Seven small loaves of bread.”

After Jesus told the crowd to sit down, he took the seven loaves and gave thanks. He then broke the loaves and handed them to his disciples, who passed them out to the crowd. They also had a few little fish, and after Jesus had blessed these, he told the disciples to pass them around.

The crowd of about 4,000 people ate all they wanted, and the leftovers filled seven large baskets.

As soon as Jesus had sent the people away, he got into the boat with the disciples and crossed to the territory near Dalmanutha. 

Déjà Vu All over Again

Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher of the New York Yankees, was known for making less than logical comments. For example, he said, “If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” And “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.” And “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.” He also said, “It ain’t ‘til it’s over.” But of all the quotes attributed to him, one of the best known was this: It's like déjà vu, all over again. Of course, that really doesn’t make any sense; déjà vu is that uncomfortable feeling that we’ve already experienced in the past, something that we’re going through right now. I mean, it has “all over again” in its meaning; therefore, you wouldn’t say you’re experiencing again the experience of doing something you’ve done before again. And that’s why what Yogi said is considered what’s called a malaprop. 

But having said that, I don’t want to suggest that déjà vu doesn’t occur, because I think it happens all the time, at least it does for me. In fact, I’m experiencing a little bit of that after reading this passage from Mark. I mean, didn’t Jesus just do almost the exact same thing a little bit earlier, when he fed a crowd of 5,000 with five loaves and two fish? And now, he’s doing the same thing with seven small loaves and a few fish. My goodness, if you change a couple of the numbers, it’s the same story, right? It sure seems to be.

But before we claim our “Been There, Done That” t-shirts, I think the numbers are worth looking at, especially the amount of leftovers the disciples collected at the end. Where, in the first story, there were 12 baskets, in the second, there’s only seven baskets filled with bread and pieces of fish. And I’ll tell you, I think that’s significant. You see, the twelve baskets could represent the twelve tribes of Israel; therefore, Jesus was showing that the sustenance he offered was more than enough for the Jewish people. But since seven is a perfect number, this second feeding may be a reminder that he offers enough for us too. In other words, we don’t have to wait like dogs, hoping to get a few crumbs that fall from the table. Instead, we’re important in our own right, and God will care for us just like he did and does for his own people. Now this is good news and not anything like experiencing déjà vu all over again.