{"id":1570,"date":"2020-07-30T17:43:22","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T16:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1570"},"modified":"2020-09-21T10:42:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T09:42:04","slug":"message-from-the-minister-letter-9-sunday-2-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1570","title":{"rendered":"Message from the Minister Letter 9 &#8211; Sunday 2 August"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear\nall,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nhope and pray that this letter finds you well.&nbsp;\nFood is important for us all and many people enjoy catching up with\nfriends and family over a home cooked meal, going out to a restaurant or having\na nice picnic.&nbsp; We may have to do these\nthings slightly differently in the future but the principle remains the\nsame.&nbsp; It is good to share food and\nconversation together.&nbsp; We come this week\nto a familiar passage from Matthew\u2019s gospel, 14: 13-21, in which Jesus feeds\nthe five thousand.&nbsp; Jesus has had some\nbad news and so retreats to a quieter place to mourn the loss of his cousin,\nJohn the Baptist.&nbsp; Even Jesus needed time\nto grieve, and spend some time in reflection.&nbsp;\nWe should take comfort from this, knowing that when we go through\ndifficult times, it is okay to take time out to grieve, pause and reflect.&nbsp; When Jesus\u2019 boat lands ashore, a large crowd\nhas gathered and Jesus has compassion on them and heals the sick.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Due\nto the fact Jesus has gone somewhere remote by boat and the crowds have\nfollowed by foot, the disciples are concerned about how all the people\nassembled are going to be fed. &nbsp;The\ndisciples ask Jesus to send the people away so that they can buy food from\nnearby villages.&nbsp; Jesus asks the\ndisciples to sort them out themselves.&nbsp;\nThis really is incredible; imagine being a disciple and wondering how to\nfeed all those people, what a challenge!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe disciples report that they only have five loaves of broad and two\nfish.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\nasks for the food to be brought to Him and notice in this account it does not\nsay where the food came from.&nbsp; The people\nare asked to sit and Jesus takes the food, looks up to heaven and blesses\nit.&nbsp; The food is then distributed by the\ndisciples.&nbsp; Amazingly, all the people are\nfed and there are twelve baskets of food leftover, more food than there was at\nthe beginning.&nbsp; Furthermore, Matthew\nclarifies that the figure of those eating was five thousand men excluding the\nwomen and the children, so the reality was they could have been much more than\nfive thousand people in total.&nbsp; How\nincredible is this miracle and what does it teach us?&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Firstly,\nthat Jesus is full of compassion has mercy on the people gathered and he helps\nthem by healing the sick.&nbsp; Secondly, he\nmeets their physical needs by feeding them to ensure they are looked\nafter.&nbsp; He is thankful to God by blessing\nthe food and proves to the people that prayer does work.&nbsp; Therefore, we can be thankful we serve an amazing\nGod, exemplified in Jesus, who is capable of doing miraculous things to cater\nfor the needs of the people.&nbsp; So whatever\nour circumstances we can have confidence in our great God.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May\nthe Lord Jesus Christ; the compassionate and provider bless you, now and\nalways, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear all, I hope and pray that this letter finds you well.&nbsp; Food is important for us all and many people enjoy catching up with friends and family over a home cooked meal, going out to a restaurant or having&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1571,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions\/1571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}