When Jesus fed the five thousand men, (plus thousands of women and children?) was he demonstrating his own body broken? In Matthew 14, this miracle comes soon after Jesus hears of John's beheading. Jesus knew, intellectually, that John's mission was to herald the Messiah. Jesus knew himself to be Messiah. When Jesus heard of John's death, he withdrew "to a lonely place to be alone." What was he thinking? Did it strike him with emotional force that his own death was just around the corner? Was he contemplating his own humiliating demise?

As a human being, Jesus learned as we learn. We know some kinds of information because others have told us. At the equator, the circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles. If someone returns from a trip around the world and spends hours telling us of the dress of the little girls in a Thai village, describing their hike on the Great Wall of China, and how they watched Inuit people hunt whales, we posses a second level of knowledge. We've gotten a feel for the vastness of the earth, just by how long it takes to tell the tales.  We learn, best, of course, by our own experience.

Was Jesus, confronted with John's death, pulled into that second level of understanding? A vicarious anticipation of his own humiliation and death? I was struck this morning, upon imagining the image of the bread, multiplied and broken, that Jesus was symbolically acting out his own death. Not only the breaking of the bread, but the feeding of thousands by that brokenness. I'm guessing, being God as well as one of us, he knew exactly what he was doing. I wonder what he was thinking and feeling.

Jesus, thank you for experiencing this life so we can experience your life.