Jesus’s fame is spreading. Miracle-working and angering the elites tends to do that. Herod the tetrarch (not the same Herod who previously tried to kill Him) had John the Baptist killed and now believes Jesus to be the resurrected form of him, as explanation for Jesus’s powers. John had criticized Herod for marrying his brother’s wife (Herod was a Jew and this was illegal under Jewish law), which she didn’t care for. She wants John dead for sticking his nose (rightfully) into their business, but Herod knows he’s in the wrong and all the Jews under his rule would not stand for killing a popular prophet to cover his crimes. So she waits until Herod is throwing a party for himself and uses her teenage daughter from her previous marriage to do a “dance” that Herod found very “pleasing” causing him to promise to give her anything she wanted. We’re all adults here, we know what that means. And that is some wicked stuff. Using your daughter to excite your husband to get him to kill a prophet because he called you out on your illegal marriage? Mommy tells daughter to request John’s head on a platter. And now Herod is honorbound to do it or lose face. John is already in prison at this time, so off with his head–the sentence is carried out immediately and the head is gruesomely delivered to the girl.

For those of you without familiarity with the Old Testament, this is hardly a shocking end for a prophet. I don’t know. If I was told by God I was going to be a prophet for Him, I think getting a Will made would be the first thing I attended to. Jews kill their prophets, as Jesus points out.

His disciples come and take the body (yes just the body) to give a proper burial and report to Jesus. How Jesus was also John despite John being alive during the miracle working is for Herod to explain (he doesn’t). He may have just been neurotic with guilt because he knew full well it was wrong, which is why he hadn’t done it to begin with. Jesus takes the news about as well as you can and takes some time for Himself. Just kidding, the crowds follow Him along the shoreline and are there in His planned place of solitude awaiting healing. Jesus, in His endless compassion, puts their needs first and heals their sick. But now the hour is late and no one has all that much food. Get these crowds out of here to go feed themselves. Jesus has another plan: we can feed them. Impossible, there’s thousands of people and food for Jesus and the apostles at best.

We arrive at one of those pivotal “everyone Christian or not knows this story” moments. The loaves and the fish. So materially there’s no way to make this work. The disciples, as humans go, have made the optimal recommendation to their master. You simply can’t accomplish the task with so few resources. But Jesus reminds us that with the tiniest bit we can offer Him, He can work wonders that a human can’t. He blesses the food for a small dinner outing and feeds an army with it. Oh, you wanted to know how? Like the physical mechanics involved, like what you would see if you were there? Don’t know, not elaborated on. I like to think He’d go to pick one up and as He lifted it off the ground, the original would remain, like copy & pasting. Really it doesn’t matter. “But physics”. Neat, He’s God. Physics work as He likes. If He can create a universe from nothing, a couple herring aren’t a huge deal. Take your “conservation of matter” back to reddit. He disregards reality enough that there’s 12 baskets of leftovers after everyone has eaten.

That’s a lot of miracles. He healed thousands, fed them, and presumably sent some home with extra. This time he INSISTS that everyone give Him space, disciples and crowds alike. He goes to the mountains (hills?) of Bethsaida to pray, demonstrating that if Christ needs prayer, we mortals certainly do. Unsure what specifically He prayed about but the chapter timing (though this is Matthew) suggests possibility it was regarding John the Baptist. “Why does Jesus pray to God if He IS God?” Excellent question.

Because they’re Father and Son. And Jesus took the form of a servant of God (a man). And other things related to Jesus’s nature as Man and God and how the Trinity works. This is the simplest I can make this. At this time, please pull out your “It’s a mystery” cheat card and review it.

The boat filled with His disciples is waiting in the sea for Him and getting battered by weather so He walks across the sea to them instead (a few miles away). The disciples see a figure approaching them on the surface of the water and freak out thinking it’s a ghost. The Jewish religion didn’t have a whole lot of allowance for ghosts so maybe they picked that up from the Greeks. Peter, oddly, says to prove it, let him come out to walk to Jesus on the water as well. Peter is a kind of jumpy guy though and is the group hothead, so it’s not as weird as you think. Plus, Jesus empowered them to do miracles on His behalf already, so this might be more of a “oh cool me too me too” moment. Peter is great. Jesus commands him to come over and Peter does just that, but just as he’s quick to run hot, he can run cold on a dime. The wind spooks him and he started to sink. Jesus rescues him but rebukes “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Peter it was great you had enough to get started but at the first sign of trouble it all faded. Lesson for all of us. Everyone is a confident Christian with unshakeable faith until the bad times come rolling in. The pull the boat in and sure enough, crowds begging for healing and Jesus obliges.