In her
recent book on women and the priesthood, Wendy Ulrich had a really nice section
entitled “Christ as Deacon”:
Jesus Christ, the Jehovah of the Old
Testament who provides manna to the Israelites, retains His flock-feeding role
during His mortality. In fact, Jesus teaches that He is the Bread of Life that
comes down from heaven that, unlike manna of old, will completely satisfy the
hunger of those who eat it, giving them eternal life (see John 6:48-50). Christ
further demonstrates His role as the Shepherd and feeder of the flock when, one
two occasions, He feeds thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes (see
Mark 6:30-32; 8:1-9; John 6:5-13).
Consider the ironic setting for one of these
occasions: Christ proposes taking His Apostles to the desert to “rest a while;
for there were many coming and going, and they
had no leisure so much as to eat” (Mark 6:31; emphasis added). Despite His
efforts to feed them, however, the private, leisurely picnic is overrun with
thousands of people eager to hear from this new and inspiring teacher. Rather
than being annoyed, Jesus “was moved with compassion toward them, because they
were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them” (v. 34). Then,
when the day is far spent, the compassion of the faithful Shepherd and Priest
moves Him to feed His flock. There is not a bakery in sight; in fact, many
bakeries would be woefully inadequate for such a crowd. But Jesus takes a
little bread and fish, looks up to heaven to give thanks, breaks the loaves,
and asks His disciples to take the deacon’s role of distributing the miraculously
multiplying food until more than five thousand “did all eat, and were filled”
(v. 42).
Christ had refused to feed Himself through
supernatural means after fasting for forty days in the wilderness (see Matthew
4:4), but He does not hesitate to pull out all the stops in miraculously (and
publicly) feeding His sheep. In this time period, men did the planting and the
harvesting and women prepared the food for the family. But Jesus does it all
from a few borrowed loaves and fishes as the disciples “wait on” the guests.
Even though there are thousands, millions,
billions of us, Christ continues to feed us, too. As utterly unlikely as it
seems, a woman could conceivably forget her nursing child, Christ teaches, but
He will never forget us, engraven as we are on the palms of His hands (see
Isaiah 49:15-16). He feeds us primarily, however, though us—through giving the basket of
food over to us to distribute to the world. Both women and men share in this
physical and spiritual commission. When we distribute the world’s resources in
accordance with His principles, there is enough and to spare (see D&C
104:17), for we are acting with godly power in a godly role. (Wendy Ulrich, Live Up to Our Privileges: Women, Power, and
Priesthood [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019], 56-58)
In a
footnote for the following, I was happy to see that, when discussing the
wedding at Cana, Ulrich did not quality the “wine” Jesus miraculously produced
from water as being “grape juice” (surprisingly [and rather, frustratingly, as
they are simply wrong] I have encountered some errant Latter-day Saints who
think it was not alcoholic wine!):
Even before His formal ministry begins,
Christ miraculously (and privately) turns about 135 gallons of water into wine at the end of a marriage feast, just
because his mother was worried they might run out. I don’t know how many people
typically showed up at the average wedding feast in Cana, but by any
conceivable estimation that must have been quite a feast (see John 2:1-10; a
firkin was about nine gallons). (Ibid., 57 n. 6)
