Jesus and Paparazzi

Quick quiz! Without looking, what is the event that directly preceded Jesus feeding the five thousand? 

When we read the gospels, the uninspired section headers paired with our paragraph-by-paragraph Bible-reading habits can causes us to read the gospels as disjoint short stories instead of the unified narrative that it is (which is why manuscript study is often very nice).

I noticed something for the first time the other day, something that I've never seen before. Directly preceding the feeding of the five thousand are these verses:

"And [John the Baptist's] disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus [that John had just been beheaded]. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick." -Matthew 14:12-14

Here's the scene. Jesus receives word that his servant and friend, cousin, and the guy who he said was the greatest man ever had been executed. Wanting some time alone to grieve and pray, he withdraws to be by himself. BUT the mob of people follow him, presumably cutting short his grieving time. Despite the crowd's insensitivity, Jesus still has compassion on them.

I recently spent a good amount of time watching videos celebrities fighting paparazzi. Be it those bothering Justin Beiber, Jay-Z, or Kanye, I just love to hate paparazzi, people who basically make a living by making others' lives hell. Camping outside of Kanye's house at 4AM? Come on. Leave the guy alone. The nosiness, insensitivity, and generally scumminess of paparazzi even makes me root for Justin Beiber when he kind of runs one guy over with a car (link above).

Having mobs of people following you that want things from you must be truly awful. And this must have been even worse for Jesus, as he was mourning the loss of someone he loved and regarded very highly, and the crowd relentlessly didn't allow him to have his privacy in his time of loss. And yet "he had compassion on them". Jesus is amazing. If it was me (or Kanye or Beiber), I would have thrown a hissy fit, probably punching some people, cursing them out, and possibly running one over with a car. Having relentless crowds tailing you is bad enough, but in time of mourning? That must be unbearable.

How great the compassion of Christ that he had compassion on and served people who were rudely intruding on his life! How foolish of us to doubt God's care and hesitate to bring our burdens to him when we know that he is a God of utmost patience and compassion!

[In case any of you were wondering if this is in fact chronologically accurate, in all four Gospels, it seems that Jesus either hears about John's death or is speaking about John right before he feeds the five thousand. Mark 6:29-30, Luke 9:7-10, John 5:33-6:1]