A system, apparatus, and methods are provided that support the passing of oversized messages within a publish-subscribe messaging system. During operation, the system subscribes to a message stream brokered by a message brokering cluster that imposes a maximum message size. Responsive to receiving a given message of the message stream, the system (1) determines an offset to commit to the message brokering cluster, wherein the determined offset is based on whether one or more segments of one or more oversized messages are buffered, and (2) commits the determined offset to the message brokering cluster. Responsive to recovering from a crash, wherein the offset at which to resume the receipt of messages from the message stream is unknown, the system then retrieves the determined offset from the message brokering cluster and resumes the receipt of messages from the message brokering cluster based on the determined offset.