Setting the Table
The text this week is John 6:1-21. This is the story of the feeding of the 5000. This is an important story, if for no other reason than that other than the Resurrection itself, it is the only miracle story to appear in all 4 Gospels. It starts off much like last week’s text, with Jesus and the disciples looking for some alone time on the mountain. Yet, once again, the crowds follow Jesus. Jesus knows immediately what He is going to do here (Verse 6). He gets Philip to admit that 6-months wages could not buy enough food to feed the crowd. Andrew then points out that there is a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but that will hardly suffice. We all know what happens next, Jesus instructs everyone to sit and be fed, and miraculously, there is enough for everyone.
We Get Insight for Dessert
What are we to make of all this? There are some obvious meanings and some subtle ones. Obviously this speaks to Jesus’s ability to perform miracles. This also points to the abundance of God’s grace upon grace in feeding His people, literally (through work) and spiritually (through faith). The miracles, of course, only confirm Jesus’s place as the one, “the prophet who is to come into the world” (Verse 14).
The subtle points are important as well. First, it should be noted that it was a boy who had the initial food that Jesus multiplied. A small, insignificant person in the eyes of the community. Once again, God chooses the forgotten and the marginalized to carry out His work. It just underlines, once again, that we all have a part to play in proclaiming the love of God.
The other subtle insight is the fact that it was not the crowd who asked, or begged, or pestered Jesus for food. Apparently, no one who followed Jesus up the mountain expected to be fed. Why would they expect such a thing? There was just Jesus and His followers, none of whom had enough money to feed that many people. True, the crowd wanted to be filled with Jesus’s words and ideas, but not dinner.
Yet, as is always the case, Jesus sees our need and meets us at the point of our greatest need. He sees this need, even if we do not. Additionally Jesus fills us not only with ideas, and words, but also the faith that saves, and in fact everything that we need. Jesus offers us life, and abundant, eternal life at that, even when we don’t expect it.
All these insights are a reminder of who Jesus is, and how we ought to think about Him, and what He has given us. He is here for us, and provides for us, even when we ourselves do not see the need. He provides all that we need for an eternal relationship with our Father in Heaven. He also provides the wherewithal (again combined with work) to have what we need to sustain us in the here and now. All we need is to believe, and obey accordingly.
Praise Be to God
