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After missing last Sunday, we’ll take a second shot at this text from John 6:1-15. Watch out, I had another full week to think about this! Ya know what I thought about? I thought about the fact that John tells us that Jesus was testing his disciples. He already knew that he was going to feed all those people with a miracle. But he gave the disciples that task first.
It must have seemed so perplexing and impossible. Jesus lays the responsibility on the disciples to come up with enough food to feed those thousands. And they were in the wilderness, on the side of a mountain. There’s no Fred Meyer, there are no resources, there is no way that they can physically do it. I wonder what it was like for them to look at each other, frustrated that Jesus was putting this on them.
I’m sure you’ve felt that weight, that frustration before. You wonder why God has given you such an impossible task, and why he hasn’t given you the tools to do it! See, I think Jesus wanted the disciples to feel that weight for a second, and I think he wants us to feel it too. He wants to teach us where to look when we need help. Or to put it in the context of this miracle- when we need “helpings.”
John 6:1-15
6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages[a] to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
