John 6.1–40
A sermon preached at Kalbarri Anglican Church 12/11/2023 and Geraldton Anglican Cathedral 27/3/2022
We have been discussing Jesus’ miracles. They were real, and an essential part of Jesus’ kingdom-announcing mission, and they were mostly done to help people in need. They also demonstrated his kingly authority, and pointed to what the kingdom of God would be like. And they showed he had the power to create the kingdom he promised.
In this talk we will think about the feeding of the five thousand. Along with his turning water to wine, it is his best-known miracle. If you ever attended Sunday School you’ve heard the story. What you wouldn’t have learnt is what an important part this event played in the mission of Jesus.
The first time Jesus came to Jerusalem after his baptism and testing was at the Passover Festival in AD 27. Some think it was a couple of years later, but that is neither here nor there. He drove the traders out of the temple, and there was a confrontation with the authorities. Suddenly he became a controversial figure. The feeding miracle took place one year later, and one year after that Jesus was put to death. Incredible to think that most of his life’s work was done in less than three years!
After the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus came to Galilee and began to announce the kingdom of God. He couldn’t do that in every community by himself, so he chose and trained twelve men to help. Then he sent them off in six pairs to the Galilean towns he had not yet visited. (Mark 6.7–13) He gave them authority and power to heal the sick and insane. You can imagine the stir it created.
Early in my own ministry a team of us was invited to do a mission in Ravensthorp. I needed guidance on what to teach, and turned to the mission of the twelve for help. I was disappointed that Jesus didn’t tell them what they should teach. How helpful it would have been to later preachers! I eventually saw my mistake: I was thinking this was a teaching mission. No, they were not teaching, just making a simple announcement—and backing it up with miracles. They announced the arrival of the kingdom of God. For Jews, that meant the time of salvation; also the time of judgement and the coming of the future king. It meant there was about to be a new world. This created even more of a stir.
The first question that met them when they made this radical announcement was, “Who says?” and their answer was, “Jesus!” The missioners would then have had to tell everything they knew about him, which wasn’t a lot at this stage, but the story of his healings in Capernaum and the stilling of a storm would have been enough to get people excited. When the missioners returned they were followed by crowds from all the places they had visited. Mark says that so many were coming and going that they had no time to eat. (Mark 6.30–31) It was the high point of Jesus’ popularity. He decided to get the disciples away for some rest and recreation.
When Lorraine and I visited Israel in 1987 one of the things we wanted to do was find the place where Jesus fed the five thousand. Mark gives a good description, so we found it easily—or did we? Kilometers of the eastern shore fits his description. As now, so then, the eastern shore was sparsely populated, but it is a marvelous playground. These days, on Friday afternoons, Israelis pour in for their sabbath-day break. There are camping grounds end on end along the lakeside. On the populated western-side the edge of the lake is strewn with boulders. Wade around in the water and you are likely to break your leg, but the eastern shore has pebble-beaches lapped by crystal-clear water, ideal for swimming. The shore is flat and grassy. Mark tells us there was lots of green grass, which means it was springtime. Jesus and the twelve sailed across the lake. They didn’t count on the excited crowd, which kept them in view and hurried on foot around the north end of the lake. The hoped-for rest didn’t happen, but Mark says as Jesus looked at the crowd he was moved with compassion—compassion again, just like he experienced at the mother’s grief at the funeral of her son. They seemed like “sheep without a shepherd.” That is Mark’s reading of the situation. It means a people without a king. (1 Kings 22.17) Jesus spent the day teaching them, and at the end of the day he fed them—five thousand of them with a few bread rolls and small fish. It caused a sensation.
Coming to John’s account, the first thing to note is that they were all males—the whole five thousand. In 1962 Bishop Hugh Montefiore wrote an article entitled, “Revolt in the Wilderness.” The Galileans were known for their revolutionary tendencies. Five thousand Galilean men going into the wilderness sounds like trouble.
The second clue John gives us is that it happened at Passover time. This agrees with Mark’s comment about green grass—it was springtime. Passover was the Jewish festival of liberation, where they celebrated how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt; they still do. They also dream of the future liberation when the King-Messiah comes. Five thousand Galilean men and a possible Messiah going into the wilderness at Passover time was definitely worrying.
The third thing John tells us, is that, as a consequence of Jesus’ miracle, they wanted to make him king. Only John reveals this political side to the miracle. This was a people who longed to be free; they only waited for the right person to lead them. Jesus was talking about the promised kingdom; he had just done a great sign. Their hopes were now at fever pitch. Had he gone along with it, a Galilean force would have carried him all the way to Jerusalem, and the revolt which started thirty years later, would have begun then. The fourth thing—and this comes from Mark—is that Jesus had to force his disciples into a boat to get them away; they were in danger of joining the crowds in their enthusiasm to make him king; they wanted it more than anyone. Once he had them out of the way, Jesus escaped into the mountain behind, until the excitement fizzled out and the crowd dispersed; he was not prepared to become king on their terms.
This refusal caused great disillusionment among the Jews of Galilee. It seemed like he might be the Messiah, and they were ready to get behind him, but when he wouldn’t do what Messiah was meant to do, he was clearly something else, and people lost interest. Perhaps the authorities were right: he used the power of the Devil to do his miracles. John says, “many of his disciples drew back and no longer went around with him.” (John 6.66) So, the feeding of the five thousand was a turning point. But, although many turned away, it brought Peter and the others to see that he had to be the promised king.
Up until that point they were doubtful, but this clinched it. What he had done outshone even what Moses did. Moses provided manna in the wilderness, but he didn’t create anything; he only gave the Israelites God’s instruction that they should go and pick it up. The feeding miracles—there were two—led straight to Peter’s great confession, “You are the Christ (the Messiah) the Son of the living God.” (Mark 8.29; compare John 6.66–69)
There was a later consequence, which to my mind underlines the historicity of the miracle. Josephus, who wrote the history of the Jews’ war with Rome, tells how in the decade before, when they were being driven to madness by the incompetence and cruelty of a Roman governor, some curious events took place in Judaea and Galilee. A succession of revolutionary leaders—Josephus calls them charlatans—led their followers into the wilderness, promising them “signs of liberation,” after which they would enter Jerusalem, and oust the Romans. One after another they were chased by the Roman army and dispersed. But where did they get the idea they could do miracles, and then lead their followers to establish a new kingdom? Well, there was an occasion twenty-five years earlier when a man named Jesus fed five thousand Galilean men in the wilderness, but failed to follow through on it; the memory was still fresh in people’s minds twenty years later. That Jesus fed the five thousand I regard as a historical fact; it was perhaps the most spectacular of his miracles, apart from the resurrection itself. But what did it mean?
At the beginning of his ministry it was suggested to Jesus that he command stones to become bread.” “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word coming from the mouth of God,” he said. He recognized the temptation, and would not use his miraculous powers this way. And yet a year later here he is, doing just that. It seems a strange contradiction until you pick up on what he says to the crowds when they catch up with him on the other side of the lake.
Truly, truly, I say to you,you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. (John 6.26)
But surely, they were flocking around him because they had seen a sign. “No,” says Jesus, “you are only interested in filling your bellies.” He regarded their excitement as just another manifestation of their craving for bread, food, games, entertainment—anything but God. They were failing to see through the sign to what it signified. They wanted a king who would provide for their physical and political wants and needs; they had no interest in discovering God’s plan for their life. If Jesus had gone with them, he could have revelled in the popularity, but as soon as he went some way other than what they wished, they would leave him. This is the reality of politics, and the tragedy we see unrolling in our own country. A leader will be popular so long as he or she maintains the handouts, and keeps people entertained. This is the temptation Jesus faced at the beginning: do miracles to win the allegiance of the crowds. But what will happen when he tries to lead them into a friendship with God? He wouldn’t do it then, but when he was faced with a hungry crowd, then compassion required it. But then he had to deal with the excitement that followed.
Do not work for the food that perishes, but forthe food that endures to eternal life, whichthe Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father hasset his seal. (John 6.27)
Jesus is steering them towards eternal life. Eternal life is the way John speaks about the kingdom of God. “Kingdom of God” was Jewish talk; “eternal life” meant more to gentiles. Eternal life is the life of the aeon, the age-to-come. The irony is that ultimately the kingdom of God means the end of poverty and need, and all the world’s political problems, but there are bigger problems that need to be dealt with first. There is our rebellion, our alienation from our creator, our guilt, and our inevitable death. These men who were clamouring for food and freedom forgot that they would all be dead within a generation—and facing the judgement of God. There could be no kingdom of God without people being reconciled to God. That is what Jesus has his sights set on.
The crowd is still hopeful. They think he must be giving them a moral lesson. “OK,” they say, “we understand you are a rabbi. Tell us what we must do to be doing the will of God?” Perhaps they thought he would give them a dressing down about one or other of the commandments.
Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he has sent.”
This was not what they were expecting. What God wants for us is to trust his Son. So many today tell us Jesus taught a simple rule, “Love your neighbour as yourself!” He did, though none of us do it. Jesus did not come to teach the law; he came to be the saviour of men and women who had failed to keep the law. He came as the physician-healer we all need in our sickness.
When I was about forty, I began to have hearing difficulties. The specialist found I had a tumour inside my head and offered to remove it. An experienced surgeon-friend advised against it. It was a new procedure, and dangerous; a third of those who went through it died during the operation. It was also controversial in surgical terms, for the surgeon was working through a small hole in my skull—”like operating at the end of a tunnel,” my friend said. He suggested a second opinion. I was able to see Perth’s leading neurosurgeon, who said to me, “If I had what you had, I would trust your ENT man.” So I did—the alternative was death—and although the procedure took eleven hours, when any slip meant paralysis or death, he brought me through.
The truth is, every one of us is on a road that leads to death, and Jesus is the only doctor with the skill and power to save us. “What shall we do to be doing the work of God?” “The work of God is this: that you believe in the one he has sent.” Trust the surgeon! God wants to save us from death and hell. That is why he sent Jesus. That is why Jesus wouldn’t follow the path of popularity, but took the road to suffering and the cross. What should we be doing to do the work of God? Believe in the one he has sent. Trust the surgeon. Believe in God’s Son.