John 6:1-15--Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

John 6:1-15
English Standard Version

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
6 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

​15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

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Jesus now leaves the area of Judea and heads over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee We'll see him remain in Galilee and the area of the Decapolis for quite a while now as He seems to want to avoid Jerusalem and all of Judea as much as possible now for he knows that the time is not yet right for His crucifixion, but we see that there will be other issues and obstacles and temptations for Jesus in this passage.  Before we jump into today's passage though, I do want to make sure that we're staying focused on the main point of the Gospel of John and that we don't miss the forest for the trees.  Many sermons are preached on this passage for many other reasons other than the reason that we know the apostle John is trying to convey here.  We know that the main point here is that this is even more evidence (another "sign") that Jesus is the Son of God.  There's lots to compare and contrast here with how these Jews in Galilee responded versus the religious leaders in Judea versus the the Samaritans.  This passage and the following ones will closely examine the hearts of the people and see why they responded the way they did.  It's not really a passage about sharing or stewardship, though I'm not sure it's wrong to point out the fact that the boy gave what little he had for lunch and put it into Jesus' hands not knowing what He was going to do with it (the boy didn't know it would be multiplied--he might have even just thought he was simply giving it to Jesus because the Master needed it).

With this in mind, that this passage is once again about establishing that Jesus is who He said He was, let's dive in and see some of what's going on here.  The people have seen the signs of the healings that Jesus is doing, but instead of seeing and believing they see and simply want to see more.  They follow Jesus to stay close to Him to see if maybe the blessings that He's pouring out might pour out on them or even if they might get a little bit splashed on them as they are pouring out on others.  They just needed to be close to this man Jesus because they could tell that His star was rising and they wanted to be around when His big moment came, which they presumed was that He would become so rich and famous that He would become king--and we'll see that the people were ready to try to force him to become king, even though it wasn't the time for that.  We've already seen from the temptation in the wilderness in the book of Matthew that this is one of the temptations that Jesus was continually bombarded with--to just set up the kingdom now and to be happy with a kingdom of unredeemed, unregenerate sinners and an earthly kingdom still polluted by sin and death--but a "kingdom" that He could have right now without the cross.  Many of the Jews had a "kingdom now" philosophy where they were waiting for a Messiah that was a shepherd, military commander, and king like David (and also like Moses as we'll see comparisons to Moses later), but they did not see Messiah as The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world--no one expected that other than the few people that God revealed that too, and even some of those who had it revealed to them them forgot about it and forgot what the kingdom of God was all about.

For a little context and putting some pieces together, since this is one of the miracles we see in all four gospels, we know that John the Baptist has just died and that Jesus is trying to head away into the Galilean countryside for some time to be alone and to mourn the loss of His close friend--and remember that many of the disciples were close to John too, for many had started off as his disciples before following Jesus.  The people are continuing to follow Him and press in on Him though and they follow Him a long distance away from any of the nearby towns, bringing no provisions for themselves because they weren't thinking about this--they just knew they needed to be close to Him.  The disciples became concerned for the people and asked Jesus to send them away to the towns so that they could get food and have shelter for the evening, but Jesus said it was too late for that, for the people were so exhausted and hungry that they would faint on the way back and many would not make it.  He tests the disciples by telling them to give the people something to eat, and after they did a little math Phillip figured that even if they had 200 denarii (about six-months of wages) they wouldn't even have enough to buy a little bread for everyone (nor would there be that much bread available for them to buy in any of the towns).  Jesus then turned the question around and said, "Well, exactly how much bread do you have?  Go and look!"  It was then that Andrew found the boy with the lunch of five loaves and two small fish.  Jesus then said "It is enough." and commanded that the disciples have the people sit down in groups so that they would all be accounted for.  I'm sure the disciples and the people must have been thinking "Enough for what?" at this point.

We'll pick back up in the Gospel of John now at verse 10 where we see that there were about 5,000 in number (we know that this number only included the men and excluded the women and children, so it might be safe to say that there were closer to 5,000 families being fed there).  Jesus took the loaves and fish and give thanks for them and He started to break them and distribute them, and miraculously there was an over-abundance.  My mind goes back to the widow in 2 Kings 4:1-7.  The Jews immediately think of Moses and the manna from heaven.  Both are great pictures in the Old Testament of God providing for our needs, but I like the picture from 2 Kings more because of the abundance that was left-over that was in proportion to the faith of the recipient in what they believed God was able to do.  Jesus provided so much that not only was everyone fed, but there were 12 baskets-full of leftovers (and believe it or not, no one is going to bring any with them in the next part of the story).  The people respond saying "This is indeed the Prophet" (referring to the same Deuteronomy 18:18 passage that the Samaritan woman at the well referred to), but it's clear that they wanted this one that was like Moses because they focused on their physical needs and not their spiritual ones when they would say later--"Give us this bread always" which was similar to the Samaritan woman asking Jesus for the living water that He spoke of so that she would never have to come can draw water from the well again.

In both cases, Jesus is trying to show and teach that He is their most-essential provision.  Like water and daily bread that you cannot live without, and that there is enough of Him to go around and feed everyone and then have even have a lot leftover.  The people once again saw the sign, but missed its meaning--even the disciples are going to miss it from what we see in John and the other Gospels as Jesus is going to have to explain it a bit to them after the next sign.  To see why they missed it though, we'll have to look at the next couple of passages as Jesus will top and once again explain what's going on in their hearts and remind them who He is and why He's here, and it's a message that they don't want to hear.  It is this message that makes many turn away and go home (the very thing the disciples wanted at the beginning), but this was different--this was a decision by the people that this was not the kind of Messiah that they wanted and not the kind of man they wanted to follow.  All of a sudden, following this man became risky as He said some things that were undesirable that they didn't want to be associated with.  We'll see from this point forward that Jesus will ask His disciples to count the cost and make sure they want to take this journey with them that is definitely going to end in His death and eventually end in their deaths too (all except one who was exiled and died a natural death).

We'll look at more of what Jesus has to say next time including His first "I AM" statement that He's going to make in the Gospel of John.