THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
1 Samuel 5:1–7:17
John 6:1–21
Psalm 106:13–31
Proverbs 14:32,33
Today, we read about two of Jesus’s miracles in John 6:1–21. While the sustenance Jesus provided emphasized His sovereignty to the crowds, I would like to reflect primarily on His communication to His disciples. What preconceptions did Jesus’s disciples hold? How did His words and actions either confirm or redirect those expectations?
1. Feeding the 5,000. This miracle, the only to appear in all four Gospel accounts, touches upon several key themes of Jesus’s ministry. First of all, He had great compassion for the lost sheep of Israel: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” (Mark 6:34) We have a Lord Who sees the trials and tribulations of His people, not a being that is distant and disengaged. (The Philistine’s god Dagon indeed bowed down to the Holy One of Israel, symbolized by the presence of the Ark of the Covenant [1 Samuel 5:1–8]). Out of His great love for us, God is indeed engaged and brought to compassion for His children.
In the actual miracle, we see Jesus’s focus on multiplication. The small amount of “human” elements, the loaves and the fishes, become a great feast for more than 10,000 people; the Jewish reckoning of the crowd just included the 5,000 or so men. Expressing the sentiments that we likely would have had in the situation, Philip acknowledges the great challenge of feeding so many people: the disciples would need to pull together eight months’ wages to feed such a crowd! Our human understanding falls to the limitations in such a circumstance, not to God’s power. Jesus’s motivation lay in bringing glory to the Father. As with the healing of the man born blind, Jesus indicates that some circumstances “happen… so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3)
Indeed, the incident further demonstrated the imperative to rely on Christ for multiplication and service. The disciples’ plan does not differ too greatly from the response that I would have expected from myself. Indeed, if we have a need, we often immediately begin brainstorming the steps to alleviate that issue, instead of first approaching the King: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14–16) Typically, we seek the straightforward natural solution instead of some supernatural intervention, even when the issues are truly spiritual in character.
Furthermore, we find that, in serving this meal, the disciples somehow received an overflowing blessing: each disciple collected a basketful of leftover bread! In this account, we learn that, by relying on God’s resources in the face of a need, the disciples received their sustenance. As Richard Stearns notes in The Hole in Our Gospel, “the principle here is so very important for those of us who are overwhelmed with the immensity of human suffering and need in our world: God never asks us to give what we do not have… But he cannot use what we will not give.” (253)
Broadening this message, we may recognize that, even with our human limitations, God’s power may accomplish anything. Any talent, skill, or attribute that we have started originally in the heart of God. As we submit ourselves completely to Him, His power may take these gifts and multiply them in service to others, mathematically expressed as:
Our Weakness + God’s Power = Sufficient Grace to Accomplish God’s Purposes
(Please find an encouraging example here: http://bit.ly/ZKZiEl.)
2. Walking on water. In order to escape the crowd’s monarchial urges, Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee by walking on water. The disciples set off ahead of Jesus, and “Jesus had not yet joined them” after dusk. The disciples’ fear instincts must have risen sharply with the unsettled conditions: “a strong wind was blowing, and the waters grew rough.” From these stormy conditions, “they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified.” Continuing with our math theme, scared + startled = terrified. Yet, Jesus calms the disciples by echoing the words first given to Moses at the burning bush: “I am.” How often too that our present reality obscures our trust in God’s power!
In the parallel passages that have Peter trying to walk on the water too, Jesus reaches out to Peter and rescues him, and, upon returning to the boat, Jesus calms the storm. The disciples then worship Jesus for His power. These verses call to mind the worshipping throngs in Revelation 5:13: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb,/be praise and honor and glory and power,/ for ever and ever!”
Father, we give You thanks for Your awesome power that may transform our weakness into something sufficient to accomplish Your purposes. Please give us the perspective to trust Your provision in the midst of uncertainty and the storms we face. I pray that Your grace might well up within us as a spring of faith, rooted in the security of Your character and goodness. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.
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