November 1: Miracles and Multitudes

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2012

Miracles and Multitudes

 

 

Today’s passages provide a look into the changing nature of Jesus’s ministry, at least from the perspective of His disciples.  From our retrospective vantage point, it is important to remember the disciples’ preconceptions and how His words either confirmed or redirected those expectations.  Jesus displays His great power and gives insight into what commitment He demands from His followers.

 

 

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 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.”  We have a Lord Who sees the trials and tribulations of His people, not a being that is distant and disengaged.  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 “happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

 

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)

 

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)

 

 

2.  Walking on water.  In order to escape the crowd’s monarchial urges, Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee by walking on water.  In the process, an emboldened Peter asked Jesus to invite him to walk on water too.  In the experience, Peter faces the wind and begins to doubt:  “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out:  ‘Lord, save me!’”  How often too that our present reality obscures our trust in God’s power!  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!”

 

 

3.  Discipleship and opposition.  After seeing Jesus’s miraculous power, the disciples wish to know how they may follow Him.  Jesus explains that, instead of searching for human bread, they should seek the Bread of Life:  “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.  Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6:26–27a)  Of course, they wish to know how to accomplish this work.  Most likely, the disciples anticipate a laundry list of commandments, such as those the Pharisees and Sadducees had prescribed.  Instead, Jesus offers this clear statement concerning eternal life:  “The work of God is this:  to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29)  Jesus then explains that He is indeed the Bread of Life.

 

In believing in Christ, however, the disciples would face opposition.  Eating His flesh and drinking His blood would entail following His path of self-sacrifice and dying to self.  Jesus would “lose none of all that [the Father] has given me,” but “no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”  (John 6:39,65) Clearly, both God and man play a part in salvation:  God reveal His truth and offer of eternal life, but man must commit to following Him, in spite of the costs.

 

Many disciples turn away at the hardness of the teaching.  Because of God’s call on their lives, the Twelve do not turn away.  Peter explains:  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”  (John 6:68)  While they were simple fishermen, their faith and trust, both in heart and head, made them fully qualified to honor and serve Jesus.

 

 

4.  Heart, not tradition.  Finally, Jesus addresses how the Pharisees’ traditions had supplanted their faith.  Jesus argues that serving God is less about outward appearance than inward reality.  What did their hearts say about them?  The Jews had great concern over the dietary restrictions but allowed enmity to fester in their hearts.  Jesus re-prioritizes the state of the heart as above obedience to external regulations.

 

 

QUESTIONS

 

1.  What limitations are you currently seeing or placing on your life or God’s work?  How may you look beyond them?

 

2.  How do you recognize God’s power?  What may you do to remind yourself? 

 

3.  How may you more fully embrace the Bread of Life, in spite of the costs of discipleship?

 

________________________________________
1) Blog:      http://bit.ly/rV1Cw1

2) Facebook:  http://on.fb.me/tc6jkS