Jesus Feeds 5,000 and Walks on Water- John 6:1-24

When the disciples invited Jesus into the boat, they immediately arrived at the shore.

In today’s reading, Jesus is busy performing miracles. The first one he performs is the feeding of the five thousand. This is a very familiar story to most Christians and is one of only two miracles that appear in all four Gospels. The other is the greatest miracle, the resurrection.

John tells us it was some time after the showdown with the Jewish leaders and Jesus has put some distance between himself and Jerusalem. The text tells us that he has crossed to the far side of the Sea of Galilee. At this point, there are crowds that follow him everywhere because of the miracles he had performed on the sick. They wanted something from him.

I think we can all plead guilty to leaning into Jesus when we want or need something. These people simply had the opportunity to follow him physically. Are we any better today than they were? Do we follow him closely all of the time or more often, when we are in need?

Jesus sees the huge crowd. There are five thousand men; that doesn’t even take into account the women and children. He knows it’s getting late, so he decides to test poor Philip. He asks him where they can go to buy bread to feed these people. The all too human and practical Philip, states the obvious. They don’t have enough money to buy food for this crowd. It would take eight months wages to have enough money. Philip was leaning on human understanding, but he was speaking to the Divine. How often are we guilty of doing the same?

Andrew doesn’t do much better when he says, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far can they go among so many?” Again, the human, leaning on human understanding is speaking to the Divine who is capable of anything.

This is such a common response for us, though, isn’t it? We pray to a God who created the universe, who spoke the stars into existence, is there anything that He can’t do?

Jesus tells them to have the people sit down. He takes the loaves and fish and gives thanks. He didn’t focus on the fact that there wasn’t enough in front of them. He gave thanks for what they had. When we put our needs into God’s hands, there will always be enough. This miracle is a concrete example of why we should have faith. God will provide and quite often with way more than we need. There were twelve baskets left over.

Can you imagine the whispers in the crowd as the word of what had happened spread like wildfire? Can you imagine what Philip and Andrew were thinking?

The people knew immediately that Jesus was something special and were going to force him to be their king. This was not what he wanted. Jesus believed that the world’s version of kingship came from the devil. So, he withdrew to a mountain by himself.

We see Jesus do that fairly often. He gets away from the crowds for some alone time. Maybe we should do the same.

It got dark outside and the disciples went to the lake and got into a boat. It doesn’t say why they didn’t wait for Jesus. Maybe if they had waited on him, there wouldn’t have been a strong wind to start with. They were about three-and-a-half miles out and Jesus approaches them, walking on the water. I think it’s important to note that he didn’t walk on water just a few steps. It was over three miles. There could be no doubt this was miraculous.

The disciples were scared to death. Then Jesus says one of my favorite lines; “Don’t be afraid. I am here.” Do we really need any other words from our Savior? They let him in the boat and immediately arrive at the safety of the shore.

Hmmmm, if we let Jesus into our boat, maybe we would witness the same.

What do you think about today’s reading? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂