John 6:1-15
Introduction: I spoke in a church recently that had a designated photographer. He was so discreet I didn’t even notice him. But this church wants to record in photograph its history. Before I was even home I had several wonderful pictures of my time there, preaching and mingling with the people. It had all been recorded in photographs.
I wish Jesus had traveled with a photographer, don’t you? I wish we had photographs of everything He did, every miracle He performed.
We don’t of course, but we do have paintings. No, they were not painted at the time, only later by artists who studied the passages. But I’d like for us to imagine we’re visiting an art gallery in Galilee, one featuring paintings of some of the most famous miracles Jesus performed. We’ll go from painting to painting regarding one particular miracle, and I’ll give you the title of each one.
Bible Teaching: First, let’s read the passage as we resume our series of studies into the book of John. Every year, we’re taking a portion of the Gospel of John and preaching through it methodically, and this year the series is called “The Way.” We’ll start today where we left off last year, which is in John 6:
Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
This is one of the best-known stories of the Bible. Many people don’t know much about the Bible and this might be a new story to you. If so, I’m envious. I’d love to hear it again as though for the first time. But if you’ve been in church at all or read much in the New Testament, you’re familiar with the story of the multiplication of the bread and fish. I remember hearing this story as a child in Sunday School. We selected a series of famous paintings and let’s go from one painting to the next in our Galilean Gallery and let me show you some things you may not know about this incredible story.
1. A Prefigured Miracle
First, notice this is a prefigured miracle. Jesus Christ is not the first person in the Bible to take a handful of barley loaves and multiply them to feed a crowd. This miracle was not original to him. In the Old Testament book of 2 Kings, chapter 4, something very similar happened in the days of the prophet Elisha. Elisha had a crowd of 100 people—probably students in the ministerial school he led. There was a time of famine, and the students didn’t have enough to eat. But a man came bringing some barley loaves—the very same kind of bread the little boy had in John 6. It was a poor man’s bread. This man brought his several loaves to Elisha and said, “I am bringing these to you.” Elisha said, “Distribute it among my hungry students.” The man was embarrassed. He said, “I didn’t bring nearly enough for all these hungry students. What I brought won’t feed a hungry people.” But Elisha told him to break and distribute the bread anyway, and the bread multiplied in his hands and everyone had all they could eat and there was still bread left over.
This is almost exactly what Jesus did, only our Lord magnified the miracle by a factor of 500. He fed, not 100 men, but 5000. Nevertheless, every one of those Jewish recipients knew they were seeing someone who was like Elijah and Elisha, only much, much greater. With this miracle, Jesus was saying, “There is one standing among you who is greater than Elisha the prophet.”
I also think this miracle is prefigured by the manna that fed the Israelites in the desert, and also by the scene in Psalm 23, where the good Shepherd had the sheep lay down in green pastures and by still waters while he prepared a table in the wilderness, but time will not allow us to unfold those passages now. Suffice to say, there are definite Old Testament overtones to this miracle.
2. A Public Miracle
Second, the feeding of 5000 was a public miracle. That’s what we might call this painting. Some of our Lord’s miracles were private. He would usher everyone out and then go in and heal the person. He would take the man beyond the city limits and heal him. Some were semi-private, such as when He turned the water into wine. Some were seen just by His disciples, such as when He walked on water. But this miracle was seen by more people than any other miracle that Jesus did during His lifetime. There were more eyewitnesses to this miracle than to any other miracle that Jesus ever did.
I’ve just read a book on archaeology that estimates the population of Galilee in the first century to be about 175,000 people. Some of those were Gentiles who lived in several rather large cities. Most of the Jewish residents lived in villages of 2000 people or less. But let’s take the 175,000 figure. If we have 5,000 men—and if that truly means men so that we have to add women and children—there were perhaps 10,000 who saw this miracle. That means that roughly 6 percent of the entire population of Galilee saw this miracle at the same moment.
That has an apologetic value. If one or two claim to have seen a miracle, we might question it. But when thousands of people see and experience a miracle, it’s very difficult to discredit.
3. A Passover Miracle
Now, let’s go to the next painting. Let’s call it a Passover Miracle. The Passover was the Jewish festival that commemorated the departure of Israel from Egypt. Even though this is the only one of our Lord’s miracles apart from the resurrection that is recorded in all four Gospels, John is the only one to tell us this occurred near the time of the Passover. John 6:4 says, “The Jewish Passover is Near.” The apostle John structured his Gospel around the three Passovers of our Lord’s ministry. When people say, “How long did Jesus engage in ministry?” our answer is, “About three years.” How do we know that? Nothing in the New Testament tells us that, but John tells us what happened before and after three different Passovers. The Passover occurred in the springtime. And because of John’s three Passovers, we have an idea about the length of our Lord’s ministry.
What happened the first Passover is recorded in John 2. This is the second Passover. That means our Lord is one year away from the Passover week during which He would die for the sins of the world.
Now, notice what Jesus did on this second Passover. He broke bread, and later in this chapter he preached a sermon about it. Look at verse 35: Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty.”
And verse 51: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
And almost exactly one year later, Jesus revived this teaching in the Upper Room when He broke the bread, passed it to His disciples, and said, “Take and eat, for this is My body which was broken for you.”
When Jesus fed the 5000, it wasn’t just a humanitarian act of kindness. John called it a sign. It was signifying how He Himself would be broken in order to meet the eternal hunger and thirst in everyone who will come to Him.
4. A Probing Miracle
Now, let’s go to the next painting. I call this one “A Probing Miracle.” Let’s go back to John 6
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
What should Philip and Andrew have said? Jesus was probing their faith. He was giving them an impossible situation and asking how it should be handled. How do you handle an impossible situation? Think of some problem that is causing you distress right now. We all have one—maybe it’s a little one, a medium one, or a massive one. Jesus says to us, “What are you going to do about it?”
How do you answer?
Philip and Andrew just threw up their hands and said in exasperation, “We cannot handle it.” That was their basic answer. “We cannot handle it.”
What answer should they have given? Their answer was full of unbelief. What answer should they have given?
Well, their answer would have been perfect if they had simply said a bit more: “Lord, we cannot handle it, but we know You can. You already know what You are going to do.” That would have turned unbelief to belief, and little faith into great faith.
Let’s go back to your problem, whether it’s small, medium, or large. Don’t just say, “Lord, I can’t handle it.” Say, “Lord, I can’t handle it, but I know You can. You already know what You are going to do.”
5. A Prolific Miracle
Let’s go to the next painting in our gallery. It’s titled “A Prolific Miracle.” I have no idea how Jesus multiplied so much food so quickly, but it’s indicative of His entire Gospel mission. Notice there are three parties here. There is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Stranger of Galilee, the One who was from the beginning—the omnipotent God Himself in human form. There were vast multitudes, who were hungry in both stomach and soul. And between them, there were the disciples. All they did was take the bread from the Master to the masses. As they did, the operation multiplied.
I’m not sure John was recording this with the idea of its being analogous to the spread of the Gospel, but it’s hard to avoid that application. Jesus gives to us the message of the Living Bread to take to the masses, and we are just ordinary people. Yet somehow the operation multiplies, and we can’t explain the chain-reaction of the Gospel.
This week I read in the Baptist Press about a boy in a Muslim nation named Abdul. He began questioning the truthfulness of Islam, and his family was upset. He went for a long walk and by and by he heard the sound of a rickshaw coming up the road behind him. To his surprise, the rickshaw stopped and a man said, “Hey brother, do you want to get up in the rickshaw and ride with me?” Abdul was stunned. He had never done anything like that in his life. As they rode along, the man gave Abdul a New Testament. When he returned home, Abdul began reading his New Testament in this very Gospel—the Gospel of John. That very night, he asked Jesus to come into his heart and save him.
When this became known, Abdul was rejected and beaten by his family and friends, and he lived alone in a shack for three years. His mother secretly brought him food. But those three years were like the three years Jesus spent with the disciples. Abdul studied the Scriptures day and night, and a missionary and local pastor taught him in secret.
Later Abdul was beaten again, but an old classmate named Rafik took pity on him and tended to his wounds. Before you know it, Rafik was also saved. Abdul said, “Yester, I was one. Today we are two. Tomorrow, we could be 200.” And that’s what happened. Rafik soon had won and baptized 36 more people to the Lord, and his bamboo house became a center for Bible study in the area. The Gospel spread and churches were planted.
One night Rafik was stabbed to death, but to this day Abdul continues the movement. As of the date of the article I read, there are 350 evangelists in this extended area, nearly 2,300 pastors, and 4,000 churches in this area. Nearly 100,000 people have been baptized, and nearly all of them are spiritual descendants of Abdul.
That’s the story of all of Christian history. We don’t do the multiplying. We simply convey the Bread of Life to a hungry world. But somehow it multiplies just as truly, just as surely, as the bread and fish multiplied on that Spring day in Galilee. If you know Christ as your Savior, you’re already a part of it. The multiplication has yielded you and me to the Kingdom. Now our job is to take and share a loaf of Gospel bread with someone else.
6. A Personal Miracle
Finally, let’s look at the last picture in our gallery. It’s entitled A Personal Miracle. There is one thing more than any other that impressed me as I studied this passage again. Let me show it to you.
Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
Notice the adjectives. Verse 2 says: “…a great crowd.” Verse 5 says, “…a great crowd.” And notice in verse 9: “…five small barley loaves and two small fish.”
We could entitle this last painting: “Large Crowd. Small Lunch.” But our Lord Jesus delights in using small things to do great things—and ordinary people to do things that are special.
It is wrong to measure yourself by others. We don’t have to be rich or famous or great or mighty. The Lord can use…
- Little people
- Little Bible verses
- Little New Testaments
- Little words of encouragement
- Little efforts at evangelism
- Little acts of kindness
- Little gifts
- Little prayers
- Little churches
In fact, when a pastor comes up to me and says, “I pastor a small church in such and such state,” I remind him, “There are no small churches.”
Many years ago, Katrina and I attended a reception at the Opryland Hotel during which a world-famous musician was going to sing. This man was as famous as a musician could be, and when the time came for him to sing I wondered which his signature songs he would choose. But he sang none of the ones for which he was well-known. He sang a little-known Gospel Song, which is why I remember it so clearly. The title and the lyrics said: “Little is much when God is in it.” Here was a man who had done great things reminding us that God blesses little things when they are given to Him.
You and I don’t have to be great. These loaves were small and made from barley, which, as I said, was the bread of the poor people. The little fish were probably about the size of minnows. Yet with minnows, Jesus fed the many. He fed the multitudes.
The Lord uses whatever—whoever—is fully placed in His omnipotent hands.