Multiplying the Loaves and Fishes
John 6:1-15 records a notable miracle of Jesus feeding many. After his explanation of just how wrong the Jewish folks were in questioning God's working on the sabbath, He left Bethseda, went over the sea of Galilee (or Lake Tiberias or Kinneret). This Lake is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and second lowest body of water after the dead sea. According to Wikipedia it is around 13 miles long and 8 miles wide now, as its water level is constrained by a dam on the Jordan which largely is responsible for filling it. When Jesus and the disciples arrived, they went up to the mountainside to rest away from the people.
But the people who had seen the miracle of healing of the diseased man followed them. As it was Passover, there were probably a greater number of people who heard about the miracle and followed than might have usually happened. When Jesus saw the multitude of people who had gathered, He asked Philip where they could acquire food for the large body of people. Philip knew that they didn't have enough money to buy food for them, and also probably suspected that the nearby the nearby villages might be hard pressed to come up with provisions on demand for so many. After all, people had probably come from all around the lake as word spread, and although the shoreline was well populated, the particular part where they were wouldn't have been ready for so many. But Christ already had a plan, laid out by His Father.
Andrew identifies a young boy who had five barley loves and two fishes, but couldn't see what difference that would make. Jesus just tells everyone to pick a comfortable seat. He gave thanks for what God had provided and gave the food to the disciples to distribute, and they went on to distribute to the 5,000 men and however many women and children accompanied them. Everyone took as much as they wanted, were filled up, and when Jesus commanded them to gather up the leftovers that nothing be wasted, twelve baskets full of the fragments of the five barley loaves were gathered up. Evidently, the fish were all gone.
The people who experienced this miracle had one thing in mind. Truly a great prophet had come into the world, and specifically, the prophet they were looking for as Messiah. Their objective was to make Him king. Anyone who could do miracles like this at least had God on His side, and would make a great leader to help throw off the Roman occupation. They would take Him by force if necessary. When the Holy Spirit let Jesus in on what they were thinking, he made himself scarce and went further away from shore and hid, because He knew that was not God's plan for His life.
There is so much debate over God's miracles that Jesus did. Even today, people refuse to believe because they didn't see it with their own eyes. But God is still working today, just the same as He always has. Our church hosts a food pantry and one holiday we decided to provide a meat entry for every family that came that week. The freezers were loaded and we knew how many we had purchased. But many more families showed up that expected. Yet when the distribution was done, there were still a few hams remaining, and the count of hams given out was much higher than we had purchased. God is still in the providing for His people business. It just doesn't get the attention of the feeding of the 5,000, because it is never covered as news. It wasn't done to or by anyone important enough to get a mention. But God is still at work!
Jesus Walks on the Sea
In John 6:16-21, the disciples decide to go back to town, so go down to the sea and get in a boat, possibly the one they had come on, and head out for Capernaum. Christ wasn't with them, it was night, and a wind storm came up and buffeted the boat they were on. They had rowed about four miles or about 1/2 of the way across the lake, Jesus came walking towards them on the lake. They were afraid of what they were seeing. After all, some of them made their lives as fishermen and they knew that walking on the water wasn't natural. He told them to not be afraid, got into their boat, and immediately took the boat to shore.
Many look at this story and say it couldn't really have happened, that it is allegorical or symbolic or Jesus was on the shore and the night optics and storm was just messing with their minds. Why is it so hard to have faith in God. Jesus, of Himself, couldn't walk on the water. Neither could you or I, unless it was frozen, of course, which this lake wasn't. But with God, all things are possible (Mark 9:23, Luke 18:27). I know that one of those spoke of a healing and one spoke of salvation of unlikely people, but the principle is sound.
The creator of the universe can cause anything to happen that He wants to happen at any time He wants it to happen. If He wanted Christ to walk out to the boat, He could provide traction and a solid enough footing for Him to do it. He parted the Red Sea. He rolled back the Jordan. He appeared in a fiery furnace and kept even the garments of the people thrown into it to be safe even when the captors who threw them in were killed by the heat.
God has no limitations on doing whatever He wants to do. He might not choose to do what we want Him to do. But anything that He wants done will get done. We need to find the faith that we should have in the creator. That doesn't mean that we can bend His will to ours. But it does mean that we can trust that He is able to do anything to help us or to save us, if He wants to. And if He chooses to take us home to heaven earlier than we'd like, well heaven is a far better place than the Earth will ever be. And that's a fact.
So not only did Christ walk on the water, but when He reached the boat and got in, God immediately transported the boat at least four miles to shore. I don't know if they were directly across from where they wanted to be or if they had to also move up or down the opposite coast. But at least four miles of instantaneous travel happened. Again, God willed it to be so and any alternate reality that He wants to make happen, will happen, and it will be so from then on.
Signs
When the body of people who had received the food and were left behind realized this the next day, they knew two things. The boat that the disciples had come in was gone, and Jesus hadn't been aboard. Yet He also wasn't there with them. So again, they went searching for Jesus. After all, He'd just fed them a filling meal and they still wanted him as their king. They weren't so easily turned from their course of action.
They found Jesus again, and wanted to know how He had gotten there. He makes an astute observation that they weren't following Him for religious reasons. The miracles might have gotten their interest at first, but now they were following Him because of what they thought He could do for them, both in providing food without work or money, and in the plan to make Him king.
John 6:22-34 expounds on their fascination with material things, comparing their experience with that of their ancestors when Moses interceded with God to send the people manna, and then quails from heaven on their trip from Egypt to the promised land.
Jesus warns them to not put their interest in things of Earth, like the bread, which spoils and even if eaten is only there for one meal. They should concentrate instead of heavenly things. It was Jesus who God had made the plan of salvation, and the means to an eternal life with God, and that is exactly who was important. The temporal miracles were not important. They then wanted to know how they might work the works of God. If Jesus wasn't willing to do what they wanted, they wanted to know how to have the same access to God so they could do those things themselves. The answer of Christ wasn't probably what they wanted to hear. Jesus told them that they should believe on Him. That, in itself, might not have been a hard thing for them to accept, if He was doing what they thought the Messiah was supposed to do. Namely, their expectation was the the Messiah was going to free them from Roman rule. When the person who was exhibiting God's power, like the Messiah they expected, wasn't living up to the image they had of Him, that was a problem.
How true that is today. God doesn't live up to our expectations. How could He let X happen in the world? Why did person Y have to die? Why does He allow wars between R and U, for example? If He won't do Z for me, then He must not exist... And on and on it goes. God is sovereign. If it's His will for something to happen, you can rest assured that it will happen. But He knows all the possible future outcomes for any action that we might ask Him to take, and He always operates in His plan first and then in ours, if ours aligns or at least doesn't disrupt His overall plan. He isn't some storybook genie that grants our wishes on demand. And thank God for that. We need, as Christians, and the church in general, to align our wills with His instead of trying to force His will to ours. We'd all be more successful if we did that. We don't have any better luck than the people He just fed did. Believe on Jesus Christ.
He's the true bread from heaven. When He explained the difference between the manna of Moses and His life that so much of the sacrifices that they were used to pointed to, they wanted that bread.
Bread of Life and Manna
In John 6:35-52, Jesus teaches further. He declares that those who accepts Him as the bread of life will not have any further hunger or thirst, because their spiritual needs will be completely satisfied. He declares His purpose from God, specifically that He came down from heaven to do God's will and not His own will. They had seen Him in the flesh and were having trouble believing. He declares that all who accept Him and hold onto that faith in Him will be saved. He won't lose anyone, but that doesn't mean that people won't voluntarily leave on their own. Backsliding is real. You can see this at the very end of this chapter. It hasn't changed in the last two thousand years. But Christ Himself won't cast anyone away or lose track of anyone who comes to Him. That was what He came to do. To be the sacrifice for many who would believe on Him to everlasting life and He would be the power to raise them up in the last day.
When He said that He was the bread that came down from heaven, the people murmured against Him again because He was thought of as the son of Joseph and not really the Son of God. He again reiterates that the manna from God from heaven was not something that gave eternal life. It saved the people from starvation for a day at a time (or two on the sabbath), but it wasn't lasting. He was the bread from heaven that would provide eternal life. They couldn't get past the physical bread that they understood and what Jesus was saying. The symbolism is still an issue. The Catholic church believes the communion elements become more than just symbols when taken, for example.
But the people still couldn't understand His plain words. The Holy Spirit draws people to Christ. It was the work of Christ as well, on earth. Christ will raise His church up in the last day. He is the only source of eternal life with God. There's eternal life in hell if you don't believe. But if you want to make it to heaven, you have to choose Christ. It's what sets Christianity apart from all of Satan's other religions. God came down, emptied Himself of His divine power. He lived on Earth without sinning. He died for our sins, and was resurrected and returned to heaven again. Then He sent the Holy Spirit to us to spread the gospel message.
Eternal Life
In John 6:53-59, Jesus declares again in the synagogue in Capernaum, that He is the only source of eternal life. He hadn't established communion at this time, but He's giving a foreshadowing of it, and really lays out its significance to the people early on. He puts it in terms that were probably hard for them to understand, because the sacrament of communion hadn't been established yet. But the principles were still just the same. We need to have complete oneness with Jesus, just as if His blood and flesh had been made part of us directly. He is the only source of eternal life with God. There is no back door into heaven.
Although the language was figurative, the miracle that He had just performed in the feeding of the 5,000+ should have been fresh in everyone's minds. He is both a physical and spiritual provider. Just as bread sustains the people while on earth, on a day to day basis, so Jesus as the eternal bread of life from heaven will provide the way to eternal life. It wasn't a hard concept, but getting them to realize that He was the eternal future they were looking for and that He didn't have a place at this point in time taking on Rome and fixing their temporal problems was a challenge.
The First Falling Away
From John 6:60-71 at the end of the chapter, this point finally sinks in to many who were following Christ. The admitted that what He was saying was hard to hear. In verse 66, it is stated that even many of his disciples chose to stop following Him at that time. How many came back at some point in the future is unknown. But when things weren't going the way they thought should go, many left. The same is true today. It's easy to follow God when things are looking up. It is hard for many to follow God when it doesn't look like the way ahead will be easy.
Jesus knew from the beginning which ones would fall away, and which one would betray Him. But you know what? He still treated everyone the same. Even Judas was present up till the day Judas decided to betray Him. The Passover meal before the Garden he was still present, and left to get the guards after being called out by Christ and identified. But up until that time, he, and all of these disciples had been taught equally, had experienced the miracles and healing, and had seen Christ in action debating and teaching the rest of the people. The life wasn't easy, moving from place to place, relying on whatever work they could find to raise money, or relying on donations.
But many of the disciples that started with Christ had other ideas about what the Messiah would do. When it was clear that those wouldn't come about, then work didn't seem worth it any more to them. After many had left, Jesus asks the 12 if they too would go, but Peter states that they were sure Jesus was the Messiah. and they would be looking for nobody else. Jesus tells them then that one of them will betray Him. That surely was a tough thing for them to hear. The truth usually is.
Don't be offended by Christ. Don't be offended if He doesn't do what you think He should do. The disciples of that day wanted Him to rule instead of Rome. They wanted their country to be lifted up to glory again instead of being subjugated to a foreign power. When Christ told them He was going to ascend back up to heaven instead, it was a tough thing for them to hear.
I don't know what you're going through today, and you don't know what I'm going through. I don't know the sorrows of your heart, and you don't know mine. But I know that nobody's life is truly easy in this world. All of us suffer over something. And we all wish, secretly in our hearts, and pray to God often for things to get better. Yet none of us know God's plan for our lives. If we are going through a rough patch, look to God. Don't look to even the greatest evangelist you meet. Christ's path was to be crucified, resurrected, and then spend a many centuries in heaven before returning to Earth. If God doesn't let our lives flow just like we think is best, don't give up. He has a plan for the world that is better than anyting man can come up with. Help each of us to do our part in His work.