Having Plenty with Jesus (John 6:1-14)

Below is the expanded talk I gave at the age care home I visit forthnigly. This is the expanded version as I also gave this at out mid-week service. The extra bit added to this was near the end about satisifcation and idenity. In that section I mostly used some ideas from the book Jesus + Nothing = Everything.

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In Australia we are known to have a bit of a tall poppy syndrome. This is where we cut down those who succeed. We don’t like it when people rise to the top or have a lot of stuff. This in turn, means that we might not want to rise to the top, or else we too might get cut down.

I remember playing one of those ice-breaker games, and the question was, what would be the title of your biography? I hate those type of questions as they make you think. And I remember saying my title would be “Mr Average”. I don’t think I am great at anything, I am just normal. In Australia, we don’t to like to self promote, or blow our own horn, we all want to be normal and average.

I don’t know about you, but after getting a compliment I am not sure how to reply. We sometimes say things like, “I am actually not that good”, or “I was just lucky”. This thinking can turn in to a false humility or even a false belief that we are not that much. We might look at ourselves and think God can’t use me, that I don’t have much or anything to offer. Do you sometimes think like that? I’m not important, I don’t have much.

In our story we see that not having much can be plenty, if we have Jesus.

The Problem

In our story there is a problem. Jesus and the disciples have gone down the lake to avoid the crowds and to have a bit of a break, but the people kept on coming. The crowds went looking for Jesus, for another sign, for another miracle. They wanted to see what Jesus would do next.

When Jesus saw them coming, He turns to one of the disciples, Philip and says “Where shall we buy bread for the people to eat?” Now, Philip was probably taken a little back from this. How could he solve this problem? Why is Jesus putting this on him? It is too big to solve.

How do you feel when people are coming over to your place for a meal? There are things to buy and preparations to make, but imagine someone saying to you, “oh we have to feed those 5,000 people coming our way”. How are you going to solve that? What type of cooking and catering team are you going to have to find at such short notice?

We are told that Jesus asked this question to test them. Jesus wanted to involve the disciples, not because He didn’t know what to do. He wanted them to be part of this, to see what they really have. To see who Jesus really was.

"[This] miracle isn’t just for the hungry people. It’s for the disciples, so they would not underestimate the power of Jesus" (Exalting Jesus in John Jesus Miraculously Feeds the People)

Poverty of Possessions

So, first Philip dose the math and says, they they would need half a years wages just to buy the bread so each person could have a little. He did the accounting, consulted with the finance team and was like, “we can’t afford this feeding ministry”.

Then, another disciple Andrew, he speaks up and says he has found a boy who has five small barley loaves and two small fish. But really, it won’t go far. It not much as all.

Barley loaves was the cheapest bread, eaten by the poorer classes. This probably shows the poverty of the crowd. This bread would have been "like five round loaves of today’s pita bread" (John The Feeding of the Five Thousand (6:1–15))

The disciples thought that their problem was that they had no money and just enough bread for one roll per 1,000. But their main problem was that they didn’t know their wealth with Jesus.

"Human ingenuity couldn’t solve the problem... This passage is a great reminder that we will always be confronted with problems too big for us to solve. Death, disease, war—those are the big ones." (Exalting Jesus in John Jesus Miraculously Feeds the People)

But Jesus can step in and help and He does so here. He starts organising the place. He gets the people to sit down, and then gives thanks for the boy’s small meal and then hands it out to all the people there. In the end everyone could have as much as they wanted. We are told there were 5,000 men, there could have been women and children there too. This was a large undertaking and we are told they did not have a snack, they didn’t have a symbolic meal. They had plenty.

 

Plenty with left overs

This is a miracle with plenty left over. In this "Jesus is fulfilling and recreating images from Israel’s past. He is [acting like] a figure who harks back to great historic figures (Moses and Elisha) who knew God’s power intimately" (John The Feeding of the Five Thousand (6:1–15))

In 2 Kings 4 there is another feeling miracle.

A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.

“How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. 

But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’ ” Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.(2 Kings 4:42–44 NIV)

Here Elisha feeds a hundred men with twenty barley loaves and is assisted by a young boy, and they also have some left over. 

In our passage we are told the setting in verse 4

The Jewish Passover Festival was near. (John 6:4 NIV)

"these events took place during the Passover, a yearly Jewish festival celebrating when God rescued his people from Egypt" (Exalting Jesus in John A Greater Moses (John 6:1–21))

After that Exodus rescue, God cared for His nation by feeding them in the wilderness for 40 years with manner from heaven.

In the verses just before this story in John, Jesus is talking about Moses, and here we are seeing one like Moses provide for a crowd.

In verse 12 it says

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” (John 6:12 NIV)

Jesus didn’t want any of this to go to waste. Jesus took a little amount and turned it into plenty. And He wanted the left overs to be collected.

Jesus is a greater prophet than those in the past. If we come to Jesus with nothing or not much that is fine. As one author said:

Jesus has never yet run into a problem he can’t solve.
• No wine at the wedding. No problem.
• No food in the wilderness. No problem.
• No life in the tomb. No problem.
When you follow Jesus, you never reach a dead end. (Exalting Jesus in John Jesus Miraculously Feeds the People)

The chapter will later go on to say that Jesus is the bread of life. We know "that the material things of life do not provide the secret to true happiness." (John Contemporary Significance)

We need more than our stomachs filled, we need life. While food helps us to keep alive, Jesus offers us life, life to the full, eternal life. He is the one who we are to feed on and trust, for He can provide what we need for true life.

A Prophet?

At the end of this story the people start wondering if Jesus is the promised prophet.

After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6:14 NIV)

Is He the one Moses and the prophets have talked about? Jesus has shown that He is better than Elijah by providing for more people with less. Jesus has shown that He is like God who can provide food for the many. Jesus is a greater Moses who will be able to rescue His people.

But they didn’t get it all right. Jesus didn’t want to be made king right there. He wanted them to see something else.

In this story, "the disciples had a defective view of Christ. That was their problem, and very often that is the root of our problem" (John—That You May Believe The Problem (vv. 1–9))

We need to see who Jesus is, and that with Him, we don’t just have enough - we have plenty. We need to see "the sufficiency and power that only Christ gives. Sooner or later each one of us will need this strength. This message is for all of us." (John—That You May Believe Chapter 23: Appropriating Christ’s Power and Sufficiency)

We face many problems with aging. Things do get hard, as we slow down and become impatient or even confused with things. But we are not on our own. We have God. In His strength we have enough.

As someone else puts it:

Do you have nothing to give? Then give that. Your nothing plus God is everything. We need to believe that God is big enough, that he wants to help us. Then we must give our problem to him. May we set aside our pride and give it all to him. (John—That You May Believe The Solution (vv. 10–13))

Our passage shows that our “not enough” is not the final answer. (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 3 Homiletical Perspective)

Jesus wanted his disciples to see that no matter what they had—even the tiniest or most menial thing—if they really gave it to him, he could use it. Little is much when God is in it. John—That You May Believe The Solution (vv. 10–13)

Peace and Satisfaction

And in trusting in Jesus that He will provide, in feeding on Him, we can see that He satisfies.

In one of the strangest headlines from late last year from the London Economic, it read “Boris Johnson blames Britain’s obesity crisis on the Church of England” 

I thought this was a strange headline, in the article Boris is quoted as saying: “[the church is] not really addressing… people’s spiritual needs. There’s something going on with people, they’re needing a lack of something, they’re eating it, they’re not getting it.”

And he goes on and says:

“You talk about living bread of spiritual sustenance, well, it’s not being provided by the blooming church, I can tell you that much. The living bread is being provided by Tesco.”

Boris Johnson, I think was tapping into something today. We are searching for something to satisfy and some people are turning to food and enjoying that gift too much. They are distracting themselves with actual food and not spiritual food.

Augustine, at the start of his confessions to God, “You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” He was getting at the idea that without God, we are restless. But once we find Him, we can be at peace, we can be settled and satisfied.

Blase Pascal said internally we all complain and groan and are never satisfied, and he says this is “Because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.” What we crave to bring us peace and happiness is huge, its deep and high and infinite, it extends to God Himself.

And so, if we find satisfaction in the infinite, in God Himself, we can be free. The gospel frees us from the pressure to seek more, or to perform and to become something that we are not.

If you have Jesus, you don’t need to have a false humility about what you can or can’t do. You don’t have to focus on yourself at all and what you do or don’t have when it comes to God.

As one christian pastor and author said “The gospel doesn’t just free you from what other people think about you; it frees you from what you think about yourself.” (Justin Buzzard)

Our standing with God doesn’t depend on our obedience but on Christ obedience for us. He is the provider of our salvation, we don’t have to achieve that. This is the good news, that its not what we must do, it is not what we can bring to the table, or what cards we are holding. It doesn’t matter what little we have. Jesus has already won our salvation for us. He did this on behalf of us.

Knowing that the Gospel story of Jesus is true, can give us peace, it can dispel our restlessness and give us satisfaction. Regardless of what we are facing, what aliments and struggles we have, there is a peace that we can have, that can go deep down into our bones. With Jesus we can know our wealth with Him and the satisfaction we can have, because

"when things between us and God have been settled because of Christ’s work, we experience a settled assurance about our life that was impossible to know before.” (Jesus + Nothing = Everything)

“Because Jesus was someone, we’re free to be no one. Because Jesus was extraordinary, we’re free to be ordinary.” (Jesus + Nothing = Everything)

So, trust in Jesus, that He is a provider. That He has carried you to be here, for a long time, and He is not tired. He is always willing to help and comfort. He is with you, and always working to help change you.

In 2 Corinthians we read:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV)

If we have not much, or even nothing, that is plenty with Jesus. Know your wealth with Him. See that Jesus is the provider and the Bread of Life who will satisfy.