“Fish and Loaves”. I will admit to you I say this often.  I say this to others when their planning calculations seem to be off and there is some level of anxiety that there will not be enough or if it will all turn out as planned.

I say “Fish and Loaves” to myself…  I love to cook and host people in our home.  I spend time calculating and planning for what the need might be, what people’s appetites might be.  I enjoy shopping for the supplies and I enjoy when people finally come and enter our home – and many times my calculations are off…when there doesn’t seem like there will be enough, I say “Fish and Loaves”

 I enjoy when young adults or former students come over unannounced and have not eaten… and in these moments when I wonder if there will be enough… I remember the story we have read today about Jesus feeding thousands with 5 loaves of bread a 2 fish and when I speak “Fish and Loaves”, it is a declaration to the Jesus of abundance.

And while you might not share my experiences and use the expression as I do, if you have been around the story of Jesus you know this story.  From our early years, for those of us who grew up in Sunday School, this is a story we hear and hear about often.  Maybe that is because it is the only miracle recorded in all 4 gospels.  Maybe it is because of the large-scale nature of the miracle… and maybe it is because it just such a compelling and well recorded story.  The characters are set up well, the tension is clear and felt and the solution points to a living and powerful God. 

This is all true.  It is true that this story is about Jesus who sees a physical need of people and takes care of them beyond their needs, but in abundance.  It is true that Jesus can use anything to bring about blessing and provision, even a young boys sack lunch.  It is true that Jesus cannot be contained within human calculations and moves and works in supernatural ways.  All of this is true… and all of this is found in the text…

BUT…

What if there is more to this story?  As I have been in study and prayer this week, my eyes have been opened to some aspects of this story that I had not seen as loudly as I see them now.  As I mentioned this is the only miracle recorded in all 4 Gospels.  This should be a large blinking light to all of us – as we ask why this story?  What is going on in this story that God would have it show up 4 times? 

With such a familiar narrative to many of us, it can be harder to come to this text with fresh eyes.  So, keep your Bible close and mark these 15 verses and mark them up.  As we look at this 5^th sign in the book of John, may we have eyes to see what and who this sign points us too. 

Just like any compelling story or narrative, context is everything.  I’ll admit to you all that I am not the biggest Star Wars fan, but having children who are I find myself around Star Wars more and more.  What I appreciate about the Star Wars films are in the notorious manner they begin.  The iconic music and the words scrolling upwards… those words are the context.  They remind us where the story has been and sets the stage for where we will pick up the story in scenes that will follow.

The Jewish Context

To be clear, I am not equating the fictional story of Star Wars to the factual events of the Bible, far from it – I am only illustrating that to fully enter some narratives we need some context.  We do not have enough time to give all the context available for the feeding of the 5000, there is some specific context that we ought to focus on. These 15 verses are loaded with Jewish references, imagery, and culture – and we need to admit that we are not.  The culture, the images, and the references can go unnoticed in our reading of the text.   I have 4 points of Jewish context that will help us with these verses. These “4” are not comprehensive – but they are helpful in the way we will come to see the text today.

1. The Jewish Passover Festival (v.4)

This detail is in here to both mark time in the life and ministry of Jesus in the book of John, but this detail is also important for the larger context of the crowd, bread, and culture. 

The Passover:

• Religious and Cultural Holiday – with both extremes being celebrated. Might be best to liken it to the 4^th of July culturally for the Jewish people. A time of Jewish ethnic pride.

• Often Passover seen as the Liberation from Pharaoh in Egypt, this context focuses very specifically in one moment in the overall exodus, when the Israelites were in the wilderness and hungry and God provided Manna from heaven – Exodus 16.

The people are in a time of holiday and remembering a time of provision – a “better” time in the past (better is interesting when you read Ex. 16 and the grumbling and disobedience that marks them in the time of the manna).

2. The Blessing (v. 11)

It was cultural and customary for the host of the meal to offer the blessing.  This detail in verse 11 is not minor – it is Jesus using the religious tradition and culture and putting himself as the host and head of the meal and miracle. If you have shared a meal with those in the Jewish faith on Shabbat, most likely Jesus prayer was like the prayer offered to begin and end Shabbat…

“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth”

We will see that throughout this story, and throughout each sign of Jesus in John – Jesus is pointing to his Lordship, to his Messiahship.  While people want to see Jesus as merely a religious figure, Jesus is more and his blessing this meal was to pointed what will follow in the miracle to himself. 

3. 12 baskets (v. 13)

The number 12 is not accidental or random.  In Jewish context, there are 12 tribes of Israel.  There are now 12 disciples …the leftovers of the miracle places in 12 baskets communicates the abundant provision of Jesus – and the abundant provision is rooted in history of the 12 – and will continue on through the new 12 with the same abundance. 

4. “the Prophet…” (v. 14)

This is probably a little more familiar to us, but this refrain from the people calling Jesus a prophet is rooted in Old Testament Messianic expectations and former promises of more who will come.  While they recognize Jesus as from or connected to God, they are not seeing him as God yet.  There excitement is about a human who has come to them to help them… to heal them, give them food… their excitement about Jesus had more focus on their own earthy existence than the eternal existence that Jesus is ushering in. 

With some context in place, we will look at this story through the different characters in the story.  We are most likely familiar with the story through the plot, so the attempt to look at the text through the different characters might serve us well as try to hear a familiar story anew. 

Story Through the Characters

The Disciples, Philip, and Andrew

The Disciples:

• They have been with Jesus awhile now, the Passover reference in verse 4 marks time
• They have seen 4 prior signs and been around Jesus teaching
• We get a glimpse of their relationship with Jesus
  • They sat down with him away from the crowd
  • He interacts with them
  • He instructs them
  • He questions/tests them
  • There are not simply travel mates – they are being poured into
  • Some would say this interaction of Jesus and the disciples is an underemphasized aspect of this text

Philip:

• The math man! The engineer!  He is able to see the people, see the need – and do some quick calculations.  He brings his conclusion to Jesus, that based on the data and “best practices” there is not much they can do.
• Remember, Philip has already seen Jesus do miracles… and yet, he still defaults to math and stats…
• Jesus will soon show, that he is not limited and cannot be contained in equations and calculations!

Andrew:

• Some give Andrew the award here, that he was the one to see the potential of the bread and fish…
• But, I do not agree. Andrew, saw the need and had a way of analyzing that also rendered his opinion of the situation impossible. 
• Verse 9: “How far will they go among so many?”
• Same to Andrew, saw the need and used different data – but ultimately also underestimated Jesus ability and authority.

The Boy

• God uses the unlikely…
• God uses what seems too small to make any difference
• God uses this boy and his meager meal very intentionally…
• If this boy was on the ballot this week for the Search Team, he would get no votes…
• The boy is in juxtaposition to Philip and Andrew – he simply gave what he had and watched Jesus multiply it.
• LET THE LITTLE CHILDREN COME TO ME AND DO NOT HINDER THEM – Mark 10:14

The Crowd

• This is the height of Jesus popularity; the crowds are growing and they are coming because verse. 2, they saw what Jesus was doing in healing the sick.
• They were intrigued for what Jesus could do for them, in this life. Their sickness, their families, their needs…
• Did not yet see him as God, in fact as Jesus becomes louder about that later in chapter 6, they start leaving him… they want a miracle worker superstar – they aren’t so sure about a Savior.
• They receive the miracle even though they do not have true faith in Jesus.
• The response to the miracle is MORE! They want more… they want Rome to fall down, they want this man in power, they want him to the be their new king… early king and not heavenly king. 

Jesus

• Intentional with his disciples
• Growing his disciples by testing…
  • Testing here is not: trap or temp, it is: examine, prove
• Meets the physical needs of the crowd
• Uses their physical needs to point to eternal needs later in John
• Clearly communicating his Messiahship – his Godship
• Rejects the response of the crowd after the miracle:

“Jesus resists the temptation to glory in the people’s enthusiasm, he retreats…”

Marianne Maye Thompson

There is too much in this text!  So… before I land on what our applications are from this text today, I have to give you a save the date on the other applications!  These are just some of the things I would love to come back to form this text that are critical and important…

Applications for Later

The Leftovers

• What is the significance of the leftovers in the story? Abundance? Yes, but also, Jesus blesses us beyond ourselves.  We can have our fill and still have plenty to give to others.  Practically, when Jesus says nothing go to waste, what is in that?  There are Jewish roots here too about stewarding the earth and consumption and waste… there is some ecology in this theology. 

The Boy

• Not random here… the affirmation of children. The need to be proximate and to listen to children.  The need to let them show us what faithfulness looks like.  The reality that when we take Jesus teaching seriously, serving and providing for children isn’t about spiritual gifts or passion – it is about faithfulness…

The “testing” of Philip

• What does our discipleship look like? Do we sit with Jesus and get quizzed?  Where are we calculating and forgetting that Jesus sits outside of our human attempts at rational explanation?  Where is our faith with Jesus growing, expanding, and how do we let Jesus and Jesus’ people challenge our paradigms? 

We can’t get into any of these things now, but they are worth thinking about… and I offer them you as a “Save the Date” – details TBD.

But for us today…. There are applications.  I want to offer 4 of them.  They come from time in prayer for you and for me as people of God’s local church at 393 North Lake Avenue. 

Applications for Today

1. Jesus see’s and provides for practical needs

This is who Jesus is.  Our needs matter.  He is a God who sees us and comes to us in those needs.  No one could imagine that day what Jesus would do with 5 pieces of bread and 2 fish – and there is no way to know what Jesus will do to meet your needs… but know that Jesus is a about seeing and meeting your practical needs.

Community Outreach, Neighborhood Center, John Bowlin, Care deacons – all exist at LAC because practical needs matter to Jesus. 

2. Jesus is more abundant than we can imagine

Jesus cannot be contained within our calculations, our planning, our assessment.  When we see limitations, Jesus doesn’t.  We live in a scarcity mindset… and Jesus is a God of Abundance.   When the calculations don’t seem to make human sense, do we have eyes dependent and looking to Jesus?

Today we take an offering for scholarships for Family Min.  Today we are several hundred dollars behind our general fund projections.  This week I worked on a budget for next year that is based on 500,000 dollars of “adjustments” for next year.  The calculations do not seem to be adding up – conventional wisdom would say, not the year to do a scholarship offering…. But brothers and sisters… 

Jesus is more abundant that we can imagine.  I have zero fear that by getting kids to camp that somehow, we are not going to be okay at LAC. 

You may look out, do the math, see the resources a certain way – and I am here to proclaim to you!  Jesus is more abundant that we can imagine and he calls us to trust him and bring our meager lunches to him and watch him multiply it all!

3. Jesus came to set up a Kingdom and not run a government

Some of you are starting to get worried.  Here we go, why does this have to get political?  Be assured, I am not a political scientist and not even a political hobbyist… but let me assure you that in my study this week from John Piper to Jim Wallis – all agree that this text is Jesus rejecting the desire of the crowd for him to their political leader.  He is rejecting their desire that a kingship with Jesus as king means they get a better life.

He has not come to run the government, he hasn’t come to take over Rome, he has come to set up a new way of living… and it is not limited to country, political systems, political parties, or anything else of the like.

When the people want this from him in John 6, he retreats.  He pulls away. 

Brothers and Sisters, the noise is loud.  The news is harsh.  I am not minimizing that our broken world has broken systems and broken human beings in leadership, that there are hurting people with very real needs to be met (remember Jesus sees and provides for practical needs) … all very true.  BUT – do not think that the answer to these issues is somehow to focus on the government… the empire.  If we just elect _____ then we are closer to Jesus… We are tempted just like the crowds… and Jesus came to not run the political world order but to set up a Kingdom not of this world… John 18. 

4. Jesus wants to change our appetites and cravings

Later on, in John, we will see Jesus build on this miracle when Jesus proclaims I am the bread of life.  Without me you will still hunger…

The crowds wanted more

The crowds wanted a political leader

The crowds wanted the miracle worker super man

Jesus came to not simply give us what we want… but to transform the things we actually want.  To not just hunger for early things but to hunger and thirst for righteous (Matthew 5)

This week: “a Lamborghini” a former student told him is how he would know he is successful.  I tested him… and asked him to consider if Jesu might be trying to change his craving to something more eternal. 

May it be with us too, may Jesus not simply be our miracle worker who meets what we just what we want – but may we learn to give what we have to him – and watch him use it is ways we cannot imagine.  And may we learn to let Jesus transform us into citizens of the Kingdom of God whose cravings and desires are those of the Kingdom and not of the earth.