Friday in the Second Week of Easter, April 29, 2022

John 6:1-15

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

The events in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass took place some time after Jesus had healed the lame man by the pool in Jerusalem, recounted in the previous chapter of St. John’s Gospel.  According to the reasoning of the Venerable Bede, John the Baptist was beheaded at about this time, and the Lord would be crucified a year later, at the time of the next Passover.  We can see the Lord’s feeding of the five thousand, then, as the beginning of the final stage of his life and ministry on earth.  The feeding takes place near Bethsaida, the native town of Peter, Andrew, and Philip.  It was located on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, near the Golan Heights.  The town relied on fishing for its economy.  Otherwise, the land around it was good for grazing but not for much else.  It was wild country with rocky hills and grassy plains.  The Lord seems to have gone up there at this time not so much to preach to the crowds as to spend time teaching his disciples.  The crowds, however, came after him, even to this difficult to access country.  They were lured on by “the signs he was performing on the sick”.  Presumably they wanted to see more of these signs.  But they also were drawn to the Lord himself, for they follow him even into the rough country, away from the towns where the sick lay.

Seeing the crowd arriving from his vantage point on the mountain, the Lord asked Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”  The Lord is not asking this question because he wanted suggestions.  He asks it as a teacher proposing a problem to a student, to give the student a chance to work out an answer.  Philip thinks, turning the problem over in his mind, but can form no solution.  He does, however, frame the problem in practical terms: “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  That is, apart from the fact that this amount of food could not be purchased in a small town like Bethsaida, they did not have sufficient funds to buy it anyway.  Andrew notices a boy coming along with the crowd.  He is carrying a basket.  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  Andrew senses that the Lord is going to reveal the answer to his own question, but cannot imagine what he will do. 

“ ‘Have the people recline.’  Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.”  John provides the detail about the abundance of wild grass as though to show the Lord’s concern that the people should recline at this place rather than at another on the hard stone of the hillside.  Now, we note that the Lord does all this in answering the question he had posed to Philip, not explaining it to the Apostles in words but showing it in actions.  “Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.”  The crowd could not have seen how few the loaves and fish were but they saw the Lord offer a prayer of thanksgiving to the Father for them.  John writes as though the Lord distributed the loaves and fish himself, but as we learn from St. Matthew’s account of this event, “He blessed, and broke, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes” (Matthew 14, 19).  That is, he fed the crowd through his Apostles.  This gave them a hand in solving the problem their Teacher had set before them in the person of Philip.  The answer they could have drawn from this was that God will bless an act done out of charity so that its effect super-abounds.  Thus, there remain left over “twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.”  God never provides merely sufficient graces or rewards, but always more than what is strictly necessary.  God is an exuberant giver.  The Lord shows that the grace “left over” from the blessing does not simply vanish without accomplishing some good.  It is part of God’s providence that it would provide a benefit for someone who perhaps does not know how to ask for it: “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.”  The fragments could go to the poor of the town who would go hungry that night without them.

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”  For us reading today, these words make it appear that the people recognized Jesus as the Savior of the world, but the people meant that Jesus was the Messiah concerning whom the Pharisees taught, who would overthrow Roman rule.  They came up with this on their own, not bothering to ask the Lord himself what this sign meant.  “Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.”  We see the great love Jesus had for these people, that before he fed them he knew how they would react, and yet he fed them anyway.  He eagerly looked for ways to serve the people who flocked to him, and even seemed to pursue those who did not so that he might render them some good.  He continues to do this for us, pouring blessings upon us even when we are unaware of it.