Friday in the Second Week of Easter, April 20, 2023

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.

“Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.”  Previous to writing about the feeding of the five thousand, John the Apostle had written of the Lord disputing with the Jews in Jerusalem, so his appearance now in Galilee comes abruptly.  “Across the sea” may indicate its eastern side, south of Bethsaida, a little fishing town on the coast.  Here John calls the freshwater lake of the region “the Sea of Galilee”, although he will call it “the Sea of Tiberias” at another time.

“A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.”  The crowd followed him across or around the sea “because they saw the signs he was performing”, and not to be cured themselves.  They wanted to see more signs, or learn more about the man who had performed them.  Some may have connected the miracles with the possibility that this man was the Messiah.  “Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.”  He may have gone up the mountain soon after arriving “across the Sea of Galilee” in order to pray or to teach his disciples.  The crowd would have come not all at once but in small groups.  They saw him leave on the boat and knew what direction it was heading so they could estimate it’s destination.  Then some of the people who had gathered to hear him got into boats and followed him, and some went the long way around the coast.

“The Jewish feast of Passover was near.”  John has a reason for word he writes.  He gives the time of the feeding of the five thousand in order to connect it to the Passover on which the Lord would feed his Apostles the Bread of Life.  

“He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.”  The Lord often tested the Apostles in their understanding of his teaching and in their faith.  He prepared them for the testing they would undergo after they went out to the world to preach the Gospel.  “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  Philip does some quick math here.  He is a practical, literal minded man and does not see what could be done for the crowd.  He also does not ask Jesus what he proposes to do, since it is his idea that something should be done.  He does not connect the people in the wilderness with Moses and the people in the wilderness with Jesus.  God fed the people with manna and there was enough for everyone to eat as much as they wanted.  He does not wonder what Jesus will do.  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  likewise, Andrew fails to make the connection that as God fed the people with manna, so Jesus would feed the people now.  

“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.”  He distributed them through the Apostles, employing them as “ministers”, from the Latin word originally meaning “attendants” or “waiters”.  Jesus makes the abundance, the Apostles serve it.  “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.”  The Greek word translated here as “wasted” means “lost” or “destroyed”.  The Lord did not want the leftover pieces of bread and fish to be lost.  He had given thanks to the Father for them and so they must be saved and put to good use.  Perhaps they were brought to the nearby town of Bethsaida for the poor there to eat.  Certainly Jesus did not cause them to be collected in baskets simply to be left there in the wilderness.  The amount of food leftover, which everyone in the crowd could see in the baskets, far exceeded what there had been to begin with.  It was an astounding miracle.  In fact, it impressed the Evangelists so much that all four of them include the story of this miraculous feeding in their Gospels.  It is the only one of the Lord’s miracles found in all the Gospels.

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”  The people here recognize Jesus as the successor of Moses, who had asked God to feed the people, and who promised them a Prophet: “The Lord your God will raise up to you a Prophet of your nation and of your brethren like unto me [Moses]: him you shall hear . . . And the Lord said to me: I will raise them up a Prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to you: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him” (Deuteronomy 18, 15; 17-18).  “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 crowd equated the Prophet promised by God as the Messiah who would restore Israel, and so they were determined to make him their king, possibly swearing their loyalty to him and marching with him on to Jerusalem.  The Lord does not attempt to argue with the crowd but goes to the upper reaches of the mountain by himself.  It was enough for now that they understood him to be greater than Moses.  He would teach them again, soon, and reveal to him exactly who he was.