John 6:10-15

¹⁰Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. ¹¹Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. ¹²When they had all had enough to eat, He said to His disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." ¹³So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. ¹⁴After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." ¹⁵Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make Him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by Himself.

First notice that Jesus puts up with the disciples pessimism by issuing a command: “Have the people sit down.” The disciples, likely without any clue of what Jesus had in mind with this command, simply obey. And the crowd seems to obey the disciples without question. The lesson for us is that obedience when we lack understanding is of utmost importance in our walk with God. That’s oftentimes what faith entails. 2 Corinthians 5:7 “We live by faith, not by sight.” Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” God never disappoints.

Matthew and Mark purposefully remind us here of the similarities of this image with Psalm 23 and the Lord as our Shepherd. John’s emphasis is not found here, but we can point out that he might be alluding to that image when he says that there was plenty of grass in that place. It reminds me of John 3:23, that John was baptizing in a certain place, “because there was plenty of water there.” It seems that the mention of “plenty” is noteworthy, if only in passing.

Perhaps a more noteworthy element here in John’s account is the prayer of thanksgiving prior to eating. Calvin takes this sentiment very seriously, saying, “They who swallow [food] without thinking of God, are guilty of sacrilege, and of profaning the gifts of God. And this instruction is the more worthy of attention, because we daily see a great part of the world feeding themselves like brute beasts. When Christ determined that the bread given to the disciples should grow among their hands, we are taught by it that God blesses our labor when we are serviceable to each other.” What do you think?

In this event, we see the compassion of Jesus and the lengths to which He is willing to go to take care of us. We learn that such a small thing as a meal was important to Jesus. The audience would have by no means starved to death on their way home from hearing Jesus teach (they hadn’t even complained like the Israelites in the wilderness during the Exodus), but His desire to provide for them out of kindness and love is remarkable. He is the dispenser of God’s blessings – grace upon grace as we saw from John 1:16.

Jesus could have just brought bread and fish into existence. But instead, just as He did at Cana of Galilee when they had filled the water pots with water, so here, He takes a little boy’s lunch and multiplies it to feed the multitude. Why? Why didn’t He just create it out of nothing? When you’re trying to teach your children something, you can do it one of two ways. You can snatch it from the child and say, “Give me that and let me show you how to do it.” And you do it and hand it back. Or you can take their little hands and gently do it so that it appears they are doing it themselves. Perhaps there’s something of that here. Jesus is saying, “Whatever you’ve got, it may be small, but let Me take it and use it in a way that will astound you.” Do you see the principle here? We might ask, “What can I do for Jesus? What can I do for the kingdom? I’ve got so very little.” But in the hands of Jesus Christ, that “little” can become something enormously significant. God can use it to multiply His Kingdom, because He does it again and again. That’s why He blesses the food; because it helped these disciples to see that the first thing we need to do, with what little we’ve got, is to give acknowledgement that it all comes from Him.

And finally, notice that Jesus tells the disciples to gather the leftovers. And there are twelve baskets left, a symbol of the 12 tribes and 12 disciples – as Matthew and Mark would have us see. Jesus says, “Let nothing be wasted.” The lesson for us is that when God gives us an increase, we must be wise with it. Wasting the overflow of God’s gifts is a terrible thing. We are to be stewards of God’s provision, and we will one day give an account for our use of His abundant blessings. In addition to giving a first fruits tithe, we should faithfully use God’s surplus in our lives for good purposes – approved by God to benefit the Kingdom of God.

The reaction to this miracle seems at first glance to be commendable – the people immediately recognize Jesus as both the Prophet Moses spoke about (as He was) and the King whom God promised to raise up in the line of David (as He was as well). However, even in this positive recognition, they display their false understanding: They intend to make Him king by force, and in so doing, reveal both a complete ignorance of His role as a substitutionary sacrifice, which He is demonstrating in this miracle, and their carnal natures, which are drawn to Him simply for the physical benefits He provides. Though they acknowledge His goodness, they refuse to look to the greater spiritual benefits signified by the physical goods. Thus they try to force Him into taking on the role of King. They have an earthly kingdom planned for Him, which is utterly inconsistent with His Person. We may learn that it is a dangerous thing to – apart from Scripture – make our own opinion and presume it is united with God’s will. Calvin says, “There is nothing which the foolish subtlety of our understanding does not corrupt. And what avails the pretense of zeal, when by our disorderly worship we offer a greater insult to God than if [one was] expressly and deliberately to make an attack on His glory?”

Consider that 5000 men wanted to make Jesus their King against His will! They wanted to take Him by force and seat Him on a throne that was not theirs to give. And the evidence that their plans were nothing but folly is that Jesus withdraws. He sneaks away from the crowd, and He gets away from the disciples as well. He needed to be alone with the Father for prayer. Do you think there may have been some temptation here? Wouldn’t the Man Jesus have liked an earthly kingdom to avoid the terror of crucifixion that He knew otherwise lay ahead? But retreating to the Father in quietness, Jesus maintains His course, shunning worldly gain, to – for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2) – endure the cross. Furthermore, as Jesus’ discourse (to be studied next time) will reveal, the crowd still saw Jesus as a mere man, the son of two human parents, and not the God of creation, as He claimed to be. In fact, as we’ll see, none can come to Christ as He truly is unless the Father who sent Him draws them.