Ancient Words: Miracles of Jesus, Fish and Bread
After the wedding in Cana, the word spread about the carpenter from Nazareth turning the 6 stone jugs of water into 6 stone jugs of fine wine. By the time Jesus came to the sea of Galilee the crowd was a multitude numbering 5,000 men in John 6 (or about 10,000 and more including women and children). Besides the wine miracle, several sick had been healed as well along the way and so the crowd swelled in great anticipation. We would do the same today. The incredible power demonstrated by Jesus would cause a large crowd to gather to see what else could be done! No KOA campgrounds here. No fast food chains to grab a quick meal: Joh 6:1-5 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
Jesus was being coy, as he knew the answer. However, Philip and Andrew both speak up with an answer. Philip looks at the vast expense involved saying it would take a half year of wages to feed this many with just one bite. Andrew looks with some degree of faith; he says, “…here is a boy with 5 small loaves and 2 small fish… but how can so little go so far?” Jesus instructs just as he did in Cana: “Have the people sit down.” The 12 command the multitude to sit on the grassy knoll overlooking Galilee and the crowd of 10,000 and more pause to receive a blessing of which they have no idea what preparation is taking place. Jesus gives thanks over the boy’s single basket of fish and bread and then tells the 12 to distribute the meal to the seated crowd.
No one got just a bite, everyone received as much food as they wanted. The entire multitude was fed so that when this picnic was over, Jesus ordered that nothing be wasted and 12 baskets full of bread and fish were collected. A brother of mine rightfully suggested the 12 full baskets were given to the 12 disciples as a reminder of how faith was lacking on their part, yet fully providing on God’s part, heaped up and running over!
This testimony of feeding a few bread and fish to thousands happened not once but twice, perhaps to emphasize the amazing and incredible provision of God with such an ease to command the laws of the universe for man be suspended in order for the will of God to be accomplished. No power on earth has ever been shown like what was seen at the Cana wedding… and no power on earth has ever been shown like what was seen on the hillside of Galilee. This carpenter of Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph, is indeed endowed with power from on high. He has been with the Father since the beginning accomplishing miraculous events to the glory of the triune God and now he lives in the flesh as God’s only begotten performing incredible miracles in the Judean countryside so that the generation of that time and the generation of our time might believe that Jesus Christ has the power to suspend death, man’s greatest enemy!