Hungry – But Not For What's Really Important Series

PRE-TALK earlier in the service

Three pictures / slides

(1) Israelites collecting manna in the wilderness

~1450 or 1270 B.C. ‘Manna’ = ‘what is it?’

The people of Israel had fled slavery in Egypt. They travelled eastwards, crossed the Red Sea and entered the Sinai Peninsula. There isn’t a lot of food in the Sinai Peninsula but God provided for them by sending something called manna.

Ask: how important was manna for the Israelites? Manna was a matter of life and death. There was literally nothing else for the Israelites to eat. How often did they collect it? Who gave it? What did the Israelites have to do? (Very little)

(2) Jesus feeding 5,000

~25 A.D. / Jesus feeds 5,000 people (or more).

In Bible times bread was REALLY IMPORTANT. It was the all-important commodity. It was people’s daily sustenance. It was the staple food. In Bible times, bread was usually made at home. Loaves were round and flat. Some bread was made from wheat flour but it was more often made from barley. In the feeding of the 5,000, the loaves were barley loaves.

Ask: How important was the food for the crowd? Who gave it? What did the people have to do?

(3) Bread in a tendir oven in Azerbaijan

Priscilla and I lived in Azerbaijan for 17 years. Sophie and Daniel were born while we were there and had a large part of their childhood there. One of the things we LOVED about Azerbaijan was the bread. In Azerbaijani, bread is called ‘churek.’ It’s usually round and flat and it’s cooked in a clay oven called a ‘tendir’. That kind of bread is called ‘tendir chureyi.’ Sometimes we’d be out somewhere in the car. We’d pull up next to a baker’s and buy a couple of loaves. They would take the loaves out of the oven, put them in a piece of newspaper, and then give them to you – and you’d need to be holding them in your sleeves! They were HOT! There was often not much left by the time we got home – they were so delicious. In Azerbaijan, bread was almost holy. It was never thrown away. Azerbaijanis ate lots of bread. When we arrived in Azerbaijan, a salary of about £40 a month was considered good and lots of people earned a lot less than that. When that’s your salary, you can’t afford a lot of nice food. Lots of Azerbaijanis mostly lived on bread.

MAIN TALK

We’re back in our series on ‘Encounters with Jesus in John’s gospel.’ We’ve looked at Jesus’ disciples, amazed at the fact that he turned water into wine. Nicodemus, baffled when Jesus told him he needed to be born again. A Samaritan woman at a well, suprised to be asked for a drink. A paralysed man who met Jesus one day at a pool – and was healed. Today, we’re looking at a crowd of 5,000 people. They were hungry and Jesus gave them food: bread and fish.

Apart from the account of Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus’ feeding 5,000 people is the only event that’s recorded in all four gospels – so it must be really important. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record quite a number of Jesus’ miracles – on average about 20 each. John doesn’t record so many. He only records about eight. John tends to record miracles which point to a spiritual truth. That is certainly the case here. After Jesus physically fed 5,000 people, he went on to talk about an even more amazing spiritual truth. That’s what I’m going to concentrate on today: the spiritual truth. I’m not going to say MUCH about Jesus physically feeding 5,000 people. But I don’t want to skip it entirely. If I did then we’d miss something important.

Jesus provided physical food for 5,000 people! He saw that people needed food and he provided it. It tells us something about Jesus – that he’s a lord who sees what we need, who cares, and who does something about it. That’s important thing for us to remember. There will be times when we have material needs. Jesus is the one to go to. Not only should we go to Jesus when we have material needs, he has given us an example to follow. HE saw people in need and did something about it. That means WE should too. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Christians from the west went to Albania. They were shocked by what they saw. A United Nations report in 1991 said that hardly any industry in the country was still working. Few people had jobs and those who did had pitifully low salaries. Eggs, fish and meat were nowhere to be seen. Hospital equipment was very, very old. A doctor in a major hospital did not have even a stethoscope. A surgeon had only one pair of rubber gloves which he washed between operations. So Christians from the west saw material needs. What did they do? They distributed bread, and they brought in medical, dental and relief supplies. They followed Jesus’ example. So should we, when we see people in need.