For those of us who want Jesus to be predictable, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is. Jesus is not predictable. Never has been, never will be. The good news is, he knows what he is doing and its all for the best.
The disciples experienced the same kind of hopes and expectations. It wasn’t during Thanksgiving and Christmas but it was soon after they had been with him when he talked to the woman at the well and her whole town came to see him. It was after Jesus saw a lame man lying by a pool and said to him, take up your bed and walk and he did! Jesus was becoming popular. His schedule was busy. But, things were complicated because religious leaders were harassing him. Times for the disciples were crazy good but also crazy bad. And then, Jesus starts teaching and people keep coming and coming. 5000 men and probably as many women and children are listening to him. 10,000 people. It's our Christmas Eve services times ten.
How Jesus handles the crowd and how his disciples respond can help us have a better Christmas season and maybe a life-changing experience.
Let’s read John 6:5-11
5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” 8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” 10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward, he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted.
As you go through the next few weeks between now and Christmas, things are going to happen around you and maybe to you, maybe even through you. The first thing you can think about when something happens is this:
Jesus already knows what he wants to do in your situation.
Verse 6 says, Jesus already had in mind what he was going to do. We don’t think our challenges have caught him off-guard do we? He knew what he was going to do with those 5000 people but he didn’t tell his disciples. Instead, he assigned them an impossible task, already knowing they couldn’t do it. Why did he do that? It says he did it to test them. But, it could just as easily have said to prepare them. Jesus was building and teaching followers then and now. He knows what is going to happen and he has a plan for you in the middle of it all.
When our oldest daughter, Annie was about three, she loved Chucky Cheese, the pizza and game place. Because I love her, I wanted to take her there. And, I wanted to surprise her and I also wanted her to be a part of the decision. So, I told her we were going for a surprise ride. She kept asking me where we were going and I kept telling her it was a surprise.
She got so excited. Far more excited than if I had told her where we were going. But, not knowing also made her anxious. About five minutes into the drive she said, I think we are going the wrong way. Now, think about that for a minute. She didn’t know where we were going and, at three, she really didn’t even know where we were but she was afraid we were lost! Isn’t that how we often respond to situations in our lives? God, this must not be right. We must be going the wrong way? I think God wants to say to us sometimes, you don’t even know where I am leading you. How can you think we are going the wrong way?
About a mile from Chucky Cheese, I got her involved with the decision. I told her I would take her anywhere she wanted to go. She was now in charge and she would make the final decision about where we should go. Whenever she saw something she thought looked exciting, let me know and that’s where I would go. She started looking around. Oh, she got so excited. She was going to decide and she needed to make it a good decision. I figured I was safe giving her the decision because the only thing between us and Chucky Cheese was a housing tract on the right and a large vacant lot on the left. I didn’t anticipate a carnival having been set up overnight in the empty lot. A block from Chucky Cheese, with that big Chucky face in full color just around the corner on the right, Annie looked to the left and saw carnival lights off in the distance. She said that’s where I want to go. Let’s go to the bright lights, they look like fun.
This holiday season there are going to be bright lights that can distract us. There will be gifts and sales and activities. There will be expectations and parties and relatives. We will be at risk of being distracted and missing what God has for us, without even knowing it. We need to remember during exciting circumstances as well as challenging ones that Jesus already knows what he wants to do in your situation.
Pulling up to the stop light, the carnival was off to our left. I knew that what Annie really wanted was just around the bend on the right but she didn’t know that and I couldn’t tell her without spoiling the surprise. I asked her, are you sure you want to go left. YES, she said. I want to go to the bright lights. I said fine. You are in charge. To the bright lights we will go. As we waited for the signal to change I innocently said, I’m not in the left turn lane and I can’t turn that way from here but, if it is ok with you, I will drive forward for half a block and make a U-turn and then we can go to the bright lights. Is that alright with you? Yes, she said and I drove ahead around the bend and that familiar face appeared.
Dad, dad, Chucky Cheese. Can we go there? That’s where I really want to go. But, what about the bright lights? No, Chucky Cheese. That’s where I want to go. And being the good father I am, I took her where she wanted to go, where I had intended to take her from the very beginning.
Jesus already knows what he wants to do in your situation during this holiday season. That leads us to one of the mistakes we make, the same one a disciple made back then. It is important that you
Don’t limit the possibilities to only what you can imagine.
Look back at our text.
7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”
In verse 6, Jesus innocently asks his disciples, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” Philip actually puts his mind to this impossible task. It is not humanly possible to accomplish what Jesus is asking him to do. But, Philip tried to figure out how to do it anyway, in his own power, with his own resources, just the way all of us try to solve our problems.
I once caused a poor teenager a problem he couldn’t solve. I had the privilege of spending twenty-four hours on a VIP tour of the USS Nimitz, one of our nation’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. I’m not a VIP but, I know one. We landed on the carrier with our plane caught by the tailhook. It was all very exciting. We toured the deck and watched jets take off and land. We went to the bridge. We sat with the admiral of the fleet in his command room. It was on the way to the weapons locker that I got lost. My tour group turned one way, I turned the other. When I turned back they were gone. Great. Now I’m lost on an aircraft carrier and I need directions to the weapons.
They had told all of us that if we ever got lost to look for a crewman in a red uniform. I found one. He could not have been older than nineteen, a teenager. When I tapped him on the shoulder and told him my situation, I don’t know who was more frightened, him or me. I followed him to a sealed hatch exactly like you have seen in movies, with a big latch for a handle. He knocked and opened the door. I could see past him into the room where two officers were standing over charts on a table. They looked up and scowled at him. He had a problem he couldn’t solve, me. Their look made it clear, this young man was not supposed to open their door. One said, sailor, why are you here? Unlike Philip who tried to figure out Jesus’ question, this sailor was smart enough not to say a word. With fear etched on his face, he pointed at me. They took one look at me and said to that teenager two of the most welcome words that he had ever heard. You're dismissed.
I wasn’t his problem anymore. Fixing me wasn’t his job and it was good he didn’t try fixing it. Jesus never intended for Philip to get bread for all those people. By trying to solve the problem Jesus gave him, limited him to what he could figure out on his own. Listen, back then and now, during the holidays, Jesus has some big ideas, some soul searching, mind-bending, game-changing ideas for all of us, and for the world. Not one of them is humanly possible to accomplish on our own. But, we often do what Philip did. We limit ourselves to what we can figure out and limit Jesus in the process.
One translation puts Philip’s response to Jesus this way. Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite! Did Jesus ask Philip to figure out how to give each person a bite of bread? No, but right away, Philip starts limiting Jesus’ plan. Jesus put a daunting task before him and he limited his imagination and what he could expect from Jesus to only what he could figure out on his own. When big questions or difficult circumstances come up this holiday season, the lesson we learn from Philip is, don’t limit the possibilities to only what you can imagine.
But, the best thing we can do as we experience interesting or challenging or surprising circumstances this season is to do what Andrew did.
Remember what Jesus has done in the past and trust him for something big.
Andrew was standing in the back of the group of disciples just glad that its Philip getting the third degree from Jesus and not him. But, the conversation about food makes him notice a little boy with a piece of pita bread. I don’t think Andrew would have noticed the bread if Jesus hadn’t asked the question. It wouldn't have been on his radar screen. This season, because of your circumstance, your burden, your challenge, you, may be sensitive to things in ways the rest of us are not. That may be Jesus preparing you for something bigger. As Andrew sees the boy and his bread, he hears Jesus’ question, “where will we get bread to feed all these people?” Andrew says in verse 9, “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish.
Why did he say that? How is it even relevant? Could he have remembered what Jesus had done in the recent past? Besides healing a lame man, back at a wedding in Canan, he watched Jesus turn a hundred and fifty gallons of water into the best wine anyone at the wedding had tasted. He had seen Jesus do it before and he believed he could do it again.
Can I tell just one more story about my daughter, Annie? She grew up and went to college in Pennsylvania. She chose Allegany college partly because they had a study abroad program at Oxford University. Being the confident person she is, she chose Allegany even though they only send one student abroad each year. She applied and came in second. We tried appealing, tried everything and even considered transferring her to another college. Then we decided to trust that Jesus already knew what he wanted to do in her situation. With a lot of anxious moments, we tried not to limit the possibilities to only what we could imagine.
Not long after that, Annie was accepted into a study abroad program in Bath, England, where she did an internship at the Jane Austen Center. Ultimately, she did her senior project on Jan Austen and won awards for her knowledge and writing about Austen. Its partly what led her into the publishing industry.
Now, when any of us face challenges, we remembered what Jesus has done in the past for her and trust him for something big.
For a minute Andrew trusted. For a minute, his overwhelming circumstances and his inadequate resources combined with a renewed faith. Then, he looked at the crowd and maybe he grew self-conscious or felt silly. For whatever reason, he began his sentence with, “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish and ended it with, But what good is that with this huge crowd?”
But, for a moment he remembered what Jesus had done in the past. For a moment, Andrew trusted Jesus for something big. This season, we can as well.
Sometime this season your circumstances may seem overwhelming. Your resources may be inadequate. In that moment, realize Jesus already knows what he wants to do in your situation. Don’t limit the possibilities to only what you can imagine. And, remember what Jesus has done in the past and trust him for something big.
