A TABLE SPREAD.
John 6:1-14.
“After these things” (John 6:1), Jesus and His disciples crossed the sea of Galilee.
“And a great multitude followed Him because they saw His miracles which He did to them which were diseased" (John 6:2).
Jesus and His disciples then withdrew from the throng, and sought some rest and relaxation in the Golan Heights (John 6:3).
It was now nearly a year since Jesus had cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem, and Passover was fast approaching (John 6:4). Just this one time in the year the grass is green (cf. Mark 6:39), and perhaps lambs skipped in the fields nearby.
Jesus looked up “and saw a great company” of people coming to Him. The Good Shepherd tended His own flock with the words to local boy Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” (John 6:5).
Sometimes Jesus makes us face up to the magnitude of our problems in order to demonstrate our total dependence upon Him. It is a comfort to know that He already knows what He is going to do (John 6:6)!
Poor Philip was overwhelmed, quickly calculating in his head that even eight months wages would only provide a small portion for each person (John 6:7).
Andrew now volunteered a boy with a packed lunch: “but what is that among so many?” (John 6:8-9). Our gifts and offerings seem so small, a drop in the ocean: but as Mother Theresa of Calcutta once said, each drop goes toward filling the ocean.
Everything was done ‘decently and in order’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:40). Jesus said, “Make the men sit down” (John 6:10).
“The men” is generic. The people - men, women and children – literally “reclined,” as the custom was. However, when it came to counting them, the second mention of “men” refers specifically to there being 5,000 adult males – (‘beside women and children’ adds Matthew 14:21).
Jesus takes our little, “gives thanks” (the same word as in the Communion, from which we have the word “Eucharist”), and transforms it into plenty (John 6:11). Jesus delegated the distribution to the disciples, and they gave to the people; both bread and fishes “as much as they would.”
Think of it: 5,000 men, plus who knows how many women and children, and each one was filled to the full (John 6:12). This was a repeat of the miracle of the manna in the wilderness: ‘he that gathered much had nothing left over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating’ (cf. Exodus 16:18).
And there was more gathered up in leftover fragments than there had been at the start. There were twelve baskets full, the same number as the tribes of Israel, symbolising God’s sufficient provision for all of His people (John 6:13).
This sign was so powerful that the Galileans said, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world” (John 6:14).
