Today I am visiting with my younger daughter’s family far away from my own home. I have been asked to team with her in the discussion of her group on the miracle of Jesus feeding the multitude with loaves and fishes. What a privilege it is to talk together with friends about the meaning of any Scripture portion, and this one is so well known that it provides excellent opportunity for background for the whole meaning of Jesus to all peoples wherever they may be in their spiritual perceptions. The story is well known. Jesus took a boy’s small lunch and turned it into a feast for thousands. What does it all mean, and why is it useful for us today?
A miracle is an event, palpable to the senses, but unexplained by any natural means. If it can be explained in the terms of nature, it is not a miracle. It may be remarkable, but it is not a miracle. Miracles are scary to us precisely because we can’t explain them in nature’s terms. We have difficulty believing in them. Many persons have said they have experienced some miracle, but they are few in the total population. Most miracles are explained away. For example, if cancer is present on one visit to a doctor, and absent on a later visit it is said that there has been a remission. I have had several remissions in my long life. Some of them have been miracles.
Jesus was a reluctant miracle worker. God seems to resort to the miraculous only as a means to transition from a former pattern of belief to a larger one. Advance in Spiritual transition could not be accomplished for skeptical human beings without something that gains unusual attention. Miracles became attractive, but troubling, persuaders. They occurred before Jesus and for similar purposes to his. Jesus appears to have wanted to reduce the use of them as soon as feasible, and seems to have done so toward the end of his ministry. His early ministry included many miracles.
After feeding the multitude, Jesus completed his purpose with an inventory of the garbage. There ought to be no doubt about the context of the event. He went on to his next ministry, which included a miracle event the following night – Peter walking on the water. Jesus had to escape the multitude because they would make him a human king, perhaps so that they might be fed. Jesus would have none of it. They pursued him across the lake, and on to Capernaum, to encounter him again. He shifted approach in analyzing their motives. His message was himself. He would relate to them. He would become their Savior and free them from the burden of sin. But that is not what they wanted to make of him. They wanted a leader who would create a perfect social world – feed the hungry. So intense was it in Judas, it could not be balanced. Jesus made clear that he had a priority of issues for teaching. The first priority was God/faith; the second was in communication of the divine provision for escape from spiritual death; and, these demonstrated in miracles. In the end they only wanted the last one, a solution to human hunger, even if in an odd human solution. By the time the crowd reached him, a day or so later, he noted that they had only come for fish sandwiches. He taught their minds and souls, but did not feed them with loaves and fish on that day. (John 6:26) To have done so would send the wrong message. He would have baited them. Man’s immortality (hope) would have shrunk back into mortality. For transient crowds, heaven can wait. Insightful persons are willing to surrender mortality for immortality. The crowds were ambivalent, even in the light of miracles, abandoning him when it meant on their part to join his mission to redemption. The scenario, if played out in the same way in our time, would likely receive the same response from current populations. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020