Seven Signs in John's Gospel

John 6 - the feeding of the five thousand

The feeding of the 5000 is a really important miracle and one that has deep significance as I hope we will see during the course of this morning...
You can get the measure of its importance by the fact that all four gospel writers report it.....
The only other miracle that gets recorded by all four writers is the resurrection of Jesus...
To put this miracle in context, this occurred at a time when Jesus had become very popular, and his fame had spread far and wide..
Hence a very large crowd came out to this remote place near the Sea of Galilee . It was the miracles that were the big attraction.
Let us look at the first fifteen verses of chapter 6...READ.
Points to notice from these verses. Verse 2 the miraculous signs..Verse 4 the Passover..Verse 6 the test
Then after the very public and all embracing miracle that all could see and share in reaction of the people in verses 14 and 15....
This was probably the high point of Jesus' popularity...
READ 25 - 34. You can see from verse 25 onwards that Jesus uses this high point to show His disciples and the people what His real purpose and mission was..
With the power and authority that He had He could have ridden on the wave of popular approval. The peoples' minds were on material things (verses 27, 30, 31)...food, miracles, manna.
Then Jesus begins to show them what the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand was about and what the meaning of this is in relation to Himself and His ministry..READ Verses 32 and 33.
This is why the reference to the Passover in verse 4 is so important..
Did they see this at the time? Would we have seen this at the time?
It is only on reflection and with the revealing light of the Holy Spirit that the gospel writers are able to set this in context long after the event and the subsequent sacrifice of Jesus and the resurrection.
As a public relations exercise at the point in time when this was happening, matters only went from bad to worse...
On the surface of it this looks like the classic example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory..
As far as popularity goes, as Jesus now explains His true mission and the meaning of the miracle of the five thousand and how it relates to Him this is now downhill all the way.
READ FROM VERSE 35 TO 42
Just look at the reaction of the Jews in verse 41...
What is the natural reaction when you are faced with something you do not understand and find challenging? You rubbish it..
This is just what the Jews did as verse 42 shows...
Jesus answers them in verses 43 - 48. READ.
Notice that Jesus had said 'I am the bread of life' in verse 35. Fine for us to appreciate that now and draw inspiration and comfort from that, but at the time it caused huge offence..
Jesus again said 'I am the bread of life' in verse 48 and this time He goes on to demonstrate how this applies to Him personally..READ 48 to 51.
This causes a deep division among the Jews as is shown by verse 52. READ.
Then Jesus comes back to reinforce the message with verses 53 - 58. READ.
In fact this seems to have been the 'teaching of the week' as the discourse began when He first arrived in Capernaum and continued in the synagogue as verse 59 shows so he was probably in the city a few days.
This was of course the crux of the message that He had come to earth to bring. Verses 53 and 54 are the vital message that we need to take away this morning...READ AGAIN.
He had to die as the sacrifice for all and it is His flesh and blood crucified for us that is the source of eternal life for us. There is no other way.
READ 60 - 69. You can see how many of the disciples of Jesus were perplexed at this as these verses show. A real test of faith for them..
This sorted the 'men from the boys' in the band of disciples.
Those who stuck with Him did so not because they understood at this juncture, but because they were willing to trust. This is something we need to do in our Christian lives, trust when we do not fully understand...
In this day and age we have the opportunity to look back on this with the aid of scripture and bible commentary to put the matter of Jesus as the bread of life in context for us.
Jesus states categorically that if you reject Him, then you do not inherit eternal life. Verses 53 and 54 underline this. In closing, let us just come back to these two verses again. READ 53/54 AGAIN.
If we take on the fact that Jesus has sacrificed Himself for us and we 'eat' His flesh and 'drink' His blood then we have life.
That means we are allowing Him to come into our lives and be part of us. As Jesus said at the end of verse 58 'he who feeds on this bread will live forever'.
There is no other way. That is it. The message is clear. Accept Jesus and you have life, rejecting Him means death.
If you need to make that personal commitment, then do it now...

Malcolm McReath