The Way to a Man's Heart is Through? ... (witness number ten)

Folklore would say his stomach.  But would God agree?  John’s Gospel continues in chapter six as Christ moves away from the confrontation with the “religious” leaders, over a healing performed on Sabbath and He crosses the Sea of Galilee.  By this time, as later scriptures will reveal, His fame was well known, and his disciples numbered well over the original 12.  Many had come to follow Christ, none were ever sent away.  It is interesting to note, that Jesus did not cap the number of His followers to 12, it was only those first few who were “invited”, perhaps because also as later scriptures will reveal, they were the only ones who did not decide to change their minds and leave Him.  The same object lesson may apply to us today.  Many claim to follow Jesus Christ.  But when following leads to surrender of our own ideas, our own long cherished desires, our own decisions about our lives; we too, often decide it is not worth it, and leave Him.  How sad.

At this point, those with diseases sought out Christ, and He healed all those He encountered.  A great crowd met Him in Galilee and desired to be near Him, listen, and see what might happen next.  Jesus finds Himself on a mountain, with a great multitude, near the time of the Passover feast.  Time to eat.  But the logistics of pulling off an unplanned picnic were still to be figured out.  In an effort to build the faith of His follow, Jesus (in verse 5) asks Phillip the obvious question … “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?”  Verse 6 reveals Jesus already knew what He was going to do, but He was about to make a point about how each of us, and all of us, are taken care of by God.  Now, remember for a moment the time in which Jesus lived.  There was no Safeway, or Publix, or Walmart, you could conceivably run down to and pick up enough bread to feed what would soon be numbered as 5,000 men.  And this was not an event where only men attended.  Rest assured they were accompanied by their wives, sisters, children, and old folks.  This was a gathering of epic proportions.  It was spontaneous and unplanned.  It was nearly the size of a small army.

No bakery of the day would have been prepared to sell enough food to feed this many people.  If the families did not bring their own food with them, they would likely not be eating that day.  Even if you went to every baker in the region (which may well be time prohibitive), you would still come up well short of having enough stock on hand to handle this many people in this small an area.   Next, would be the problem of funding.  Christ owned nothing.  His disciples did not have revenue generating occupations.  They followed Jesus around from place to place, relying on the charity of others anywhere they ventured.  The money they collected in donations Judas held … “for the poor”.  So even if Walmart had been open to them with enough bread on hand, they would not have had the funds to make the purchase.  Phillip realizes these truths, but decides to take inventory of what they have on hand, and “explain” the situation to Christ.

How often do we answer the questions of Christ, that were meant to grow our faith, based on the “facts” we know to be true?  There is no store.  There is no money.  There is only little bread.  What are you talking about Lord?  Or in our day … we have no funds for this mission in our community, we have no space zoned properly to open it, we have no staff to man it with volunteer labor … what are you talking about Lord?  The facts do not suit your question.  The budget does not allow for your crazy ideas about spending.  We simply “cannot” accommodate your request Lord, as the “facts” on the ground make it “impossible”.  This was Phillip’s assessment as in verse 7 he offers … “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.”  This is all we have Lord, and it is obviously not enough.  We simply cannot accommodate your request.  How many church board meetings have resulted in the same conclusion?  How many times have Christians looked at what is “possible” and made their decisions based on the facts, rather than on the faith that lies behind the question?

Andrew, Peter’s brother, gets the spark of an idea.  One of Christ’s disciples is a child, apparently a smart child, as he came prepared to this unplanned picnic with a lunch his mom had made him for the event.  Here is a mother’s love reflected in the life of her child.  It was no gourmet feast, it was a humble meal, made in love for a small child.  But the child, in the true Spirit of love, is more than willing to offer up his entire meal to Jesus to use as He sees fit.  Leave it to a child, to set the example of what we ALL should be willing to give to Christ, literally everything.  The child does not first remove what he needs for himself, and then offer what is left to Jesus.  He does not eat first, and offer the scraps to God.  He decides he is simply not hungry, if Jesus has need of his food.  So he tells Andrew, he wants to offer up his lunch to Jesus.  After all mom will gladly make him another one tomorrow, worst case.  So Andrew takes it to Christ … but then almost immediately realizes that while this child is giving everything he owns up to Jesus, it is still a small thing against so much need.  In verse 9 he explains … “There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?”

What Phillip did not consider, was that the person asking the question ALREADY knew the answer.  What Andrew did not consider, was that even though this offering of a child was small against so great a need, all Christ ever asks of us is what we are WILLING to offer Him, and when we do offer Him something, He takes it and uses it completely.  The blessing the child understood that day, was that when you hold nothing back from Christ, it is YOU who is blessed beyond on all measure.  While we do not know that child’s name today, we all know his offering.  For it is based on his gift, that the ensuing miracle would occur.  At this point Jesus asks the disciples to have all the men sit down (with their families), the men numbering about 5000.  It happened there was a lot of grass in that place, so everyone complied.  I wonder had it been barren if they would have still agreed?  But in any case, they did.

And then Jesus offers us yet another example, of the point of this story.  It is God who provides for our needs.  Even when we have yet to realize our needs have been met.  Before He distributes the food to His disciples in verse 10 … “And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks …”  He gives thanks.  Thanks to who?  Thanks to the little child who “owned” the bread and fishes?  Thanks to the loving mother who had prepared that lunch for her child that day?  Thanks for the boy’s father for “earning” the money that would pay for the food, that mom would pack for her generous child?  No.  Though all those acts of love culminated in an offering to God, Jesus pauses to give thanks to the real source of ALL our food, and the one who meets ALL our needs, His Father God.  It is not merely for the food that will be consumed, but for the miracle that will mark this day in His ministry for a great many to remember.  Long after He is crucified and rejected by those who today will join Him in feasting, His miracle will be a seed that will result in a harvest of souls.  When His true mission is finally understood and accepted, those who eat this day, will remember this act.  It is for this miracle that results in a harvest of souls that Jesus is most thankful for.  For His primary happiness is found in the redemption of those who are lost.  This is a joy He shares with His Father.

And so, He begins to give out food to His disciples to serve to the crowd.  Here too, is another example of the priority of the ministry of Christ.  To serve others.  Notice that he does not begin by eating Himself, but by serving to others.  His servants, or disciples in this case, are given food to serve first to others, not to themselves.  I am certain Jesus in His humanity was hungry.  So were His disciples.  But when serving others, following the will of God, hunger was not something of primary concern.  The act of serving in concert with the miracle of the seemingly endless supply of food had made those serving it completely forget their own needs.  The entire multitude was fed.  Notice again, not one soul went hungry.  Nor was this gift rationed in any way.  He did not restrict any who wanted food from eating it.  If they wanted seconds or thirds, or more, have at it.  Those who were poor, were fed.  Here in an impossible situation, in impossible circumstances, God finds a way.

What man cannot do for himself, only God can do.  When man realizes his own inability, he is finally free to allow God to do, what God already knows He is going to do.  When our budget does not allow for us to accommodate the request of God, but we move forward anyway, we find the impossible becomes possible.  For it was never our money being adequate that our God was looking for, it was our willingness to follow in spite of our lack of funds and negative “facts”.  It is our faith that frees God to work His miracles in our lives, and allow us to serve others as our first priority.  This story is a living example of this truth from end to end.  The miracle was as much for the disciples of Christ to understand service as it was for the hungry who sat on that grassy mountainside.  And they ALL ate, and were filled.  The gift of God is not casual, partial, or insufficient.  It is overflowing. 

Now to punctuate just how large a miracle this really was … in verse 12 and 13 it continues “When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. [verse 13] Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.”  Imagine this.  More left-overs after all had eaten than any store would have had in inventory to start with.  These left-overs could be distributed to the poor who were not there that day, nothing would be wasted or lost, when God gives a gift to mankind.  The child who offered up his lunch, still had a lunch, even greater than the one he offered to God.  You CANNOT out-give God.  You simply cannot out-love the source of all love.  The child, thought it not too great a sacrifice to give Jesus everything he had.  And this simple loving gift was returned to him in fuller measure than what he had offered.  He lost nothing in the giving.  This was no investment scheme designed for the child to profit from.  He had no expectations his offering would be returned to him.  But God knows our needs, and loves us far more than we could ever love Him in return.  And mom’s lunch was blessed, multiplied, and returned to her son completely.  So it is, when we offer God our all, no matter how small our all is, against so great a need.

It would be nice to end this recollection at this point, at the pinnacle of a tremendous event.  But when our own ideas about truth are too stubborn to be taught, the ending cannot always be the blessing it was intended to be.  The people you see, were not looking for the lamb of God, to be slain for their sins.  They were looking for a king and conqueror to drive out the Roman oppressor and lead Israel back to its former glory.  Had Jesus accepted this role, He would have been loved by priest, leader, and commoner alike.  Had Jesus accepted this role, His divine power could have quickly made an end to Roman occupation, and restored Israel to be the greatest kingdom the world had ever known.  He had the power to control everything to insure this happened.  But His mission was not one of power, of control, or of earthly glory.  God does not measure glory in power or control, He measures it in love, forgiveness, and restoration of that which was lost.  What men wanted, was not what God wanted.

The reaction of the crowd (in verse 14) was certainty … “Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.”  The healings, and now the ability to feed an army out of nothing, was exactly the right combination to drive out the Romans.  You could eat every day, and be healed if you were wounded in battle.  They did not even need Christ to fight, He could just sit in the back of the army and do the healing and feeding duties.  These men would gladly have done the fighting for Him.  Here was Satan yet again trying to offer Christ a way to gain the love of His people without having to die for them.  Here was Satan again trying to setup an “alternative” to the ways of God.  No need to die to redeem Israel, no need to die to obtain their love, a simple gesture of liberation, and the whole of the country would worship You.  If you want the people to believe in you, here is a sure fire way to make that happen.  But God does not attempt to control, or manipulate, instead He only offers love, and asks for us to accept it.  So the crowd was to be disappointed. 

In verse 15 … “When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.”  Teleportation anyone?  Invisibility perhaps?  I find this text interesting as the will of those men was bent on making Christ a king, whether He wanted it or not.  How does one “depart” from a mountain where 5000 men know who you are, and are united in their goal of making you king, whether you want it or not?  How do you just “walk away” from 5000 people without attracting the unwanted attention of this crowd?  I can only believe on occasion to avoid the snares of Satan, Jesus simply had to move through space in a way we may never fully understand.  In this instance, He would reject the alternative Satan offered, and escape Satan’s plans to force Him into compliance. 

Here again was another object lesson for us.  These people believed they knew the “truth” about the mission of the Messiah.  They had read the works of the prophets that foretold of Him, and had confused some of the writings about heaven, as being in the time of His first appearing.  Their misinterpretation had become defacto truth, and they were unwilling to alter their hopes around what the Messiah was truly here to do.  Using their religious ideas, and fervor for achieving personal goals, under the guise of divine approval, they sought to force God to do as they wished.  How often do we allow our own ideas and desires about how we live, to offer God an “alternative” to His ideas that is “equally” acceptable?  We decide one day in seven is enough to worship God, it should not matter which day we choose to do it on.  We decide our tithes and our offerings are discretionary and should only be spent the way we see fit.  We decide “who” we love is our business, and if we change our minds, we should be free to do so, no matter how many times we change it, and who we hurt in the process.  Our time, our money, our relationships, should after all be up to us.  So we attempt to define for God, why our alternatives should be just as good as anything He outlined.  We attempt to control Him, by what we do, instead of surrendering everything to Him, and experiencing the freedom of not being bound to control at all.

It was not to be through a miraculous meal that the hearts of this crowd would be reached.  The miracle mattered, the meal was incidental.  But the lesson would last, it is God who provides for our needs even when we cannot see this plain and simple truth.  Even before the disciples had seen the food that would be distributed, Jesus was thanking the Father for it.  No miracle had yet been performed, but the gratitude was already there from Christ.  Why?  Because Jesus knew what His followers did not.  That God Himself provides for our every need, and sees to our existence, no matter what came out of that lunch basket.  When man faces the impossible, he can finally see it was God there all the while meeting the need. 

When man finally surrenders his own will to God, it is then that God can remake us into the creations He intended us to be, freed from the bondage to self, free to serve others, free to love others as God loves.  When the miraculous food started to flow, it was first served to others.  Christ, who by all rights should have been the first to eat, was the last to do so.  God put Himself last, by His own choice.  Only after everyone else had eaten would He have the chance to eat Himself.  Those who followed Christ, were also FIRST to serve others, and last to eat themselves.  Then they went the further step of doing the clean-up of the left-overs.  Service to others is the hallmark of love, the witness that the work comes from God.  It was natural for Jesus to serve first and eat last.  This is foreign to us, and can only come naturally when we allow God to remake “who” we are.  Instead of trying to control God with our alternatives to His ideas, perhaps we can finally be ready to forsake our own wisdom, and begin learning from Him who so longs to free us from ourselves.  It is in this way, that the hearts of men can finally be reached.