I have been studying the first fifteen verses of John 6 for a couple of weeks getting ready to write a sermon. This is a familiar text for just about anyone that has spent any time at all in the church. It is the account of the feeding of the 5,000. You know, as Matthew clearly states, that 5,000 was an accounting of the number of men and did not include the women and children present. Most would agree that this was likely a crowd of somewhere between 20 and 25 thousand people. This miracle is one of only two that are recorded in all four of the gospels, the other being the resurrection. It is fair to say that this is an incredibly significant miracle.
Here you have a large crowd of people, and it is getting late in the day. They didn’t come prepared with food to eat, and Philip tells Jesus to send them home, so they won’t go hungry. Jesus asks Philip, where they could buy enough bread for all of these people? The question was a test, Jesus wanted to see how Philip would respond. Philip responds with something of a sarcastic statement when he tells Jesus that 200 denarii wouldn’t buy enough bread to feed this crowd. To give you some context that would roughly be about 9 months wages. Jesus sent the disciples through the crowd to find out what resources they had. Good news! Someone brought a lunch. One boy had a momma that fixed him a common lunch for the day of what amounted to five hard biscuits made of barely and two fish that were likely pickled. Andrew brings him to Jesus and is probably shaking his head at the lack of supplies for this situation…but Jesus. Jesus knew what He was about to do, and He wanted them to see that when we are at the end of our resources God is never out of resources.
Jesus tells them to seat the crowd on the grass and they sat in groups of 50 and 100. Then Jesus blessed the food and started making food from scratch! Well, He was making food from nothing. He was creating food for the need of the crowd, and it was probably the best biscuits and fish they had ever eaten because it was not tainted by this world since it was coming directly from God. It was probably so good that I would have eaten fish! That is hard for me to imagine. God provided enough food for the crowd and 12 baskets of leftovers to take care of the disciples need to eat as well.
When you feel overwhelmed this Christmas season and don’t think you have much to offer to God, don’t give up, just show up and trust God to take care of the rest. The disciples couldn’t feed that crowd, but God could. You can’t minister to someone effectively in your own power, but God can through you. Show up and offer God what you have and trust Him to take care of the rest.
Praying you and your family have a very Merry Christmas!
