1 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following Him, because they saw the signs that He was doing on the sick. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat down with His disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up His eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward Him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do. 7 Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, He told His disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that He had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”
15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.
The feeding of the five thousand is the fourth of seven signs in the Gospel of John, and apart from Jesus’ resurrection, it is the only miracle of Jesus recorded in all four Gospel accounts. Jesus had crossed to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, the popularity of Jesus was really beginning to gain momentum, and both Matthew and Mark’s accounts of this miracle helps us to understand why Jesus was looking for some time away with His disciples.
Matthew 14 and Mark 6 both place the execution of John the Baptist immediately before Jesus feeds the crowd, so in an attempt to find some privacy, Jesus and His disciples sailed a boat from the north western shore of the Sea of Galilee to the north eastern shore. It was a relatively short trip, but because they could be seen from the shoreline, this crowd of people quite literally ran along the shore to catch up with Jesus as He arrived on the other side.
The apostle Paul was to write later in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that Jews demand signs, and this is what we see in John 6:2. “A large crowd was following Him, because they saw the signs that He was doing on the sick.” This is why there was this massive crowd running along the beach, trying to keep up with Jesus that day.
Some scholars estimate there may have been as many as twenty thousand or more people, as verse 10 talks about five thousand men. Some of them would have seen Jesus’ miracles themselves and wanted to see more, others might only have heard about them and wanted to see them firsthand, some may have wanted their own sicknesses healed, and still others probably followed the mass of people simply out of curiosity.
As we’ll see, John 6 is about faith, but these people wanted food. Jesus talked about spiritual relationship, but the crowds were only interested in physical showmanship.
It was the miracles, not the person of Jesus they wanted to see, but yet, Jesus still showed them compassion by feeding them. They were in such a rush to get to the other side of the lake, that apart from one small boy, no-one thought to bring any food along.
These people followed Jesus, not necessarily because they believed in Him as the Son of God, but rather because they saw the miracles which He had done for those who were sick. Faith built on miracles is never as pleasing to God as faith founded on His Word. His Word shouldn’t need miracles to verify it, for the simple reason that everything God says is true. It cannot possibly be false, and that should be enough for anyone. We looked at this last week in chapter 5.
They saw the miracles, and they knew He had some kind of supernatural power, but they didn’t actually believe in Him in a saving way, because they didn’t trust in Him. They were interested in His miracles. They wanted Him because He could make them well, but the mission of Jesus then remains the same today.
God is sovereign, so He can and does continue to bring miraculous healing today whenever He wants, but the main purpose of Jesus coming into the world was not to restore our physical bodies. He came to offer His life as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He came to die on our behalf, but this was not the kind of Messiah the people wanted or were expecting.
You might remember back in chapter 2, just after Jesus cleared the temple, “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs that He was doing. But Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” (John 2:23-25) Jesus didn’t entrust or commit Himself to that crowd back then and here in chapter 5 He wasn’t about to do so to this crowd either, because they just wanted to see the miracles that He could perform.
But still, He fed them. What a wonderful illustration this is of the grace of God. He knows the wickedness of our hearts, and still He cares for us and blesses us. We’ve heard it many times before: Jesus doesn’t give us what we want. He gives us what we need, and what we need is a Saviour.
John chapter 6 is one of the longest chapters in the Bible. Yet, it covers a time period of just 2 days, and the events and teachings all lead into one another, so we’ll be spending a fair amount of time in this chapter. One of the most interesting things is the way the miracle leads to a message. We’ve seen this pattern before in John. Whenever Jesus performs a sign, it leads to a time of teaching. After feeding the crowd in the opening verses of this chapter, the next day Jesus preaches a sermon where He makes the first of 7 I AM statements in John’s Gospel. We will look at this in a couple of week’s time where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” Feeding the 5000 sets the stage for Jesus’ discourse on the Bread of Life.
At the end of chapter 5, we see the Pharisees and other religious leaders rejecting Jesus, but this is a stark contrast to the scenes along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, where thousands of people were following. We must remember that Jesus had performed many more miracles than the three John has recorded for us so far. Many people followed Him because of their interest in His power and His teaching. Also, we’re told in verse 4 that this was during the Passover, so the crowd of people would have grown because of the many visitors to the area.
Jesus said to His disciples in Mark 6:31, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”
He led His disciples to this solitary place, almost like a retreat away from all of the attention and distractions to have some private teaching time with them, but the crowds followed. Mark then gives us a wonderful insight into the heart of compassion of Jesus. The crowd had caught up with Jesus as He and His disciples crossed the lake, and they were waiting for Him.
“When He went ashore He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.” (Mark 6:34)
He had compassion on them and taught them late into the day, and He also saw their need for food. This term “like sheep without a shepherd” is an Old Testament picture used to describe the people as helpless and starving. They were lacking in spiritual guidance and protection, and exposed to the perils of sin and spiritual destruction.
The world today is no different. When we come to Jesus’ 4th I AM statement in John 10, “I am the Good Shepherd,” we will be given a clearer illustration as to how He continues to guide us into all truth by His Word. The problem in the past is the same as today: reject the truth of God, then all you have is relativism. Now you can make your own truth, because the world teaches us that there are no absolutes. As I mentioned last week, all we hear these days is, “Follow your own heart, and make all your dreams come true.”
Now that may sound wonderful, and it’s a cute little motto to use as your Facebook profile picture, but that kind of empty philosophy is fraught with danger. Remove the absolute truth of God as revealed to us in the Bible, and all you have left are feelings, emotions and opinions. That is how we become like sheep without a shepherd, and for the vast majority of people, that’s precisely what they are.
And then we move from a picture of people in need to a picture of the disciples in confusion. Jesus asks Philip in verse 5, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” Philip’s reply is so typical of what we might say. He looked at the problem, and decided that the situation was hopeless. This whole conversation that Jesus had with His disciples was prompted by Jesus’ question, but as John reminds us, He already knew what would happen next.
Also, we might wonder why Philip was singled out, but he was from Bethsaida, the nearest town, so if there was somewhere nearby where they could buy food, Philip might well know about it, but even if there had been, it most certainly would not have had enough food to feed all these people.
When Jesus asked a question, it was never for the purpose of Him seeking information, but to teach others. He knew the answer, but Philip didn’t. He was going to teach Philip and the rest of the disciples a valuable lesson and test their faith, because He knew He would perform a miracle to feed all these people. The real challenge to Philip was, did Philip know that Jesus could do all this? This was a test of Philip’s faith. Remember, he was an eyewitness of all kinds of miraculous signs. He’d seen it for himself, but sadly, it seems his faith didn’t rise to very great heights. He made some quick calculations and decided that even two hundred denarii - a small fortune in those days when the average manual worker received only 1 denarius a day - would not be enough to solve their problem.
And then Andrew finds a boy carrying his lunch of barley loaves and fish. Just like Philip, he also had no idea what use that would be, as he says in verse 9, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” At first we might think Andrew’s answer is much better than Philip’s.
Maybe Andrew remembered how Jesus turned water into wine, how He healed the nobleman’s son, how He had healed the man at the pool of Bethesda and then looked around and saw the large crowd and He just knew that somehow Jesus would feed them all, but his reply shows he also lacked faith. “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”
Andrew was very much like Philip, He looked at what they had and decided there was no way to solve the problem. Anyone with common sense could see that. And not only that - none of the other disciples had any suggestions either, so it seems they all believed nothing could be done for this crowd. Here in Philip and Andrew and the others we see a picture of who we are. The unbelief in our hearts is what keeps us from truly trusting in Jesus. Do we trust in who God is and in what He has said to us about Jesus, or do we trust only in what we can see?
And so as Jesus provides this miraculous meal, we see at least two things in the text here.
First, we see that Jesus Christ was all-sufficient for any need even when His disciples were confused and could not see past the problem. Secondly, the purpose of the miracle Jesus was about to perform not only taught His disciples an important lesson, but it laid the foundation for the sermon on the bread of life, which was far more important than satisfying temporary hunger. Jesus came to feed the spiritually starving.
There are some important differences in the way that the other Gospel accounts report this miracle. Matthew, for instance, gives us precise details, while John’s focus is more on the spiritual significance.
Matthew 14:15-19, “When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, ‘This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ But Jesus said, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They said to Him, ‘We have only five loaves here and two fish.’ And He said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.”
“You give them something to eat.” Jesus challenged the disciples to provide for the crowd. Then, when they confessed how little they had, Jesus gave thanks, multiplied the small loaves and fish, and then He instructed His disciples to serve the people. Here we see a picture of the Church. Jesus told them to bring the food to Him, but He performed the miracle. He was the one who did what was necessary to feed the people, just as He did what was necessary on the cross in order to satisfy our spiritual hunger, but the disciples were to be the servants. Their task then, and our task today is the same, in that Christ uses normal people like us to serve each other as we journey through life and point the lost and the spiritually starving to the one who can save them.
The Bible commentator William McDonald says that this miracle is a picture of how the Church is called to evangelise the lost. He says, “The five thousand represent lost humanity, starving for the bread of God, while the disciples represent helpless Christians, with seemingly limited resources, but unwilling to share what they have. The Lord’s command, ‘You give them something to eat’ is simply a restatement of the Great Commission. The lesson is that if we give Jesus what we have, He can multiply it to feed the spiritually hungry multitude.”
Verse 12 tells us that not only did they eat their fill, but there was an abundance of food left over. Jesus fulfills all our spiritual needs and more.
His grace is freely and abundantly offered to those who will confess their hunger to Him. He alone is all-sufficient for our salvation, and there is no other.
The fact that there were twelve baskets of food left over is significant, because all four Gospel accounts highlight this. Most scholars agree that this is symbolic of the fact that in Christ, God has provided more than enough grace to save the twelve tribes of Israel.
Matthew and Mark also record a second occasion where Jesus feeds a crowd of 4000, and here there are seven baskets of leftovers, which represents God’s provision for the Gentiles.
There are other commentators who say this may be reading a bit much into the text, but the point is that Jesus can and does supply all our needs, both Jew and Gentile. Yes, there are times when He does perform miracles to provide for us physically, but our greatest need is to be saved from the condemnation of sin. We need to trust in Him for our salvation. This means we need the gift of faith to believe in who He says He is, and what He promises to do for us. And so, as we trust in Christ, He gives us the greatest gift of all - eternal life.
Verses 14 and 15 show us yet again just how short sighted the people were. “When the people saw the sign that He had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’ Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.”
The prophet they are talking about here is the same prophet they thought John the Baptist might be back in chapter 1. They were referring to Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 18:15-18. “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers - it is to Him you shall listen - just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.’”
Speaking through Moses here, God was speaking about salvation through Christ. Deuteronomy 18:15-18 is pure Gospel, but for the people of Jesus’ time, in their minds, forgiveness of sins and their eternal salvation were not their greatest needs. They mistakenly believed that their Jewish heritage guaranteed them eternal life. They believed that their biggest problem now was cruel Roman oppression, so this miracle worker was the kind of Messiah they wanted. Even the disciples, right at the very end of Jesus’ ministry, just before the Ascension still didn’t get it. “When they had come together, they asked Him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6) They really only understood all of this after Pentecost.
Jesus though, would not give in to the political pressure of the crowds. He was not here to lead a revolution against foreign powers. This is a lesson also to the proponents of what has become known as the social Gospel, or liberation theology. Yes, of course God is concerned about social injustice, and as the Church we are called to speak out against all forms of discrimination. We are to help those less fortunate than ourselves. But Jesus is not a political Saviour. Nor is He an economic Saviour. He is the Saviour of sinners. He came to bring salvation to the lost.
He withdrew to the mountains by Himself because He refused to be a political messiah pressured into battle with the Romans to regain Palestine for Israel.
One of the great ironies is that even though this marked the height of Jesus’ popularity, He was popular for all the wrong reasons.
Ever since the promise of Moses in Deuteronomy 18, the Jews were looking for the next Moses, and who better than this man who clearly had supernatural powers? But Jesus refused the popular movement to make Him their earthly king. They were ready to offer Him worship, but it was false worship, no different to what satan had promised during His temptation in the wilderness. This should also serve as a warning to those who respect or honour Jesus as a great man and a wonderful teacher, but nothing more.
That is false worship. We either worship Him for who He is - God Himself, and the second person of the Holy Trinity, or we do not worship Him at all.
The problem was the short-sightedness of those who heard Jesus’ teachings and saw His miracles. They simply could not see their spiritual needs, and forgiveness of their sins was just not on their agenda.
As we will see later in John 6, the people, as usual, missed the point of the sign completely. Jesus was not merely a deliveryman - He was the Bread of Life itself. Jesus feeds hungry people on a mountainside here, but soon He will reveal Himself as the Bread of Life. If we were to try and summarise all of John chapter 6 in just one sentence, we could say that God miraculously shows Himself to be sufficient in the face of our insufficiency, as He meets all of our needs and more through Jesus Christ.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 6:1-15
As we have seen in recent weeks, the vast majority of people were following Jesus because they wanted to see Him performing miracles. (See verse 2).
Despite all of this, He still performed a miracle when He fed them.
What does this teach us about God’s grace and mercy?
What do Philip’s and Andrew’s statements teach us about ourselves?
Read Matthew 14:13-21
Why do you think there are some seemingly important differences between these two accounts?
Discuss the extra details in Matthew’s account – how does this help us to better understand John’s version of this miracle?
Matthew also tells us that Jesus instructed the disciples to feed the people.
How is this a picture of the Church today?
What is the significance of the abundance of leftovers after the crowd had eaten their fill?