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Food For Thought
January 5, 1997
Scripture: John 6 and Parallel Accounts
Prayer:
Introduction:
We have several students in our congregation who will be heading back to school shortly from semester break if they have not done so already.
In school they take tests and they learn from a teacher.
Some of those tests are multiple choice.
On those type of questions, the student is to choose the right answer, or in some cases, the answer that is most nearly right.
Often times, the teacher must explain or demonstrate the right answer in order for the students to learn.
All of us are learners and all of us have teachers from whom we can learn if we will just listen.
Sometimes the lesson comes hard and it takes awhile for it to sink into our understanding.
Things haven’t changed much in regard to this over the centuries.
So it was in Jesus’ day.
He was the master teacher and he had some disciples whom he desired to teach.
The name of the course was Eternal Truth 101 in the Department of Culinary Theology.
They had already had several cooking lessons.
Their teacher was a master chef who could miraculously produce the finest wine from plain old water at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.
And with the Samaritan woman, it wasn’t even plain old water anymore but living water that she could draw from him rather than from the well.
And when his disciples finally found him they were concerned about his strength and urged him to eat, forgetting of course that he could go at least 40 days as in the wilderness.
But he replied that he had food they didn’t know about.
That was a test question to which he immediately supplied the answer.
The answer was that his food was to do the will and the work of God.
But now Jesus was about to bring his disciples into a deeper instruction that they might know more about this food that he had.
This time the situation was not a wedding party or a group of Samaritans but a great crowd of about 5,000 men, not including women and children.
They were like sheep without a shepherd upon whom Jesus had compassion.
They had come to see and hear Jesus and be healed.
He was about to meet all their needs, including food.
*I.
The First Test Question*
The crowd was advancing.
We see in the parallel account in the Gospel of Matthew 14 that it was late in the day.
They had all ministered all day to the people to feed the hunger of the soul and now the disciples were tired.
They asked Jesus to send the people away back to the villages so they could buy food to feed the hunger of their bodies.
Jesus sees a teaching moment and holds a pop quiz.
He gives them all a clue before he asks the question.
In Matthew 14:16 he says, “They do not need to go away.
You give them something to eat.”
I imagine that they were a little dumbfounded.
Could they, in fact, do the impossible?
Then in John 6:5 he initiates the question to Philip in the hearing of the others, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
He already knows the answer.
His purpose is to test and to teach.
*II.
The First Response*
Philip blurts out multiple choice response number one.
Calculating quickly in his head what it would cost to feed all these people, he replies that there isn’t enough money to feed them.
In fact, “Eight months wages wouldn’t buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Mark 16:37 adds, “Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” His answer was, “It can’t be done.
We don’t have it.
We can’t do it.”
This answer was not acceptable to Jesus since he now asks the second question.
*III.
The Second Test Question*
We must turn again back to Mark 6:38 to see the second question.
Jesus asks, “How many loaves do you have?
Go and see.”
Jesus knows where he is going with this.
In a sense, Jesus re-phrases his first question since they didn’t get the answer correct.
He wants them to see what they have that can be used to meet the human need that they brought to him.
\\ *IV.
The Second Response*
Andrew latches on to multiple choice response number two.
Jesus is leading them in the discovery of truth.
In John 6:8-9, Andrew responds helpfully, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
The disciples are getting warmer, getting closer to understanding.
Andrew discovers what they have but he doubts how useful it is.
The first response was, “We have nothing.”
The second response is, “Here is something.”
Now Jesus has something to work with in them.
He has brought his instruction to the point of revealing the answer.
Hopefully, it will be an answer that will serve them for the entire length of their ministry on earth in his name.
*V.
The Right Answer Revealed*
Jesus tells the disciples to have the people sit down in groups of 50 in the grass.
Some were in groups of 100.
The word for ‘groups’ means ‘garden plots’ and gives a picture of garden plots of people on the hillside.
Jesus then takes what has been given, looks up to heaven, thanks God for it, blesses it, breaks the bread and fish into pieces, and distributes it to the disciples who give it to the people.
The power of God divinely divides it.
Everyone has enough to eat.
They are filled.
They are satisfied.
There is plenty left over.
In fact, twelve basketfuls are left over to prove that the people had their need met in abundance through Jesus.
And that is the right answer.
Jesus Christ is the answer to all our needs.
Whatever your need is, he is able to meet it, even fulfill it.
All we need do is take what we have, give it to him and let him multiply it.
He asked, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” The answer is that we buy it from him.
But it gets better than that.
It doesn’t cost us anything.
All we need to do is to listen to what Jesus says and have faith in it.
What it amounts to is having faith in him.
Isaiah 55:1-3 says:
*1 ¶ "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.*
*2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.*
*3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.*
Now that is Food For Thought.
And we can carry this on to be reminded that through faith in Jesus, we can have the abundance of eternal life which is the freedom of the forgiveness of sins.
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