FEASTING WITH JESUS
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Opening Prayer
God and Father, use your Word to teach me; I want to walk more closely with you, to show others more of who you are.
Read JOHN 6:1–15
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages[a] to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
Footnotes
- John 6:7 Greek take two hundred denarii
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Think of something in your life, or perhaps in the news, that seems impossible to solve. Offer it in trust to Jesus.As we read through chapter 6 of John’s gospel, we come across an important verse early on, which might be missed. Verse 4 says that the Jewish Passover festival was near. Passover, associated with the escape from Egypt, the wanderings in the desert, and (for Christians) the Lord’s Supper, fills almost every verse of the chapter, beginning with the feeding of the 5,000.
This miracle appears in all four gospels, but John typically has his own slant. The five loaves and two fish are miraculously divided among thousands of people, and so great is the abundance that the disciples are sent to collect the leftovers. John alone records Jesus’ words, ‘Let nothing be wasted’ (v. 12). Jesus has fed the multitude, but the food is not to be left to rot, nor are the crowds encouraged to take the food home for their own use. We don’t know what the disciples did with the 12 basketfuls—perhaps they were distributed among the poor and needy. God’s generosity is so great that even thousands of hungry people cannot exhaust his provision.
It is unsurprising that the crowd wants to make Jesus their king, but they don’t realize that it is their spiritual as well as their physical hunger that Jesus has come to satisfy.
Apply
Are there areas of your life in which you can see God’s generosity? How might you share God’s gifts to you with others?
Closing prayer
Father, thank you for all that you give me, especially the gift of your Son. Help me to share with others out of what I have so generously been given—and help me to share your greatest gift—my Lord Jesus.
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