Besides the accounts of the resurrection, the feeding of the 5,000 is the only other story told in each of the four Gospels. This is not by coincidence. Obviously, the Holy Spirit wants to teach us things from this story that carry great weight. The account in John 6 fascinates me the most, and therefore, from that account, there are a few things I want us to look at that can help renew our minds in this life “in Christ.”
John 6:1-2,4-13 NASB After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias). [2] A large crowd followed Him, because they saw the signs which He was performing on those who were sick. [4] Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. [5] Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?” [6] This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do. [7] Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.” [8] One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, [9] “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?” [10] Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So, the men sat down, in number about five thousand. [11] Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated; likewise, also of the fish as much as they wanted. [12] When they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.” [13] So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.
To give you a better sense of the context, the other gospel accounts tell us that Jesus took His disciples with Him to a lonely and desolate place for the purpose of resting, but when Jesus saw that the multitudes had followed Him, He had compassion on them and taught them many things and healed all who were sick. At the end of this time of ministry, the apostles began to discuss with Jesus the need to send the people away so that they could find something to eat. At some point in this conversation, Jesus addressed Philip and repeatedly asked Him, “Where are we to buy bread that these may eat?” He was saying this to test Philip, for Jesus already “knew what He was intending to do.” Philip’s response to Jesus was to remark that “200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for them, for everyone to receive even a little.” Philip’s response to Jesus’s question about how this need was going to be met was that they couldn’t even scrape up enough money for the people to get by with the smallest portion of food. Instead, in light of the presence of Jesus there, Philip should have said something like this; “I don’t know how this need is going to be met, but I know that you, Jesus, are intending to do something, and my experience thus far has been that whenever you act, there is always more than enough.”
When Nathaniel presented to Jesus the small five loaves and the two small fish the boy had given him, his attitude was no better than Phillips’s, for he said to the Lord, “What are these for so many people?” Nathaniel, too, had forgotten who Jesus was and all that he had seen Jesus do up to this point. Nathaniel was there at the wedding in Cana. He had just witnessed, along with the other apostles, Jesus healing all the sick among the probably 10 to 20,000 people that were there that day. Yet, in this fresh need and crisis, he forgot to remember the most important thing: “what Jesus was intending to do.” As Christians, in every situation life presents us, we must always be conscious of three great realities: Jesus is present; He’s intending to do something, and finally, what He does will be bigger than anything we could imagine, for His grace doesn’t just answer the need; His grace always over answers the need, for He is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond anything that we ask or think.