In John chapter 6 Jesus leaves Jerusalem after the feast days and retreats northward to a quieter area around the beautiful Sea of Galilee. He and his disciples (more than the core of 12 at this point) are followed by a large group of people, more than five thousand by the time they reach the shores of the lake. They sail across the quiet waters and go up into the hills, but the people follow him there too. As the crowd gathers in the grassy area below where Jesus is talking with his disciples, the Son of God sees an opportunity to do His Father's will.
I remember hearing this story many times as a child in Vacation Bible School, the story of the loaves and the fishes. It was such a wonderful miracle and it involved a child near my age so it impressed my young mind. Today I see it differently, I hear the noisy chatter of the crowd from the hilltop above them, I see a compassionate Savior, concerned not just about their physical needs, but also the greater spiritual needs they displayed by the fact that they had followed Him such a distance. They needed more than food alone, they needed the Bread of Life. And Jesus knew that they would not totally understand what He had for them that day.
Political campaigns are run on promises of "better days", like Hoover's campaign in the 1920's: A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage! When Jesus fed them there in that remote area with miraculously produced food, these people saw their hope for a new leader who would bring prosperity and peace come to life. Now they wanted to make Jesus a King! He retreated farther into the mountains around the lake to get away from their excited plans. During the windy night that follows, Jesus performs another miracle which only His disciples see: He walks across the wind tossed waves to the boat they are in and they are immediately at their destination, Capernaum!
Capernaum is the largest city in the area at the time, on the Northwest shore of the large lake they call the Sea of Galilee. It is a relatively new city. It wasn't present in the time of the prophet Isaiah, but he described the area perfectly in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1. In verse 2, he prophesied of Jesus with the verse I used in the image above and then goes on in verses 6 and 7 to say the famous words "For unto us a child is born" and to describe a "kingdom without end". Jesus came to make these prophesies a reality
The rest of this chapter begins by Jesus saying "Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for the meat that endureth unto everlasting Life". He is bringing them the Light that was promised to them, but many do not recognize it. He says things in this chapter that even His disciples find hard to swallow (pun intended). The chapter ends with some of the disciples that had been following Him saying "This is a hard saying" (v.59) and many of them "walked no more with Him" after that. Jesus asks the twelve "Will you also go away?" and Peter answers "To whom would we go, you have the words of eternal Life"!
As I read and studied this morning, I was remembering the answer Jesus gave when He was tempted in the desert " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt 4:4) which almost directly quotes the words in Deuteronomy 8:3 spoken by Moses when he reminds the people of the manna given to them in the desert. There is so much more to the lives we live than what we see and hear and touch and taste! My question to myself today is: "Am I living a life that sees beyond these things as Jesus asked me to do?"