Just before dawn, Jesus has been so spiritually refreshed and regenerated that he goes out to meet his disciples by walking across the stormy lake. They scream in fear of him, and he has to reassure them that he's not a ghost. One of his disciples climbs out of the boat to walk towards him, but almost drowns because he let fear of the waves take over him. Essentially, these events confirm the fact that Jesus' disciples are cowards. Even if he knew that already, that must have been slightly frustrating ("You of little faith," Jesus asks in Matthew 14:31, "why did you doubt?"). It seems like the stressors just keep on coming.
So they get to the other side of the lake, and as soon as they arrive, everyone hears about it, and soon enough, the crowds have arrived again. But this time, they're more crazy than ever. They've just seen something that could solve the problem of world hunger once and for all... or at least, solve their own hunger. Just about everything the people say in John 6 has something to do with food. But there's another point that I hadn't realized at first, until reading Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew.
The fact is, the Jews in that time were eagerly awaiting a Messiah - the "anointed one" - someone who would be fully endowed with God's power in order to re-establish God's kingdom on earth. More precisely, the people were looking for someone who would restore Israel to, and beyond, its former glory. Someone who would throw off the hold of the Roman dictators who currently ruled the land, and be king of the Jews. They wanted a military leader.
Jesus claimed to be the messiah. He performed miracles. He healed the sick. He fed his people. And... he had the people sit down in organized groups of fifty to a hundred people before he fed them.
It seems a small point - I missed it the first time through. First of all, this would be another stressful thing - if you haven't tried it before, you have no idea how hard it is to divide people into groups. I was in student council, and sometimes the events we led required dividing the people into groups - SO much stress in that simple activity. I can't imagine how tough it would have been to get over five thousand people into smaller groups.
But another, more significant point: no matter how you look at it, organizing people into groups is not something a generic wise sage would do. This is the action of someone who wants efficiency - who else but a military commander? Imagine the excitement the people must have had as they sat in groups, like an army - only to have that excitement doubled by all getting free food from their general. This Jesus, who had just gone around teaching people at first, was finally getting his people organized into centuria (divisions of 60, 80, or 100 soldiers in the Roman army - the analogy is obvious) - clearly he was about to declare war on the Romans any moment now!
In fact, John (the book, written by the disciple, not the baptist) gives another reason Jesus dismissed the crowds so quickly - according to John 6:15, Jesus knew that the people were about to force him to become king, which was totally against his goal in coming to earth.
Jesus almost couldn't care less about politics. Whenever someone said something to get him riled up about the Romans, he never said anything remotely rebellious. When someone asked him if taxes should be paid to Caesar, he said yes, since the coins had Caesar's picture on them. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's" (Matt. 22:21). Nothing about economics, nothing about the rights of the people - he didn't care about "Caesar's things." Jesus was concerned about what belonged to God - which is why he got mad at the Pharisees, not the Roman centurions. Why he overturned tables in the temple, not in the Roman puppet-king's palace. I don't think we should take from this that we should ignore politics or economics - these are important parts of the world we live in, and to properly glorify God, we ought to manage these systems well. But that clearly wasn't Jesus' goal. He came to spread God's kingdom, not as a nation conquering territory, but as a gift of supreme grace conquering the hearts of any who chose to accept it. Becoming a political ruler would be totally against that purpose.
So I'm assuming that in his intense prayer night, he not only was trying to recover from the shock of John's death, he was also desperately asking for the strength to stand up against efforts to make him political king. I'm sure he felt the temptation to give in - he felt it before (Luke 4:6-7), and even though he knew his purpose and he wouldn't give in, dealing with temptation is stressful.
Now back to the mob of fanatical people, looking for a political leader who would keep his people fed and lead them to military victory.
(continued in Part 4)
So they get to the other side of the lake, and as soon as they arrive, everyone hears about it, and soon enough, the crowds have arrived again. But this time, they're more crazy than ever. They've just seen something that could solve the problem of world hunger once and for all... or at least, solve their own hunger. Just about everything the people say in John 6 has something to do with food. But there's another point that I hadn't realized at first, until reading Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew.
The fact is, the Jews in that time were eagerly awaiting a Messiah - the "anointed one" - someone who would be fully endowed with God's power in order to re-establish God's kingdom on earth. More precisely, the people were looking for someone who would restore Israel to, and beyond, its former glory. Someone who would throw off the hold of the Roman dictators who currently ruled the land, and be king of the Jews. They wanted a military leader.
Jesus claimed to be the messiah. He performed miracles. He healed the sick. He fed his people. And... he had the people sit down in organized groups of fifty to a hundred people before he fed them.
It seems a small point - I missed it the first time through. First of all, this would be another stressful thing - if you haven't tried it before, you have no idea how hard it is to divide people into groups. I was in student council, and sometimes the events we led required dividing the people into groups - SO much stress in that simple activity. I can't imagine how tough it would have been to get over five thousand people into smaller groups.
But another, more significant point: no matter how you look at it, organizing people into groups is not something a generic wise sage would do. This is the action of someone who wants efficiency - who else but a military commander? Imagine the excitement the people must have had as they sat in groups, like an army - only to have that excitement doubled by all getting free food from their general. This Jesus, who had just gone around teaching people at first, was finally getting his people organized into centuria (divisions of 60, 80, or 100 soldiers in the Roman army - the analogy is obvious) - clearly he was about to declare war on the Romans any moment now!
In fact, John (the book, written by the disciple, not the baptist) gives another reason Jesus dismissed the crowds so quickly - according to John 6:15, Jesus knew that the people were about to force him to become king, which was totally against his goal in coming to earth.
Jesus almost couldn't care less about politics. Whenever someone said something to get him riled up about the Romans, he never said anything remotely rebellious. When someone asked him if taxes should be paid to Caesar, he said yes, since the coins had Caesar's picture on them. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's" (Matt. 22:21). Nothing about economics, nothing about the rights of the people - he didn't care about "Caesar's things." Jesus was concerned about what belonged to God - which is why he got mad at the Pharisees, not the Roman centurions. Why he overturned tables in the temple, not in the Roman puppet-king's palace. I don't think we should take from this that we should ignore politics or economics - these are important parts of the world we live in, and to properly glorify God, we ought to manage these systems well. But that clearly wasn't Jesus' goal. He came to spread God's kingdom, not as a nation conquering territory, but as a gift of supreme grace conquering the hearts of any who chose to accept it. Becoming a political ruler would be totally against that purpose.
So I'm assuming that in his intense prayer night, he not only was trying to recover from the shock of John's death, he was also desperately asking for the strength to stand up against efforts to make him political king. I'm sure he felt the temptation to give in - he felt it before (Luke 4:6-7), and even though he knew his purpose and he wouldn't give in, dealing with temptation is stressful.
Now back to the mob of fanatical people, looking for a political leader who would keep his people fed and lead them to military victory.
(continued in Part 4)
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