A Miracle Planned
Jesus knows what He is going to do. Even when we, ourselves, do not understand a miracle is required, Jesus knows what He is going to do. In the sixth chapter of John’s gospel, we see Jesus teaching His disciples that in any circumstance, whatever the problem faced, whether you want to face the issues or not, the Messiah is the answer.
The feeding of the five thousand is a miracle I have written about before. It is a beautiful account of Jesus providing abundance through a meager but faithfully given offering. Here, I will focus on the interaction just before the miracle occurs. A crowd of people are chasing around after Jesus because they know He performs miracles and speaks the truth authoritatively. Many of them may have believed He was the Messiah to come for the freedom of Israel. Many of them are sure to have not known much about Jesus at all - most people did not.
Here comes the crowd. Jesus had “escaped” across the lake, but these people would not be deterred. They wanted to find out what this Jesus character was up to. Many of them experienced a severe fear of missing out (FOMO). So they circumnavigated the Sea of Galilee while Jesus rode over it in a boat. And they caught Him on the opposite side. Here comes the crowd.
As Jesus looked up, He saw “a great crowd coming toward Him.” Seeing the crowd, Jesus immediately asks Philip, His disciple, the test question. “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” There is no indication within the account that Philip was thinking about the need to feed anyone. Jesus sprung the question on him, and I imagine Philip was a bit dumbfounded. There is evidence from other accounts of this same miracle that it occurred in the countryside, where the availability of prepared food was minimal. It is also evident from Philip’s reply that feeding this crowd of people would cost more than Jesus and His followers had available.
“It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” (vs. 7) To summarize Philip’s answer to Jesus, “Jesus, you are crazy. We couldn’t buy enough bread to even begin to feed these people - even if we had jobs!” Seems that Philip was prone to jumping to extreme conclusions. But he had a point. Why is Jesus asking a question so obviously answered by the circumstances in which they found themselves? Why bring up a question about an obviously impossible situation? Philip did not know it, but that was why Jesus asked the question.
Jesus is not waiting around for impossible situations to arise and then coming up with solutions. He has plans to answer them before they arrive! Jesus knew how the crowd would be fed before He jumped into the boat to go across the lake. By the way, the Lord could have fed them with or without the loaves and fish. He could have used dirt from the ground to make fish and bread for people to eat. He is the Messiah!
The gospel states that Jesus “already had in mind what He was going to do.” Before asking Philip the question, Jesus knew what He would do. The question was obviously not to get Philip’s opinion on the matter. Jesus was not looking for counsel on the solution at this point. The question was for Philip to wrap his mind around what it meant to be a disciple of the Messiah. Frankly, the question was for you and me, too! We need to wrap our minds around and, more importantly, establish solidly within our hearts what our response to situations will be, no matter the level of impossibility.
Imagine the most impossible scenario. Based on your life right now, what is impossible to imagine solving. Now, imagine being there, facing that scenario. Imagine Jesus being there with you and saying, “How will we handle this?” What would be your response? Would you follow Philip’s example and throw the apparent impossibility back in Jesus’s face? Or would you, because you have Philip’s example and the benefit of knowing the Messiah’s response, tell Jesus that you are not sure how to handle the situation, but you are sure He Can!
Here comes the crowd.