More Than Miracles: Discovering Jesus in John 6

This content was excerpted from the Gospel of John I Am Bible Study week one.

The Bread of Life 

On the two or three nights a week that our schedules allow it, our family shares a home-cooked meal around the kitchen table. After the table is set, plates made, cups filled, the blessing asked, and a few bites taken, one of the common questions my wife will ask all to answer is, “What is your high and low of the day?” As one might expect, a senior pastor, a biblical counselor, a middle school girl, and a grade school-aged boy all have different perceptions about what is “high” and what is “low,” and each have different experiences to evaluate and share.  

• The senior pastor’s “high” was a gospel conversation with someone new to the congregation who, as it turns out, was a believer but had never been baptized. 

• The grade schooler’s “low” was being left out of a conversation at school about video games that his parents do not let him play. 

• The biblical counselor’s “low” was a client’s persistent struggle with anxiety related to the strain of raising two children with autism. 

• The middle school girl’s “high” was the recognition she received by her rock climbing coach for a particular “problem” she had solved with surprising skill and speed. 

Given our different lives and responsibilities, this type of variety is most frequent, but there are days when we all have the same high and all have the same low. On the third day of our summer vacation last year, all agreed that snorkeling was the high and having to leave that day was the low. Unusually powerful experiences that we share have a way of uniting us and transforming us. 

Perhaps this is why the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand is, apart from the resurrection, the only miracle in all four Gospel accounts. Each Gospel author has reasons for their accounts and how they relate to the big picture of their particular telling of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, but John’s treatment of the story stands out, for from that miracle flows a series of conversations that reveal something core to Jesus’s identity and purpose, the demands they have on our identity and purpose, and the obstacles that frustrate the two coming together. Understanding what it means for Jesus to be the Bread of Life begins with the account of Jesus extending life through the miraculous provision of bread. 

Bread for Life 

John 6:1-15 

John is keen to tell the story of the feeding of the five thousand in context with events prior—namely, the healing of a disabled man on a Sabbath day and the subsequent conversation between Jesus and unbelieving Jewish leaders in which Jesus equated Himself with God. These leaders were so put out, due to the perceived blasphemy that He spoke, that they began to discuss how they could kill Him. Jesus left these people and went out into the Galilean villages in search of a more receptive audience to His identity and purpose. Galileans were essentially peasants, living hand to mouth, day by day. Survival and hunger were daily struggles. This transition of audience, from the educated elite to the uneducated poor, highlights Jesus’s uniqueness as One able to love and serve all, regardless of background or status. 

Interestingly, Jesus was followed by those who had seen Him perform similar miracles. Taken with the entire context of John 6, it seems that no matter what one’s view of Jesus is, all are still only interested in Him to the extent that He can do something miraculous for them without challenging their belief systems. As we will see, there is no version of following Jesus on our own terms. Any attempt to do so is to use Jesus, not follow Him. 

In verse 4, John interjects a small but apparently important detail regarding the Jewish calendar: The Passover was near. It’s difficult to know with certainty why John mentions the Passover just prior to the miracle Jesus would soon perform. Perhaps he is pointing out just how blind the Jewish people were to Jesus’s true identity. In their very midst stood the fulfillment of the Passover, effectively on the Passover, yet none recognized Him as such. Nevertheless, reading the account on this side of redemption exposes a great irony: Keeping the Passover feast forced Jewish people to remember the time they feasted on a sacrificial lamb. Here, in person, was the Sacrificial Lamb, miraculously providing a temporal feast that would point to the eternal one available in Himself, as we will soon explore. Even Philip’s short-sightedness about what Jesus was capable of is illustrative of this irony. 

In verses 8-15, John doesn’t pretend to describe how Jesus did what only Jesus could do, but he is keen to describe the results. Everyone ate as much as they could, and twelve baskets of leftovers were available for others who might have had needs. This is the only proper way to describe anything that Jesus does for us. He gives us all that we need and more, not only in His daily care for us, but most importantly in His death and resurrection for us. Yet even this was not enough for the thousands that benefitted. Rather than see the miracle for what it was—a signpost pointing to Himself as the Bread of Life—the people sought to enthrone Him as an earthly king.  

Jesus withdrew from them because the passion these people displayed wasn’t truly for who He is at His core—a fact that holds immense significance. It’s common for people to be enthusiastic about Jesus without analyzing their understanding of Him first. Proverbs 19:2 says, “Even zeal is not good without knowledge, and the one who acts hastily sins.” This is true of many who claim to follow Jesus. Do they follow Him as He actually is or as they understand Him to be? Are they embracing a version of Jesus that isn’t entirely aligned with who He really is? If one’s zeal for Jesus is directed toward a distorted or incomplete image of Jesus, it doesn’t honor the authentic Jesus, and He may withdraw. 

Beware the temptation to make Jesus out to be what He does not set Himself out to be. This may be the most frightening form of idolatry. The religious leaders made Him out to be a law-breaker, but He was the fulfillment of the law. Peasants sought to make Him a political king. We are no different. In our day, there remains a general conviction that the primary aim of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection was to provide us with a fulfilled life. Such a belief may save us from low self-esteem, but it does not honor God. 

Bread of Life 

John 6:22-59 

Material Needs (vv. 22-33) 

The drive to use Jesus for one’s earthly needs is relentless, as illustrated by the Galileans’ pursuit of Jesus in Capernaum. They needed to break their overnight fast, and nothing was easier or more entertaining than Jesus providing so much from so little. Jesus, in response, is ever gracious. He confronts their motives, calls for a course correction, and clarifies His identity and purpose for them. 

One could give these peasants a pass with regard to their materialism (though Jesus clearly does not). They remind us of Tevye in the musical The Fiddler on the Roof, who laments that God had made him poor, unwilling to give a “small fortune.” One can more easily judge a wealthy person for being a materialist, but those who live in poverty want for material needs all the more and can easily idolize someone or something that provides what they want most. 

This is why Jesus boldly confronts those He abundantly cared for just a day earlier. Their fascination with Him, He states, is based primarily on His ability to provide material for them, and this fixation prohibits them from seeing who He really is and what the prior day’s miracle was all about. Feeding thousands from so little was a sign pointing to Jesus’s purpose to provide eternal life to all those who would “feast” on Him by grace through faith. It’s this faith one should be hungry for. 

Jesus’s invitation to believe in Him for eternal life is met with yet another request for what they originally came to Jesus for—a miracle—only this time, they make their request under the guise of Jesus needing to prove Himself, as if yet another miracle that served their material needs would somehow validate Him further in their eyes. In verse 31, they bring up Moses and the miraculous manna from heaven, thinking Jesus fits the bill, but Jesus sets the record straight once more: It wasn’t Moses who provided the manna; it was God, His Father—the same God who walked with Moses, now offering them the true sustenance, the genuine bread from heaven (v. 33).