Jesus: The Bread of Life, chapter 6. The miracle of feeding (vv1-15)
Posted on October 24th 2010 in St. John's Gospel
The arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees have now drawn to a conclusion. Jesus leaves Jerusalem for Galilee. His next miracle, the feeding of the five thousand on the Passover will initiate another set of arguments and revelation as to the identity of Jesus. The systematic replacement of the Feasts of the Jews continues, first, the Sabbath (c5), now the Passover (c6), later the Feast of Tabernacles (c7,8,9) and lastly, the Feast of Dedication (c10).
Jesus sets the scene for the miracle of the loaves by climbing the mountain, in a conscious allusion to Moses, thus connecting Jesus’ teaching authority to that of Moses, and the multiplication of the loaves to the gift of manna. Jesus takes the initiative in this feeding miracle just as He will do at the Last Supper, when He sends His disciples ahead to prepare everything to celebrate the feast. Now He wishes to feed the hungry crowds, and always knowing what He is going to do, assists both the disciples to a fuller faith, and tries to wean the crowds from an over dependence on signs. This foreknowledge of Jesus is expressed deliberately by the Evangelist in the pluperfect tense, to emphasise the continuity of divine knowing as to what is necessary to complete His divine mission.
This initiative on the part of Jesus also involves the disciples, who exhibit the same lack of understanding as the crowds. They are firmly fixed in the material world alone, the meagre supply of loaves and fish in the possession of a small boy. They have failed to grasp the lessons from His earlier meeting with the Samaritan woman when Jesus tells them that ‘I have food that you do not know about. My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work’. (4:32-4).
The strange detail of the green grass passes most of us by, living in a country where grass is completely normal, but in Israel this was not so. There is something significant here, and that is the reference to the green grass of Ps 23, which begins, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, He will make me lie in green pastures’, the expression of care for His downtrodden people. This miracle also resonates with the Exodus and the collecting of the manna, as well as pointing forward towards the Eucharist.