Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
John 6:1-13 (NIV)
Sometimes I can imagine that Jesus was totally exasperated by the people around Him, from the crowds all the way down to His inner circle of disciples. Jesus was always so focused. Every moment of every day His total energy was aimed at perfectly accomplishing His Father’s will. He saw everything correctly. He understood what the most important thing to be thinking, doing or saying was every moment. And He knew exactly where to look for everything that He needed at any given moment, no matter what the circumstances.
But He was constantly surrounded by human beings who had exactly the opposite problem. Their energies, by and large, were directed toward their own agendas. They saw things in a skewed perspective, colored by their own wants and needs. More often than not, they had no clue what the most appropriate thing was to think, do, or say in a given situation. And they had no clue where to look for the answers to puzzling problems, even when the answer was literally standing there, staring them in the face. The feeding of the 5000 is a perfect case in point.
First, there is the crowd. John tells us that they were following Jesus because they saw the miraculous signs that He had performed on the sick. Matthew tells us that these crowds intentionally followed Jesus all the way around the Sea of Galilee, from towns all throughout the area, bringing with them all of their loved ones who were sick. (Matthew 14:13-14) They weren’t coming to Jesus to worship Him as God, or to listen intently to His teachings; they had come with a much more worldly agenda: they just wanted Him to heal their sick.
As the day wore on, the people began to get hungry. They apparently hadn’t expected to come this far or to stay this long. Jesus understood the problem and, as a test, asked His disciples how they planned to provide food for this huge crowd. John tells us that He did this as a test, since He already knew exactly what He was going to do.
But His disciples were looking at all the wrong stuff, and they were looking in all the wrong places, for the solutions. Philip looked at the resources that they had available, a small money bag, and despaired that the few coins in it was only a very small drop in a very large bucket: “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Andrew looked around and found a young boy with five small barley loaves, and two small fish, about enough to feed two people if they weren’t terribly hungry, and asked, “but how far will they go among so many?”
Jesus shifted the whole direction of events by shifting the direction of His focus. His disciples had looked around them for the solution to the problem, and had come up totally dry. Jesus looked around just long enough to accurately assess the situation, but then He looked UP to receive the solution. Matthew, Mark, and Luke include the detail that Jesus, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. (Luke 9:16 NIV) Jesus was looking in the right place (up!), and so He could clearly see the right action to take. In looking up, He saw the crowds clearly, and realized exactly what it was that they truly needed (not just what they wanted). In looking up, He clearly saw the inadequate resources that the people currently had to meet the needs, and knew that, with God’s touch, they would be more than enough. And in looking up, He saw the blessing that God was prepared to pour out on the people, and gave thanks for it. (He also saw that God’s blessing of superabundance was precious, and that none of it should be wasted!)
When we are facing challenges, it is very easy to get caught in the same world-based search for solutions that the disciples had. But Jesus has given us the right direction for the kingdom way of solving problems: Look up!