Sermon Tone Analysis

Get On the Bus

John 6:1–15 ESV1 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.

4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”

8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”

Now there was much grass in the place.

So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.

11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.

So also the fish, as much as they wanted.

12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”

13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” 15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Get Into the Word

John wants us to know it’s Passover.

He wants us to understand that Jesus has come to this place in ministry because Passover is near.

As he gathers with this crowd, keep Passover in the back of your mind.

Let it be a backdrop on which John is painting the image he wants his readers to see.

Passover celebrated the freeing of the God’s people from the Egyptian rule… from slavery.

God had sent Moses to Pharoah, the leader of Egypt, with the simple message to let His people go… and he sent that message repeatedly.

When Pharoah refused, God began his plan.

You see, God’s will is going to play out one way or another.

God told the people of Israel to take a lamb, wipe the blood over their doorposts, and on the given night death would visit the homes of everyone except for the people who had the blood of the lamb over their doorpost.

The firstborn of everything else died.

And the agony for the Egyptian Pharoah led him to set the Hebrew children free.

And God told his freed children to never forget this story.

He told them to remember it with a celebration called “Passover”.

A week long remembrance of what God had done for them.

John wants us to keep this story of the Passover in the backdrop of his gospel.

We know that because he has mentioned passover 10 times in his gospel.

And the parallel he wants us to see is in the person of Jesus.

That’s why it begins early on with John the Baptist pointing to Jesus and declaring, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.”

It is on this backdrop that John begins to paint his picture.

It is with the following words that he starts his gospel:

John is interested in seeing how his disciples react to this crowd.

They’ve travelled across the sea of Galilee, the day is getting late, and Jesus recognizes that they are probably hungry.

He wants to see how his disciples can get involved in the ministry to this crowd.

What would be their response to the masses that have gathered that are hungry?

So he speaks to Philip:

Now be sure you know- Jesus already was aware of the issue: hungry people.

Not only that- Jesus was already aware of what was going to happen by the time this event was over But Jesus is concerned not only with the hungry crowd- Jesus is concerned with how his disciples will respond to the hungry crowd.

Have you ever been out at Christmas with the bell ringers?

How do you respond to them?

I have noticed something, and I may have it all wrong, but I rang those bells before.

In other communities I’ve served, I’ve been asked to ring those bells.

And when I was ringing the bell, I noticed that the Presbyterians were not as generous as the Methodists.

It’s true.

But then, I had a theory.

Perhaps the methodists were more generous because it was their pastor standing at the IGA ringing the bell.

In the particular community I served, there were three other seminary students who were also ringing the bell.

We would gather once a month, and I ran my theory by them.

They decided to watch.

And guess what?

When the Presbyterian guy was ringing the bell, the Presbyterians stopped more often.

When the Methodist guys were ringing, the Methodist people stopped more often..... and it actually came down to particular congregations being more likely to stop and give based upon if it was their pastor ringing the bell.

I could’ve cared less.

But I think Jesus cared in this story… How, Philip, are you going to handle the service, or the ministry, to this crowd of people?

John wants to reassure us that Jesus is not surprised by this.

He knew what he would do.

He knew that the boy was there with the 5 loaves and the 2 fish, he knew what Philip;’s response was going to be.... but He was in teaching mode here.

This was an opportunity to show Philip how God responds to hunger, how god responds to unexpected needs.

He wants Philip to think through the possibilities and come up with a God answer to this issue.

Philip’s reply is really quite practical; and rather uncreative.

200 denari wouldn’t be enough bread.

A denari would have been a days wages; 200 days of working would not have provided enough money to purchase one meal for this crowd.

That is what Jesus is saying.

And please look closely at what he is really saying; if we bought all the bread we could with 200 denari, we would have just a little for everyone… not enough.

We could ration out the bread and each person would get enough, but when we had all eaten no one would have been content… no one would have had enough.

How do you respond to the needs that God places in your path?

You see, Philip looked at what he didn’t have instead of what he did have.

There is a great need and he looks in his mental purse and realizes that his own resources, even the resources of Jesus and the twelve and possibly the women who were travelling with them were not enough.

Instead of seeing the opportunity he saw the problem; instead of recognizing the one who had the answer he recognized the 5000 that were the problem.

Philip was shortsighted, faithless, unwilling and irresponsible with the most important part of the story… the opportunity that God had placed in front of him.

The word there for “enough” actually carries the meaning of contentment.

To be ok with what you have.

To have sufficiency in either quality or quantity.

What Philip is saying here is that there is not enough bread to make this crowd sufficiently content.

They will still be hungry.

You know, Andrew makes things a little better.

He sees the positive in the boy’s lunch: five flat barley cakes (barley was the cheapest of the grains) and 2 small fish(probably salted fish).

But then Andrew asks the question… “what are they for so many?” Andrew is not asking a serious question as in , “Jesus, how far can 5 loaves and 2 fish go?” No, he’s rhetorically answering his own question.

“Jesus, we have 5 flat cakes and 2 small fish.

That is nothing with a crowd like this.”

Where Philip fails to see the opportunity that Christ had placed before him, Andrew only sees the scarcity of available responses to the opportunity God has placed before them.

And when that happens, most of us are just like Andrew and like Philip… why bother?

Why even try?

There’s not enough therefore the opportunity becomes a deal breaker.

We will have to travel on without them, perhaps.

Even though they were on the right track, they were following Jesus maybe they are just too big of a load for us to carry.

Let’s send them back and we will continue on with Jesus.

We will have to let them die here of starvation, perhaps.

We really like the crowd, we just don’t like the added mess they bring.

You know, we like the attention our movement is getting… but they need to step aside and let us do our thing.

They can watch from a distance, but let’s not really take any responsibility for actually feeding them or caring for them.

After all, if we care for them there will be less for us.

Maybe our best response is to apologize and go back about our own business.

We like giving lip service to Jesus.

He’s done many things, many signs… and we enjoy that.

But you see, He’s called us and really not you.