John 6

Today, I saw another large crowd following Jesus of Nazareth, the one I saw in the crowd the other day. Actually, he always had a crowd following him so this day was really no different. But today, I had finished weaving, selling, and delivering my nets so I decided to follow him again. Today I saw him heal a whole bunch of people and I saw him perform a bunch of miracles that I thought only a Messiah could do. Who is this guy?

So I was standing amongst the crowd, which was just as awestruck and amazed as I was. The crowd had grown exponentially to about five thousand people. All of them – all of us, actually – just wanted to see what Jesus was going to do next! I couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but Jesus was talking to a little boy who was probably a few years younger than me. I had only seen Jesus twice, but I had previously thought that he wouldn’t want to talk to any little kids, so I was way too afraid to try and approach him – not that I’m sick or needy, but just to meet this amazing and miraculous teacher would be crazy! Maybe I’ll try talking to him one day…

This boy that Jesus was talking to was holding his lunch. He gave it to Jesus, who took it in his hands and studied it for a minute. The boy’s lunch was comprised of five pieces of bread and two fish. Jesus then scanned the crowd. I did too. Everyone was eyeing the fish, obviously hungry. It was near lunchtime and no one had eaten because we had all been following Jesus for so long that day.

When I looked back at Jesus standing among the crowd of five thousand, there was a vast multitude of fish and countless loaves of bread surrounding him. The hungry crowd stood dumbfounded in silent awe of this miracle. I snuck a glance at the little boy who got to talk to Jesus. His eyes were huge, practically bulging out of his bead, and his jaw was dropped to the floor. (He was a pretty short kid.)

The food was distributed among all five thousand (including me!!) and we all ate to our hearts’ content, until our bellies were full and we could not have eaten anymore if we had wanted to. Even after the meal, there were still about a dozen baskets of leftovers.

But all this came from two fish and five loaves? Surely this is the Son of God!!