There are two stories in John 6:1-21 -- the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on water during a storm on the Sea of Galilee. These two stories answer two important questions.
First, when does 5 + 2 x 1 = 12? Mathematically, never. But in the story of the feeding of the 5,000, the multiplication formula works just like that: five loaves of barley bread, plus two small fish, times Jesus, the one man who is in control, equals twelve baskets of leftover bread. The key ingredient in that multiplication formula is Jesus, who when we give up control to him, works multiplications, wonders, and even miracles. Give Jesus what you have and he can miraculously make much more than you can imagine out of it. How does this miracle of multiplication happen? It can happen if and when we remember Jesus is in control.
Second, how can we be saved from those things in life which overtake us, overwhelm us, or otherwise threaten to undo us? When the storms of life threaten us, we can turn to the one who is stronger than we are and stronger than the storms themselves. We can't avoid the storms. They come to the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Just like God doesn't promise to keep us from the valley of the shadow of death, God doesn't promise to eliminate storms from our lives. On the other hand, God does promise that we can get through life's valleys and storms if we trust that Jesus is in control.
That's the message of both stories in John 1:1-21. In the first story, the feeding of the 12,000 people, Phillip was faced with what appears to be an unsolvable problem. Seeing the large crowd, Jesus asks him, "Where do we buy bread for these people to eat?" Jesus, the apostles and at least 5,000 people[1] were out in the hill country just north of the Sea of Galilee with no towns nearby. They had not eaten for a long time. The question before Phillip seemingly has no answer. Then another one of the apostles, Andrew, made a statement that sounds like a totally inadequate solution. "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish." Then he said what everyone nearby must have been thinking: "But what are they among so many people?" Control -- who is in control here? Not Phillip, not Andrew, not the hungry people, not the little boy with the lunch his mother packed up for him before he left home. Control -- who is in control?
A wise man once said, "When everything else fails, go back to the instructions." That formula works in these stories and our lives. Our instructions for living are found in the Bible. The central theme of the Bible is that by faith we can turn control of our lives over to God. One theme of these two stories in Mark is that given inadequate resources, we sometimes wake up to the need to turn to Jesus, and let God be God. Given a desperate situation we may suddenly realize that our strength is too weak to handle the storm we face and that we need to turn to Jesus and let God be God. It's a matter of giving up control to the Lord who is the one who is in control in the first place.
When resources are inadequate for the task, it may dawn on us that we need to turn control of our lives over to God. God has control, of course. It's just that we fight that idea at every turn of the road. In this story, the apostles finally bring the small boy with his small resources to Jesus. There they can discover the wonderful principle of multiplication.
Like the boy and the apostles, we have only small amounts of resources to meet big needs. The five barley loaves and two small fish, the little boy's lunch, are small indeed. Barley loaves were the cheapest kind of bread in Jesus' day. According to New Testament scholar, William Barclay, only poor people ate barley bread. Barley was usually fed to the animals. It was held in contempt by most people. Barclay says that the two small fish were about the size of sardines.[2] Those are small resources. Like the small resources in the story of the feeding of the 5,000, our resources are inadequate for many of the tasks we face today.
A little boy went forward for the children's sermon in his church. The pastor asked, "What is gray, has a bushy tail, and runs up and down trees?" The little boy thought for a moment. Then said, "It sounds like a squirrel, but since this is church, the right answer must be Jesus." It's not just in church that the right answer is Jesus; it's in all of life. Our resources are limited. Some tasks are just beyond what we can do. Jesus can and does multiply our small resources.
An unchurched, unbeliever discovered that principle of inadequate resources being multiplied by God. Until he was eighteen years old, the young man had not been in church ten times. After reading a book on the life of Jesus, just to be better informed, he began thinking seriously about his life. He even went to church a few times. Then on Christmas Day while he was sitting in a pew, God called him to be a Christian. God also called him to be a pastor. "Out of the question," he replied in his heart. "The answer is 'No.' I can't do that. I know nothing about the Bible, nothing about the church, nothing about God. I know nothing about religion." After a few moments, the young man revised his first answer. "I know this is you, God. I'm not making this up. I don't want to do this. I know that I can't do it. I'm fearful to speak in front of a few people, much less a congregation full of people. But I know this is you. So I'll try to do what you are calling me to do, but when I fail, you will see that I am right."
I know the truth of limited resources being used by God. I am the boy who said to God, "You are wrong. I can't do it. I'll try, but when I fail, you will see I am right." I was wrong. When God calls, he also supplies the gifts to do the work he wants us to do.
In spite of our meager resources, this story urges us to bring those resources to Jesus. When we bring our meager talents and gifts to the Lord, he can and does expand them. The gifts of God are potentially there in people. It's just a matter of encouraging their use by encouraging people to use what God has given them.
A story is told about an old German schoolmaster who, when he entered his class in the morning, used to remove his cap and bow ceremoniously to the boys. Someone asked him why he did this. His answer was, "You never know what one of these boys may some day become." He was right -- because one of them was Martin Luther.[3]
When we bring people to Jesus, like Andrew brought the boy in the story to the Lord, we find that God can and often does work wonders with them, just like Jesus used the boy and his lunch for great and glorious purposes -- feeding 5,000 people. Not only did Jesus feed 5,000 people with the meager gifts of the boy; there were twelve baskets full of fragments left over! That's what I call multiplication!
You plus money will not amount to much in the end. You plus success will soon fade. You plus a big reputation will be gone in no time at all. But if you turn your gifts over to God, if you give up trying to control all the aspects of your life and give up control of your life to God -- that's a different story. You plus God can become an unconquerable partnership for this life and the next.
If it finally dawns on you that you can't control your own life and that you need to submit your will to God's will, that's when the multiplication of small resources can begin to happen. This story urges us to remember 5 + 2 x 1 = 12.
A middle-aged woman was driving her friend's car when she came to a section called "Six Corners." "Six Corners" is a place where six different streets meet. The street lights control traffic with their green, red, and yellow colors. When the woman got to the middle of the six streets, she suddenly ran out of gas. Befuddled with the street lights flashing different colors, the horns blowing, and the people shouting, the woman turned to her friend and said, "You drive."
Of course, saying "You drive," to another person doesn't change much. You will still be out of fuel. But when you say, "You drive my life" to God and mean it, great things can happen. The presenting problem in life is that we think we can stay in control. If we recognize our limits, we may be at the right point to say to God, "You drive."
If the realization that our resources are inadequate and we are inadequate for the tasks before us doesn't help us wake up to the reality of God and God's boundless resources, maybe a crisis will drop us to our knees and drive us to the realization that we cannot control everything. Maybe the storms of life will cause us to wake up to reality.
"The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing" (John 6:18).
When the storms of life overwhelm us, it may dawn on us that we need to turn control of our lives over to God. God has control long before we know it, of course. It's just that we fight that idea as if he is an enemy.
Control is one of the big messages in the second story in Mark 6. The storm comes up on the Sea of Galilee. Many of the apostles were fishermen. They had seen storms before. Yet, it was evening. It was dark and dangerous. They knew it. They were afraid of the rough waves and the violent wind. They were more afraid when they saw a shadowy figure coming toward them, walking on top of the water. They were terrified.
Jesus saw what was happening. Jesus had just fed 5,000 men. When they were so impressed that they wanted to make him king, he sent his apostles off in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and started up the hill to be alone with God in prayer. From that perch on the hill, Jesus saw what was happening on the sea below him. The boat was in trouble. His friends were in trouble.
It doesn't always seem to be true, but Jesus is aware of what is going on in our lives too. When we are caught in life's storms, he will come to us, even when it doesn't always feel that way. In another story about a big storm on this same Sea of Galilee the apostles cried out to Jesus who was resting in the boat, "Why are you asleep?" That's how we feel at times. "Don't you see what is happening to us?" We think, "Don't you care?"
The story of Jesus walking on water is about Jesus coming to where we are. That's the real miracle. Jesus moves toward us when we are in trouble. Jesus cares about what is happening.
When we feel that God is far off or sleeping and that he must not care about us because bad things happen to us even when we follow the Lord, we have the opportunity to remember the hardest lesson of all. God is in control, not me. God acts on his time schedule, not mine. God is stronger than the storms of life and God cares about us as his children. Faith means waiting, trusting, depending on Jesus, not self. When the sun is shining, our lives are going well, and we are successful by human standards, it is easy to slip into the heresy of self-dependency and lose sight of who really is in control. In the very time that Jesus seems to be absent, in the times when we are undone and it seems that we just can't go on, sometimes the secret of life is discovered. Jesus is in control.
Jesus comes to us in the storms of life. Sometimes, Jesus comes as a shadowy figure we don't recognize right away. Sometimes it is only after an event or a tragedy or a storm that we can't handle, we see that Jesus comes to where we are. Sometimes it is only later, when we really think about what happened that we realize God was there, working his will and leading at the very time we thought all was lost. Sometimes God shows up by using other people in our lives. At the time storms come, we may not recognize God who may stand back in the shadows or the fog or the darkness. Sometimes we only see where God has been, not where God is.
That's what happened to Moses when he couldn't see God, but he saw "God's back parts." To see God's back parts means that you see where God has been. You see the fingerprints of God on your past, even though you don't see God's signature on your present. You may want to see God face-to-face. Instead, if you look closely, you may see that God was at work in your life through other people.
A man told his priest, "I quit. I'll never come back to church again."
"Can you tell my why?" the priest inquired.
"Certainly," the man replied. "I was up in Alaska on a fishing trip. I got lost and a major snowstorm isolated me from everyone. I prayed and I prayed to God to help me, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. That's why I'm through with God and through with church."
"But you are here; you are alive," said the priest. "What happened?"
"An Eskimo came along and saved me."
God sometimes comes to us in the form of other people, but we don't always recognize him. In our story, God showed up and answered the prayers of the desperate man in Alaska, but the man never made the connection. How many Eskimos are in your biography?
In our story, Jesus showed up as a shadowy figure who at first was not recognized by the apostles, but is soon seen for who he is. Sometimes it's later, rather than sooner that we make that discovery.
Sometimes God's timing is different than ours. The apostles wanted Jesus to get in the boat with them when they departed after the feeding of the 5,000 and the demand by the crowd to make Jesus king. Jesus had other plans. He had to deal with the crowd's demand to make him a secular king. Most of all he had to speak to God in prayer.
But from the hillside view, Jesus could see that his friends were in trouble on the Sea of Galilee. The text leads us to believe that Jesus did not come to them until they had nearly crossed to the other side of the sea -- a three or four hour journey by boat. That's not the timing they expected.
Jesus saves us when the storms of life come. He may not save us when we want him to do so and he may not save us in the way we expect, but God answers the prayers of his people. Sometimes he answers, "Yes." Sometimes he answers, "No." Most often God answers, "Wait."
It is in waiting that we really get to know God. Waiting is the category of real faith, because when we wait, we recognize that we are not in control. God is in control. The psalmist wrote: "I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait and in his word I hope" (Psalm 130:5). When your hope is in the Lord, not yourself, you have real faith. Isaiah 40:31 says, "Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." When you wait for the Lord, renewal comes. Waiting for God means knowing God as he is, not as you make him in your image. Waiting is the school that teaches us to know God. Knowing God is the most important thing of all, the number one thing.
Contrary to cultural expectations, the number one thing is not me; the number one thing is knowing God.
Contrary to cultural expectations, I don't have the remote control button for life in my hand. We live in a push button society and we easily get the wrong impression. We hold the remote control for the TV, the garage, the gate, the CD player, or the DVD player and we think, "I'm in control." Wrong. Button, button, who has the button? Not me. God has the remote control. That is God's revealed secret.
That revealed secret is what the Bible teaches. That revealed secret is what our two stories unveil. That revealed secret is what can be discovered when limited human resources are seen for what they are or when the storms of life force us to see that we are not in control. That is what we discover when we realize that Jesus is coming to where we are, despite obstacles that we think would keep him away.
I think I hear the still small voice of God saying, "Do you think a raging sea will keep me from getting to you? Think again. I made the sea. I own the sea. I command the sea."
When does 5 + 2 x 1 = 12? The answer is, "When Jesus is the one in the middle -- when Jesus is in control -- when we let go and let God -- when the one in the middle is number one."
1. "Make the men sit down" (John 6:10). The number 5,000 in this story may actually be larger because the women and children there are apparently not counted.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), p. 202.
3. Ibid., p. 205.